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...