Bikepacking along the Loire Day 3: Saumur to Tours

Hi and welcome to WannaGoBiking. My name is Arjan and it is time for a new Bikepacking Adventure! After prematurely ending my Wales trip because of injuries and a week’s worth of bad weather coming my way, I decided to go to Nantes. Well worth the visit and a good starting point for my three day trip along the Loire towards Tours.
On this third day I left saumur and visited its beautiful castle. Another very hot day, luckiliy with some shelter in the form of some Troglo’s. A short stroll through Tours ended this little trip
Hope you like it, enjoy your rides and stay safe out there !
Next Up: 2 days of riding around Prague
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Chapters:
intro 00:00
saumur castle 01:10
cave dwellings 02:20
sunflowers 05:30
lunch 07:05
heat bonk 09:15
sightseeing Tours 10:05
thanks for watching 12:30

Hi and very sunny welcome to WannaGoBiking  I’m in Saumur, ready for departure, late as always the final leg of this 3day trip should  be Tours, if the weather holds cuz yesterday there were some torrential downpours. looks  all right in fact I should have pretty much

A tailwind, well I’m counting my blessings  there even if I don’t it should be okay it’s already very very hot so that’s the  only concern and I did notice that I did not drink enough yesterday though I never  drunk as much as I did: 3 and a half

Liters I counted and still was dehydrated  so really have to take care today I’m just going to make my way out of the city and  head along the again so see you along the sure know how to build castles here : Saumur Castle nice place for a venue, so cool

This was a steep uphill but as always worth the while super nice okay, leaving Saumur now these are cave dwellings: Troglos, Troglodytes, not quite sure what the official name is in Saumur as well you have hundreds of kilometers of  cave ways that you can even cycle through

I read but just have a quick browse  through here so just you have a little idea that’s a nice run into one of  those Troglos, Cave livings cave dwellings or something it’s funny I would have said that I  much more east of Greenwich here but apparently not well

Possibly should have stopped at one  of these caves and have a look at the inside but it’s all such a fuss with your  bike securing it and even at some terrace or restaurants cafes you try to store your  bike near to your table and then say oh

You can put it there so I was just not in  the mood to even try that right now in fact I’ll try and cycle for another 30 45 minutes  and well let’s see if we can find lunch then this is the Vienne river that  flows into the Loire over there

It’s a big one as well Chinon, bring on the good wine look at the tournesol, the sunflowers always loved the the name tournesol,turn towards the sun which is essentially what they do of course what a lovely road and some shade, delicious That’s a massive plant over there

And a funny sphere , not sure it’s a nuclear plant then? could be so this is the Indre , there’s also a département named after it I reckon at least a third or maybe half of all the départements as they call them here the federal states, are called after some some River

So Indre is certainly one of them but it’s nice and tranquil here this is definitely not a good sign 13k to  the next Village of any importance and that means ,yeah lunch well by that time maybe a bakery is open again so I can have a sandwich but look at this, what a beautiful track

Yeah couldn’t ask for more that is one big Castle eh? should be some restoration there, I’m just not  sure if I can afford it well I had this set as a highlight because  there should be a water fountain here well there’s no oldfashioned water  fountain but there’s toilets here

They should be running water though I don’t  know if it’s actually drinkable well should be another 26 27k till I reach Tours 15:00 hours now so hour and a half something like that wow that section was nasty oh yes water a give me ,oh no it’s turning away

Oh that’s a shame wow what a missed opportunity that would have been lovely well not sure it’s an official term but I’ve heat bonked again like yesterday I only have 4K to do but it is really tough just have nothing left in the legs and yeah I ate enough drank enough

But that heat is just not for me it’s very humid as well if you go further down south in France the heat is going to be well a drier sort of heat I can take that better anyway should be in a hotel around 5ish

So that should give me plenty of time for some replenishment and maybe a little tour in Tours so hope to see you then look at these houses, lots of nice  decorations, bit of Arabic theme for me very nice If I’m walking in the right  direction I should be heading towards Tours centre ,

Vieux city so let’s check it out found some food halls, let’s check it out anyone fancy a cheese? the best part it’s nice and fresh here stands to reason we  should find some Towers here, Tours being the plural of Tour so two towers but we shall see or not found one tower

let’s check it out oh yeah very dry right here I am at the River Loire again in Tours so this should be the appropriate time and place for me to say goodbye had a lovely three days ride, beautiful scenic ride not too hard that is if you don’t take into account the weather

Cuz 34° for 2 days long was really too much for me really did me in, certainly yesterday but today as well so but yeah can’t take anything away from the ease and beauty of this route so highly recommended, thanks for watching I hope to see you in the next one

So until then enjoy your rides and stay safe out there, see ya !