Cycling the Loire (Part 2) – Nantes to the Saumur Caves

We pedaled eastwards along the Loire from Nantes via St Florent le Vieil and onto Angers and Saumur to those fascinating caves

Cycling the Lir part two. This one’s from Na to the caves at Sour. And this one takes us eastwards from Na to Mason Suron to Oair and then on to Som. And next week we’ll do Bla and tour onto Oolon. In the summer, SNCF put on a marvelous bike train all the way from Na to Olon and back again. And not there’s a fancy app you can get called Nolib, which uh gives you access to all sorts of underground parking via bike. So the following morning, we’re set off eastwards along the top of the Lir in the sun. It was ace, but you’re not far out of town before you’re taken slightly away from the river and onto a dedicated cycle track then, which generally tends to go between the railway line to your left and the river to your right. Not far into the morning, we went over our first bridge crossing. N’s not very far from the coast. So the river here is very very wide. Is that okay? No. We said Ba. We didn’t get too far before we had to turn around and come back with our tail between our legs. valley. Next time we came across it, we just followed the signs and back to the north side. The usual picnic with wine, cheese, and biscuits. [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] The wild lir has been given a large area of fields to flood into before the flood banks have been built to keep it in from going any further. [Music] Look at that for a blue sky. How lovely. [Music] well over 30°. So often we would stop and have a bit of a cooling shower despite being fully clothed. [Music] We stayed over here at San Flor. [Music] And I took the drone out early doors to get some shots of the Aatial San Flor. And it was here at the top rated Bistro Plet that we had our best French meal ever. It was exquisite and not too expensive at all. [Music] There are some bizarre buildings along the way. This one we think used to be an old water mill. We reckon there was a big old water wheel in there. It was just the four of us. We didn’t have any backup. We never utilized any transport euro banks from one place to the next service. We just took them ourselves. Mind you, we did a little raga muffins for the week. [Music] You soon get a feel for which root besets are actually passible, generally by the wearing of the tires on the floor. [Music] Occasionally, the track takes you into some town, and it’s only then do you find little hills rising and falling. We passed and repassed this young lady obviously on a serious tour. She didn’t look like she needed an ebike. Drive on the right, love. No, the other right. And this is the Pierre Basharel rock. Beloved by local climbers and actually was painted by a certain JMW Turner in 1826 on his tour of the Luis. [Music] While Salawir is famous for beautiful, beautiful shadow, the ugliest building on the whole trip is this one at their castle. At we stayed at Shamra de Matild and parked our bikes in their garden. Very civilized. [Music] In the morning, we sat up early having girded our loins. We went to the local kar and stocked up with wine, cheese, and biscuits. And Ivonne also got some gluten-free crackers. Quite unusual in France. We were looking forward to this chain ferry that the map suggested we’d go past. It was very sweet, but a bit messy on your hands or in our case raised hands. [Music] That wasn’t necessary. There was a lot of variety of cycleways along this route. [Music] The shadow at Soour must rate as one of the finest. It was like a wedding cake really. on a bit further and eat some of those crackers. As we neared Dumpier, the road got a bit tighter [Music] and for a short while we were slightly disappointed, thinking we’d missed the caves. But then the track led us uphill and into some caves. But as it turned out, these weren’t the caves we were expecting, though merely a warm up for the real thing. and on towards Suz where the real caves began. If you could find the entrance. [Music] Hm. Tavl opens at 10:00. Ray, what time is it, mate? Turns out it was 2 minutes to 10, so we took a bit longer taking some photographs. Lav and a customer, respectively. We sure didn’t expect a tavern in amongst the caves, but hey, you’ve got to support the local business. So that’s it. Don’t want to make the film too long and too boring. Have to leave some more boring bits for next time. Part three onwards from some more. Thanks for watching everybody. [Music]