Bike Ride in Loira Valley

Last weekend I went to the Loira ( Loire ) valley in France. Loire is a river and there is another river called Cher. The valley is a tourist attraction because it has spectacular castles and chateaus belonging to the renaissance period. For example, the Villandry castle is from 1540.

Click Read more or the banner for the rest of the story

Some other day I will post the pictures. Today I'm gonna write about the experience and the bike ride!

I have an office job, so I dont have time to plan these trips. So in my mind I thought that these castles were all close by and that I could simply visit them by bike.

The reality turned out to be different. It turned out that the distances were quite large. For example, between the city of Orleans where the castles start and the city of Tours at the other end there is a train ride of almost two hours. And its a fast train.

So really bike riding is not a great idea there. Also these castles make money from people comming in and paying 10Euros per castle to get in. So on purpose they have grown large trees aournd their yards, so that you can't see anything from the outside.

Your best option is to rent a car. Unfortunatelly I forgot to take my driver's license which given the annoyingly large size of the old Spanish Driver's Licence it is not so wierd after all.

Anyway, I did a bike ride from the City of Tours to the castle of Villandry.

The picture is from a stop at Savonnieres.

The distance was 20 KM from Tours to Villandry. But then you have to come back, so total 40 KM. There were other castles but they where an extra 10 KM further and when I was done with the initial 20 KM I realised it was too late to do more and I was too tired.



Here is a video of the Bike ride:



Anyway the experience was not that great. There organized bus excursions in Loira Valley are expensive being 30 Euros each and they are only 2 a day. And then each tour does only 1 or 2 castles and it takes most of your day. Oh, don't forget the 10 Euros you'll have to pay to get in the castle and you cant see anything unless you get in.

The public bus system was defficient really bad and also expensive. I went to see the famous Chambord castle by public bus, 11 Euros and it meant that I had to sit and wait 2 hours losing time while waiting for the ride back.

The train system is horrible. France's SNCF public trains are a bunch of thiefs. For a misserable 30 minute ride they will charge you minimum 10 Euros!! And the service is really poor. For example, I would have thought there would be frequent trains from Orleans to Paris, but I had to wait from 8pm till almost 11PM for a train to Paris. Not to mention that you almost have no choice but to buy your ticket from a machine that accepts no bills, only coins or credit card. The credit card it will not take, at least mine didn't work on them.

The icing on the cake? This:



The purple ones you see are the receipt for the fine I had to pay!

The flight back was from Paris. I got in their metro underground system which stupidly enough, is not separate from their rail system (RER or whatever fuck its called). So while following instruction on the metro map I ended up on a train to CGD airport assuming it was a metro line like in Madrid. But it turned out it was their Railway system and therefore the metro ticket I had bought was not good enough. So there I was on the train with the wrong ticket. I thought something was wierd anyway, since in France they will charge you 10 Bucks if you dare to breathe! Knowing how unlucky I am, you guessed it, there was an inspection. I had to pay a fine of 25 Euros for having the wrong ticket!! viola!

Anyway, I never have much luck in France. Let's see: in Avignon last year I ended up sleeping two hours in a Phone booth because all hostels and B&B's close their reception at 9pm. In Marseille I got food poisoning from eating a pizza! One time in Paris a record store owner angrily shouted at me because he was not "ready" when I stepped into his WIDE OPEN store at 11:30 AM. I had to respond with a big ol': Well...FUCK YOU!! In Bayonne I spent almost two hours trying to figure out where the hell can I park! I hadn't seen so many cars in my life. Not to mention the expensive freeway TOLL I had to pay when as I turned right somewher I was faced by a TOLL entrance with absolutely no options of an exit. In Montpellier I also stayed overnight wandering the city because the hotel prices where just too expensive. Then @ 4AM when they finally opened the train station, the police woman there would kick me once in a while to make sure I was sitting and not Laying!! In Paris this time, since I knew I didn't have a chance with a hotel or a hostal I went straight to the Sun City sauna. As traumatic as it was, at least it was beautifully decorated with vintage indian antiques. Even the doors, the stairs looked like antiques from India. It was surprising. Probably the owner is a collector of Indian antiques.

Like previous trips to France I ended up being unable to record shop because it was the weekend and everything was closed. So no Bolinier or Monster Melodies or Eyeranian stores this time.

Anyway, a nice country but very expensive particularly if you have to use their stupid train system.