As we made our way through France our days were filled with cycling along the shade covered pathways, often next to the rivers or canals. We were grateful for the shade because we had left the overcast, rainy days behind and the weather was very warm and sunny.
Our original route plan was to travel to Nantes and then down the coast to Bordeaux but as we got to looking at the coastal route we realized that it involved traveling through the marsh flats and fighting headwinds. Sooo, we decided to change course and go east along the Loire Valley. Taking this route we had many days to travel along the very popular Euro Velo 6 that goes through an important French wine region. The purple lines on this map are cycling routes.
We developed a riding plan of pedaling three days and sightsee for two days in the largest towns. When we arrived in Tours we realized that we were going to run short of time so we rented a car and eliminated six days of riding by driving three hours to Bordeaux. We did make good use of the drive as we stayed on the back roads and got to see all of the small towns along the way.
France has an initiative to bring art to small towns and we were lucky to stumble across a few of these as we traveled. In the city of Nantes they had several installations going up in different squares around the city. This one is a huge tree branch sprouting out of the bricks. At first I thought it was a real branch but then realized that it is constructed out of wire and covered with thin slices of bark.
In another small town we came upon this photo installation showing the Olympics up close. Only a few privileged photographers had this personal access to the athletes.
One small town was having a festival that included a carving contest and we were able to see the artists at work. One of my favorite things about traveling by bike is that you happen upon lots of unexpected things to see and experience.
Bordeaux was one of the cities I was really looking forward to, but in reality there was so much road, bridge and building construction it was hard to see the beauty of the old core of the city. However, we did get some lovely pictures.
After a couple of days in Bordeaux we rode on, making our way to Toulouse. In this part of France we rode for days through miles and miles of farm land with crops like corn, wine grapes and sunflowers.
While we were in Toulouse we took the train to the small town of Albi to visit the Toulouse-Lautrec museum. Henry Toulouse-Lautrec was a painter in the late 1800s who became most famous for his poster art. The museum is housed in the Palais de la Bernie, constructed in the 13th century. Next to the palace is the dominating cathedral.
As we got toward July 18th, our riding time was over for this segment of our trip and we rented a car to drive to Nice for our cycling cruise of Corsica and the final day of the Tour de France cycling race. Mike and I were both amazed at how fast the time had gone by.
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