Loire Valley Biking Adventure

So today was the day... David and I officially rented our tandem bike and began our bike tour of the chateaux of the Loire Valley. Would anyone like to take a stab at how easy it is to ride a tandem bike? It is not easy at all. In fact I am fairly impressed that David and I ever got going to begin with. Luckily, after a bit of practice we now find starting and stopping much easier (I am sure that by the end of this week we will be professionals) but it was extremely difficult the first few times we tried and involved some pretty intense swerving. Actually, for the first hour I think we were so stressed and concentrated that we could barely focus on anything else, especially since we couldn't find our way out of Saumur, the city we started in this morning, and we actually managed to bike the same hill/street three times, somehow always going up but never going down. I'm not even kidding either, that is the sad part. We made three loops of the city, taking various routs looking for the one we needed (though we always biked up that same hill somehow) and needless to say we were not in the best of moods. Though luckily we did finally find our way, and we set off on the bike path. Due to loss of time in the city of Saumur, we had to cut out one of the chateaux that we were planning on visiting today. We chose the one that was out of the way and with a 10E entry fee per person. So we went straight to Chateau du Rivau, and then to Chinon where we are spending the night in a hotel.

There is one funny story that I would like to share with you before showing off my pictures, and it involves our success at tandem biking. So we had decided that for strength reasons we would have David in the front of the tandem to steer, and we would use my awesome balance skills to maintain equilibrium in the back. This worked quite nicely, especially in comparison to the opposite, which we had the idea to try part way through our bike trip. At one point we had just entered one of our bike paths and I asked if we could switch positions. I told David about what I did at take-off to help us keep balanced (it is seriously more complicated than it sounds) and we set off to try it. At this point I should mention that David is wearing a backpack, which impacts our balance quite a great deal. Well he kind of swung a bit as we started moving and therefore we were super off-balance, but still trying to pedal through, as David tried to correct for his off-balance and swung the other way. While this was going on I was constantly trying to maintain a forward direction, but that was impossible due to my own imbalance and lack of control of the steering, so we just kind of swerved all through the path, into grass on both ends of the path, all the while kind of yelling to communicate with each other over the excitement. This lasted maybe 5-10 seconds, and right as we decided we definitely needed to come to a stop we heard this old French couple literally laugh out loud at us and our situation. Not only was the slightly humiliating ,as we had no idea there was anyone watching us up until this point, we thought about it later and that is really not Frenchlike to laugh audibly at a stranger's doings. We must have looked freaking hilarious... They even commented about how we looked like we were having a bit of trouble. I explained that we were trying with me in the front, which was clearly unsuccessful, and that we would go back to normal. They wished us luck, clearly expecting to get another show, but we quickly changed positions and took off, as we were now accustomed to doing. At the time we were still a little embarrassed I think, but now I look back with nothing but laughter because I truly think we must have been quite the sight.

Also included in today's picture collection are the chateaux that we saw yesterday in Angers and Brissac.

This is the medieval fortress which is also called the Chateau d'Angers. Because it is a National Monument David and I got in free and really enjoyed our tour around the ramparts. 

This is the Chateau Brissac which we got to by bus. We arrived an unfortunate 2 hours before the next guided tour, and the chateau can only be visited with a guide, so we got a wonderfully long time to relax in part of its nearly 3500 acres of gardens. We found a bench by part of the river and enjoyed frog-spotting and playing some cards. 

This is the two of us by the font of the chateau. It also had a fabulous interior and our guide was quite interesting, though he was a fast speaker. It made me really proud of my French because I really understood almost every single thing, except some of the dates because after the thousand and the hundred I usually got behind at the pace he was speaking. So I know the century for most everything, but not the year.

This is the Chateau de Saumur, the city that we slept in last night. The chateau overlooked the Loire river and presented a very magnificent facade dominating the city. We didn't got in though because it wasn't free and we had a schedule to keep to get to the other chateaux on today's agenda. Of course trying to leave the city we ended up going in the three infamous loops I described above so we ended up having to skip a chateau anyway, but we didn't know that yet when we made the decision.

One advantage of the bike route for the Loire Valley tour is it can lead to some pretty cool things, including this Troglodyte village which is built into a cliff/ cave face. It was pretty fun to see. 

This is the chateau Montsoreau, which overlooked the city where we had lunch today. A fantastic crepe lunch in fact. Again we didn't go into this chateau, but it is always fun to see them from the outside.

This is the Chateau du Rivau, which is known for having fairy tale gardens. It also had quite a nice interior, though not as impressive as some that we have seen. This was the last chateau on the agenda for today and I would just like to say that the bike from it to the hotel was one of the longest of my life. And oh by the way, my butt hurts so badly that I had to sit on David's sweater to even be capable of pedaling on the way back. There are disadvantages to having such a bony butt, and this is one of them. Though I might add that David also has a very sore butt, so neither of us is quite sure how we are going to get back on a bike tomorrow. I'll let you know how everything turns out.

This is David and I posing with a statue of boots that we in the "fairy tale gardens" of the chateau. I particularly like how the camera over-exposed the sunlight and we got this sort of magical effect. Overall though, I'd summarize the day as successful, and I think this picture says it well.

David and I are off to bed!!