We are something like 40-year veterans of camping in France. Many years ago, our typical starting point would be to hit the French coast and travel down for a first major stop somewhere beside La Loire. It’s about one third of the way down France and we felt that it was typically French and an area where the weather seemed noticeably better than in the UK, on average.
We had a favoured campsite, run by a lovely old gentleman, at Huisseau-sur-Cosson. It was just below Blois on one of the wonderful network of cycle routes. There are two networks, one called La Loire à Vélo which tracks areas of tourist interest along the mighty Loire river. There’s another network of circular routes called Les Châteaux à Vélo which has circuits centred on the châteaux of La Loire, including Chambord amongst others, that we were more interested in. The campsite was close to the small town of Bracieux and was right beside one of the routes for Les Châteaux à Vélo. Sadly, the gentleman retired and the site no longer exists.
Our habits changed and it had been a long time since we had visited La Loire, until last year, at least, when we stayed at Amboise to visit the home of Leonardo da Vinci and the town’s wonderful market. Amboise didn’t seem the right place on this return trip but Francine fancied a shot at the Château of Villandry with its wonderfully manicured architectural gardens. We visited many years ago but somehow I lost all my pictures from there so a second bite of the cherry seemed like a reasonable idea. The local campsite had space and we could spend three nights giving us a day to see the château and a day to do some cycling.
Leaving Hérisson, we programmed Sally Satnav and began our journey. Not long into the journey, once the site was open, Francine checked on Google to find closing times. Wouldn’t you know it, reception closed at midday and did not open again until 15:00. We’d be arriving shortly after midday giving us three hours to wait. Welcome to Sod’s Law.
While we were thinking of places to kill time, Francine found a much better sounding alternative. There was a good sounding campsite at Cheverny which close access to the Les Châteaux à Vélo network. Neither did it close at lunchtime – much more civilized. Furthermore, it was a shorter journey. We reset Sally Satnav, arrived and booked in for three nights.
For our first e-bike excursion we chose one of the routes that would take us to Bracieux to see how that was doing. The routes are well signed but some of the signs could be in less than obvious places so you have to keep your wits about you and preferably have Francine reality-checking on a real map.
Much had changed. The old campsite at Bracieux had been transformed into the dreadful sounding Huttopia Les Châteaux. I think it still offers camping pitches but, feeling a little like the Cap(no)Fun chain, it looked best avoided by us. We didn’t see anyone going in or coming out. Frankly, we saw very little activity in Bracieux at all. It seemed almost closed, though there was a bar open. We headed back to keep Frodo company, pausing at a much more appealing little bar in Cour-Cheverny.
On our second full day we jumped on the e-bikes for another route taking us by Château de Troussay and on through Cormeray and Chitenay before heading back, once again, through Cour-Cheverny. “Oh, there’s that little bar again”. Well, rude not to.
Although it’s essentially flat around here, there was quite a stiff breeze blowing much of the time which, no matter how your route twists and turns, always seemed to be a headwind. I must say that having electrical assistance on the bikes was very welcome. It’s making me lazy.
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