Saturday, 05 June, 2010
The last leg of our section of the VeloRoute of the Loire Valley was upon us today. Thanks to yesterdays extra bit it was only forty kilometers of flat path along the Loire. We met an Australian couple at the camp who were doing a very similar route to us except in the reverse direction so it was nice to exchange some information. The night was rather warm and we woke up early and consequently were on the road by 8:30. We took our time to have a good look around in the villages and take loads of pictures like this statue of Joan of Arc, after all, this is her part of the country.
and here is the bridge she captured from the English army
There are a lot of white flowers on the water, I am not sure if they are wanted or some kind of weed.
In one of the small villages we stopped by the church for a drink, nice shade there, and we were welcomed by the priest as long lost friends, got shown the interior of the church and had to listen to the whole history, very nice of him indeed but we couldn’t get away.
It was a very hot day, as we entered Orleans on the fancy bridge there was a readout showing us 32 degrees which surprised us as we didn’t feel quite that hot. Still, as you can see, brown as a beaver
Off to see the sights, we missed the turnoff to the inner city but some friendly people got us on the right track to the cathedral and the tourist office. We were lucky because we arrived two minutes before lunchtime and they still helped us very nicely. I had convinced Ellie that we deserved a restday in a B&B and tourist info made the arrangements for us. Quite an old fashioned place with a busybody lady in charge, full of antiques but with a real bed!
In the evening we were treated to an organ recital and two choirs in a nearby church, the organist was from the Ukraine and the choirs were local, very beautiful and moving and damn hard church benches.