Go with the flow! In its unruffled progress, the Loire, Europe's last untamed river, is an excellent metaphor for how to survive a group cycle with friends.
Happy bands of freewheeling antipodeans speckle Europe's highways and byways. Their moving caravans are the result of months of cheerful planning – generally an excuse for getting together and sampling the wine and food of their chosen region.
But there are tricks to avoiding conflict and returning home with friendships intact. Six of us, old friends and Francophiles all, have booked a seven-night, 280-kilometre Loire Valley self-guided cycle from Joue-les-Tours to Blois. It will take us through the valleys of the Loire, Cher and Indre rivers, through undulating fertile landscapes, woven with lime trees, wild honeysuckle, poplars, oaks, geraniums, and fairytale villages of sandstone and slate. Every so often a magical chateau will rise like a sentinel.
Riding through the unspoiled Loire Valley, France's biggest UNESCO-listed site, we will immerse ourselves in architectural, culinary, political and natural history. What could go wrong? Not that much, if you're careful, for even the best of friendships may falter on the shaky ground of differing physical ability and expectations.
We have chosen Discover France's eight-day/seven-night Loire Valley Classic for reasons that suit the group – flat riverbank cycling or rolling hills and acceptable distances – about 45 to 50 kilometres daily. Our cycling is a means to an end, not an end in itself, so we avoid the daily longer options that add distance at the expense of experiences. Midsummer heat is not for us – September rewards us with magnificent cycling weather. Discover France delivers baggage to the next hotel, lightening our loads. And six is a good number – you can all fit at the same table for meals!
Our aims are to experience this lovely part of France, to explore the chateaux, whose history is linked by the shared narrative of kings, queens, religion, wars and revolutions. We also want to eat and drink like those kings and queens (all breakfasts and four dinners are included), sleep comfortably in good quality hotels, sometimes staying two nights for extra relaxation, and know we can trust our equipment.
Some of us have used the services of Discover France before and we know their bikes (Hybrid Scott Sportsters X50) are good and their organisation efficient and caring. Bikes come fully equipped. We're particular, because a previous cycle trip with another operator involved bikes of the penny-farthing vintage, unmatched to height and weight, some with no panniers, mudguards or bells.
Thanks to an airline glitch, Rob, my husband and I arrive late at the handsome 18th-century Chateau de Beaulieu in Joue-les-Tours. We've missed Sebastian's bike introduction and our welcome dinner but the chateau staff send up a tray for us, kind souls – terrine, baguettes, smoked salmon, rare beef and salad. And because we're stressed out of our brains, we raid the bar fridge for our first, but not last, soupcon of champagne.
Morning from our double French windows reveals a gentle mist creeping off the river across the chateau's formal gardens. Buttery croissants, pain au chocolat, cheeses and good coffee await in the elegant dining room and our friends try not to rave about the previous night's dinner. Sebastian turns up again, bless him, to give us the orientation we'd missed, and away we pedal on our first 45-kilometre ride to Azay-le-Rideau.
A good pointer to a successful cycle is to have a mixture of those willing to either lead or bludge. Two of the group have the GPS units, the rest have road books including local info, daily maps and directions. Count on getting lost, at least once.
Peter, one of our "dear leaders" loses himself within the first hour, sailing along the Loire tributary, the pretty Cher, gazing at trees (he's a botanist), trailing my happily bludging husband behind him. But it's a good excuse for the rest of us to grab a noisette coffee and organise our kitty for incidentals – coffees, baguettes, and soft drinks.
The Loire Valley is studded with more than 300 chateaux beloved of French royalty and the wealthy bourgeoisie. We can't possibly see them all and have decided to visit one a day, thoroughly.
Today it's exquisite Villandry, the last of the great chateaux built along the Loire during the Renaissance. The present owner's grandfather created the quite remarkable 16th-century gardens, organised into three distinct terraces: the vegetable garden, ornamental and water gardens.
Some of the rooms as well as the grand limestone staircase are listed as historic monuments, showing different styles and periods from medieval to Empire.
Compromise is king – if someone wants to dawdle, make like the Loire. We all have our foibles. Chris is a movie buff so photos often revolve around recreating elaborate scenes – think Mr Bean's Holiday, Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot or The Way. He also loves a chateau, just not the tapestries, which creep him out. Peter, the botanist/scrumper stops constantly to examine an interesting specimen and then eat it.
Sue W. grows an extra engine when the day's destination nears, exploding out of the pack like a miniature Usain Bolt. Sue S., keen to avoid cars, will periodically veer off the road in a flurry of gravel. I whinge at steep hills and Rob can cycle so slowly, he appears stationary, before zooming past like something bit him.
