In the end, cycling up to 75km a day wasn’t the problem. Not when you’ve got an electric bike doing most of the heavy lifting, and the Loire Valley is almost as flat as a crepe. Chateau hopping by bicycle proved much easier than expected for a 50-something who’s never darkened the door of a spin class. No, the problem wasn’t pedalling from one storybook castle to the next – it was finding them in the first place.
It wouldn’t have been an issue in the Renaissance, of course, when the horses could probably gallop blindfolded between the architecturally dazzling buildings peppered along the Loire. Centuries of French royalty lived, loved and loitered here. But my two-wheeled steed, due to take me on a three-day itinerary from Blois to Tours, was handed to me by the cycle hire outfit along with a rubbish app and a map only covering half the route.
Google Maps wasn’t going to cut it: I was on the Loire à Vélo, a 900km cycling network of mostly off-road routes and quiet country lanes marking its 20th birthday this year. Nearly two million people pedal its paths annually, breezing along the riverbanks and meandering through vineyards and forests.
Presumably, most of them don’t get lost. The routes are signposted to a degree, often with just a route number and a cycling icon; sometimes you see them, sometimes you don’t. But my second day’s ride between the Château of Cheverny and Chaumont was marked more by wrong turns, making the 35km morning outing stretch to almost double its estimated time.
The outlook for the afternoon was worse; neither map nor app extended beyond Chaumont. With no WiFi to download another app, I tried the tourist office for old-fashioned paper assistance. “That’s not our region,” the assistant shrugged with Gallic indifference.
But let’s park the navigational disasters for the moment; once you find them, the chateaux are truly magnifique. Day one had taken me to an estate the size of Paris at Chambord, topped with a riot of chimney stacks, stair turrets and dormer windows. It’s less of a roof and more of a skyline in miniature. Leading up to it is an ingenious double-helix staircase ensuring that anyone ascending never meets those descending (handy for when your mistress is arriving as your wife is leaving).
Further on, Cheverny looked the picture of stately elegance from the exterior, though that image wobbles slightly on discovering it was the model for Captain Haddock’s Marlinspike Hall in the Tintin books. Inside, it’s dripping with 17th-century tapestries, painted timber ceilings and wood panelling. Everything is so lavish, you could easily overlook the paintings by Titian and Raphael.
While an English stately home might have a teashhaop outside the gates, here refreshments come courtesy of the Maison des Vins (the Loire is one of France’s great wine-growing regions, after all). It’s no ordinary tasting; place your glass under any of 130 nozzles on the side of enormous fake barrels, and out comes your selection. Try doing that at a National Trust café. It’s much better value than you’ll get in Blighty, too, at €7 for seven tastes.
By the time I rolled up at the nearby Relais des Trois Chateaux, I was feeling distinctly mellow. My suitcase was already waiting (courtesy of the Loire a Velo transport scheme), while a soak in the bath soothed a bum numbed by a day in the saddle.
During an excellent dinner (you eat well on this trip), I chatted to New Zealanders Catherine and David Davies-Colley, who had just started a three-week cycle tour. They’d booked through a company whose custom-built app offered the kind of detailed directions I could only fantasise about. “Some of the routes’ sign posting definitely needs to be updated,” agreed David.
These were seasoned pros; they’d even brought their own saddles. I thought of them the next day as I winced my way off the bike after finally reaching the Chateaux of Chaumont and later Chenonceau (and yes, there does seem to be an obsession with the letter C when naming castles).
These two have a backstory worthy of a soap opera. Henri II’s formidable wife, Catherine de Medici, had looked on jealously when he granted Chenonceau to his mistress, Diane de Poitiers. So after Henri died, Catherine orchestrated a royal chateau swap, nabbing Chenonceau and giving Diane Chaumont.
As consolation prizes go, it wasn’t a bad one. Today, Chaumont’s fairytale façade encloses an interior filled with modern art installations, with everything from a hanging garden in the chapel beneath Catherine’s old room to crystal books glimmering in the library. Even the gardens double as an extensive gallery space, with a different theme each year.
It’s quite the contrast to Chenonceau, where the grounds are less about art and more about the love rivals trying to outdo each other in flowerbeds and fountains. Both also left their mark on the architecture. Diane built the elegant bridge linking the château to the opposite riverbank; not to be outdone, Catherine had the bridge covered to create a 60-metre-long gallery begging for a candlelit ball. Arriving late in the day, I had it to myself.
By day three, I could fully appreciate the (ahem) cycle of life – eat, sleep, bike, repeat – as I finally cracked the navigation. It turns out that the Loire à Vélo website works with an app it failed to mention called Geovelo. Once downloaded, it transformed my experience, offering proper directions, route options and a chance to feel briefly competent.
A much more relaxed pedal that day took me from Chenonceau to Amboise, weaving along the banks of the Cher river, then through spring-green vineyards and undulating woodland that filtered the light like something from a painting. It was bliss. With a press of the e-bike’s boost button, I surged up gentle hills, soaring down them to occasionally top 30kph before reverting to a more civilised 20.
The only real hazard was a tunnel so low that staying on the bike might have resulted in a lengthy lie down before reaching Amboise, where Leonardo da Vinci’s tomb lay in a tiny chapel atop the chateau’s impossibly high walls.
And so to Tours, via one last refreshment stop in Montlouis-sur-Loire’s Le Clos des Vignes de Cray vineyard. Here, the delightful Evelyne Antier wasn’t surprised to hear about my misadventures. “People turn up all the time complaining about how lost they’ve been,” she said.
My advice then, for anyone chasing chateaux culture from behind the handlebars is to download Geovelo, take a battery pack (these apps are hungry), and, unless you’re built like a Tour de France veteran, consider investing in a seat cover. Your backside will thank you.
Essentials
Jane Knight was a guest of the Centre-Val de Loire tourist office (loirevalley-france.co.uk). Four nights’ B&B with cycle hire and luggage transfer but not chateaux entry costs from €610/£518 (biking-france.com). Itineraries can be found on loireavelo.fr. The train line has tickets from London to Blois-Chambord, returning from Tours to London from £123.
