“Let’s make our next trip a bike tour.”
I assumed my real husband had been kidnapped by aliens – his idea of exercise is flipping the perfect tenderloin on the grill. But when he slyly added that the Loire Valley looked nice and flat, I saw the method of his madness.
France, land of the two-liter lunch, is the perfect destination for cyclists who care more about enjoying the miles than covering them at top speed. And the Loire is equally renowned for its beautiful chateaux, interesting wines, and superb country cooking.
We chose the Sologne region of the Loire for a beginner’s level three-day tour, covering 20-25 miles a day. The tour company would handle the travel details we love the least, like hauling bags and making room reservations in a foreign language. All we had to do was catch up with our luggage at the next hotel at the end of each day.
But how to train for the ultimate test of physical and mental endurance – completing a three-course, two-hour lunch and then pushing pedals down a country road for the remainder of the afternoon? Could we go for the burn without going for the heartburn? We set off for the Loire with high hearts, but a nagging sense of self-doubt.
Day One
After taking the train south from Paris to the small city of Blois, making our way to our hotel in an attractive suburb, and collapsing after dinner (actually during dinner), we arose ready to face our adventure. We were introduced to the bicycles that would be our transport, companions, and challenge for the next three days. Everything we would need on the road – jackets, water bottles, Marling Menu-Master for France – went into one saddlebag. Armed with directions, maps, and the telephone number of our next hotel (no doubt of great help if we broke down in the middle of a vineyard miles from a town or phone), we set out.
We glided along back roads and through tiny towns, our jet lag vanished. Everything seemed romantic and exotic to us – the old stone buildings, the faint smell of anise along the roadside, even the oddly huge-looking license plates of the occasional car passing us.
Most French roads have little or no shoulder, and often have a drop-off bad enough to warrant a “dangerous shoulder” sign (“dangerouse epaules,” making it sound slightly risqu�). But we were pleasantly surprised by the courtesy of most drivers. Perhaps because the roads are so narrow, almost no one tried to pass us while other cars were coming, squeezing past and scaring the life out of us, as frequently happens at home. They dropped their speed and stayed patiently behind us until they could pull all the way over to pass. Vive la France.
The point of cycling is to experience the landscape and culture, so we stopped often to enjoy the sights (okay, we were also resting). In the town of Huisseau sur Cosson, our cultural experience included fifteen minutes spent trying to lock our bikes to the peculiar bike rack, which seemed too far off the ground. That’s because it was actually a pedestrian barrier; the real bicycle “racks” were perfectly round cement blocks with grooves cut in them for the front wheel.
Our first major stop was Chateau Chambord, a hunting lodge of Francois I. Actually, nearly all chateaux seem to have been built by Francois, and so many of them are hunting lodges that he must have spent all his time in the saddle. He didn’t spend much time at Chambord, though. After building what is arguably the only “lodge” with 440 rooms, four turrets, and a double spiral staircase probably built to a Leonardo da Vinci design, he spent only 27 nights there in his entire reign.
After touring this little cottage, it was lunchtime. The first test of our training! But the only restaurant near the chateau was rumored to suffer from mediocre food and indifferent service, the failings of over-touristed eateries everywhere. We opted for the French version of fast food at a nearby caf� -a buttery, toasted croque monsieur that gave new meaning to “grilled cheese sandwich.” There would be time later to test our metal with a true French luncheon.
Day Two
Today’s route took us even further into the countryside, on roads that sometimes looked like bike paths until we were passed by a car or UPS truck (smaller than the version we’re used to seeing in our driveway). The scent of woodsmoke hung in the air as we wheeled our way through the four corners that constituted a town, or past an isolated farm where rap radio music emanated from the milking barn.
At the relatively small and comfy Chateau Beauregard (yet another hunting lodge of Francois’), we learned firsthand the importance of lunch. Off season, many chateaux and other public sites close during the lunch “hour,” noon until 2 p.m. When we arrived at 11a.m, the friendly woman at the entrance explained that if we left after noon, we might find the huge gates through which we had entered closed. But we could open them to leave, and please just shut them again afterward. You have to love a chateau where they ask you to close the gate when you leave.
Strolling the grounds worked up the appetite for our own lunch. Most chateaux sit in lordly isolation some distance from towns and restaurants. We decided to press on to one that is an exception to this rule, the stylish Chateau de Cheverny. Its current public entrance is just off the main street of the town of Cheverny, and we waited in a brasserie across the street for its gates to reopen, enjoying a relatively modest two-course menu.
We began to understand the French wisdom of the preeminence of meals. Our lunch of fresh tomato salad and perfectly roasted chicken, enjoyed with each other’s company and a half bottle of sancerre, was ultimately more satisfying than our visit to Cheverny which, though beautiful, was crawling with tour gangs – uh, groups – that inevitably changed the atmosphere and experience for the worse.
Day Three
Our third day was our last chance to test our training with a real, five-course, take-no-prisoners French lunch. Yet this was the most rural territory yet, featuring acres of sunflowers and vineyards brimming with clusters of ripening grapes. We were in the middle of nowhere, and then, just after noon – voila! In France, even nowhere has a three-star restaurant. Set among trees and including its own swan-crowned pond, La Closerie was indeed open for lunch. We were led down a labyrinth of hallways and across stone floors to a sunny vestibule and our table.
Travelers know that few things in life fulfill every expectation. A fully realized French lunch served by a great restaurant is one of the few that does. From the touch of salmon mousse that the chef sent out just to whet the appetite, to the salad of crusty hot chevre cheese with slivers of ham, then on to roasted guinea fowl with potato souffle, followed by a selection of what must have been every cheese available in the region, to the three perfect scoops of peach, black currant, and strawberry sherbet, and of course the bottle of austere Quincy (something about the experience needed to be austere), it was everything that a brownbag-jaded American could dream of.
Finally the moment came when we knew we must get back on the bikes. Could we really eat and drink like Frenchmen and wheel away triumphant? The Quincy teased: bet you can’t. But we set off, taking twice as long to go back down the long driveway as we had to come up it, wobbling down the long country road toward the next town of les Montils.
Two miles on, we learned that les Montils means The Heights. We were facing our first and only real hill. It rose from the riverbed a hundred feet in elevation within a half mile. The Sologne’s last laugh.
Halfway up our grim ascent, two thoughts came through, clear as church bells in the pure Loire air:
1. We’re in France, which honors a good meal more than fitness.
2. Cycling is great, but walking is nice too.
And thus we completed our only French hill, our joie de vivre unabated.