The moral of the story is conciliation. Laugh off the foibles – they're a rich source of post-holiday reminiscences.
The Loire in September bursts with ripeness – fruit and vegetable gardens line the road as we near our day's destination, Azay-le-Rideau, and our charming hotel, Le Grand Monarque, an 18th-century former post house. There's time for a shower, then a stroll down to the glassy Indre as the sun slants through the limes and locals compete at boule. Dinner at the Bistrot du Grand Monarque sparkles with seasonal produce and we toast a successful first cycle with local Loire wines.
The hotel bike shed is empty when we collect our bikes after a leisurely breakfast and stroll through the streets, perfumed by fresh-baked bread and coffee. We're waiting for the Chateau d'Azay-le-Rideau to open at 9.30am.
Each grand room of this moated jewel of Renaissance architecture paints a rich portrait of the past, taking visitors deep into history. Like all the chateaux, there's a royal apartment where freeloading royals stayed. The English-style gardens are lined with Atlas cedars, redwoods, American bald cypresses and Asian gingko trees. We continue, cycling past the white castle of Usse, reputed to be the inspiration for Sleeping Beauty, leaving the Indre to join the Loire.
A daily constant is our inability to remember that boulangeries close from 1pm to 3pm and we're hard-pressed to rustle up lunch. We must hungrily pedal to the town of Langeais for a late repast of ham and gruyere baguettes, which we eat in the Chateau et Parc de Langeais, breaking our one-chateau rule.
It's worth it because this chateau is a microhistory of France's beloved Anne of Brittany and Charles VIII, as well as being an excellent example of late medieval architecture. And directly outside is La Maison de Rabelais, with its munch-worthy tarts and good coffee. We're exercising, aren't we?
If only we'd known the culinary delights that await us at Domaine de Beauvois in the bucolic surrounds of Luynes, tonight's destination. This is probably our favourite place for pure indulgence. First it's cocktails and amuse bouche on the terrace overlooked by the medieval tower: salmon roulades, a courgette "soup", cheese balls, then a gourmet three-course dinner of local produce – pigeon, saddle of lamb, sea bass. My choice is local beef fillet with caramelised onions and tiny seasonal vegetables.
Room envy can be a group issue, as in junior suite versus attic boxroom. Easily solved by giving the wounded party first right of refusal next time. The rooms on this cycle however are tactfully similar.
Day four from Luynes to Amboise is the day we must surely see vineyards, and we do, cycling 46 kilometres through Tours into Vouvray wine country, then to Amboise. Tours Cathedral is where we meet Anne of Brittany again. In fact a procession of royals with intertwined lives follows us along this route – all the Louis and Charles and Francois plus the fascinating Catherine de Medici and Diane de Poitiers. The genesis of the French Revolution is certainly clearer.
Back on the Loire path to Amboise where we stay two nights, Rob falls off, clouds of midges swarm and we take a wrong turn through waist-high nettles, rattling along a rough slippery path. There is no blame. Well, not much.
Tomorrow is another favourite – Chenonceau, the castle's reflection in the Cher River practically a chateau cliché. We cycle up hill and down dale through vineyards, millet and cornfields and tiny villages bedecked with geraniums. At Chenonceau, we take sides, condemning sour-faced Catherine de Medici for evicting the delicious Diane de Poitiers, her late husband's favourite, banishing her to the smaller Chaumont-sur-Loire, which we visit tomorrow on our cycle from Amboise to Blois.
Talking of sour-faced, a strange Chaumont official on a bicycle pursues us around the grounds as we try to eat our baguettes. No eating! He admonishes but we hide among the conifers and scoff our baguettes. Tormented, just like Diane de Poitiers!
We're in beautiful Blois for two days of exploring, mojitos in cobbled squares, live music, Vouvray tastings, millefeuille comparisons, plus a cycle to possibly the grandest chateau – Chambord, which stands like a luminous limestone mythic castle in forests, both grand Renaissance castle and hunting lodge. Not homely by any means but rather a veritable monument to royal excess.
Our farewell dinner at the charming Blois café Poivre et Sel allows us to reprise our trip while doing what we do best – eating and drinking. We've had a wonderful time, and we're still friends. Keeping the peace at the post-holiday slide night; now that's another matter entirely.
TRIP NOTES
MORE INFORMATION:
GETTING THERE
Cathay Pacific has daily flights to CDG Paris from Sydney and Melbourne via Hong Kong. See cathaypacific.com
STAYING THERE
Discover France's Loire Valley Classic 7 Nights is an 8-day/7-night self-guided cycle includes three and four-star hotels, luggage transfers, breakfasts, four dinners, comprehensive cycle information, bikes, helmets, GPS, tools. From $1490 a person sharing.
The writer was a guest of Discover France
