Loire Valley, France (2022) - Travelogue

Monday, May 2 (continued from Paris)

Just over an hour after boarding our train from Paris to Tours (which we spent productively working on this travelogue), we arrived and walked toward the historic town center, stopping for lunch at a lovely bistro with a view of the square. Alice had a flatbread with fresh vegetables and local cheese, and Josh had a salmon filet with rice. We also shared another Spritz Saint-Germain as well as a dessert of profiteroles.

After lunch, we wandered the streets back in the direction of the train station, where we got a taxi to our hotel, Château de Beaulieu. We arrived to find breathtaking scenery with a picturesque 18th century castle in the center, and when we checked in we were told that we were the only guests tonight and would have the entire château to ourselves. We settled into our stunning suite with large windows overlooking the manicured gardens and then spent several peaceful hours sitting outside, enjoying the beautiful day.

Our reservation includes free dinner in the château's celebrated restaurant, but because the restaurant is closed on Mondays and we were the only guests, dinner was made especially for us and hand-delivered as room service. We received a three-course meal featuring an outstanding local asparagus soup (perhaps the best soup we've ever had), roast duck with potatoes au gratin for Josh and roast vegetables and a poached egg for Alice, fresh baked bread, and a lemon tart dessert. Every part of the meal was simply incredible. We also paired the meal with a fancy bottle of local wine (from a vineyard just a few miles down the road!) that, again, was perhaps the best we've had. It was certainly a meal we won't forget. We concluded the evening with a sunset walk around the gardens -- a fitting end to a wonderful day.

Tuesday, May 3

Tuesday began with a delicious breakfast of many croissants, jam and berries, and local yogurt for Alice in the hotel’s (chateau’s) dining room overlooking its gardens, followed by a 10am orientation from our bike tour company, Discover France. They dropped off both our bikes and talked us through all the safety features. Our bikes each came with a helmet, a lock, and two clip-on bags that allowed us to stow extra supplies and layers, and which contained the mini bike-repair kits they provided. Alice’s bike also got a secure phone holster since she would be using the GPS App provided by the tour company (in combination with several physical maps) to find our way for the next week.

The orientation is typically at 6pm the day before your first day of biking, but we moved it up to 10am in order to get a full extra day in Tours, and we took full advantage!

After a relaxing hour in the hotel’s complimentary spa (hot tub / steam room area with an amazing Roman-style fountain and very cool lights!), we set off for Tours on our new bikes.

From our hotel, it was a quick walk down a grassy hill, through a gate, and across an old bridge to access the beautiful bike trail in the park that would take us to Tours. The weather was perfect, flowers were blooming, and we were biking for about 45 minutes through the French countryside!

Once we reached the bridge into the main city part of Tours, the park ended but there were dedicated bike lanes taking us into the heart of the city (divided from the street by lanes of parking). We locked up our bikes at the main city center and ventured onward to the heart of the old town and the picturesque Place Plumereau (walking through Les Halles, a large indoor food market, on the way). There, we enjoyed lunch seated in the center of the plaza - a starter of chicken cutlets for Josh and frites with dipping sauces to share, and then a main course of tagliatelle with salmon for Josh and a burrata pizza for Alice. It was all delicious, but this was our one meal of the trip where our eyes were bigger than our stomachs!

After lunch, we walked back to our bikes via the Loire River, admiring the paved area of the bank filled with chairs, tables, and lighting that is the heart of summer evenings in Tours. Once back on our bikes, we journeyed past Saint-Gatien Cathedral and admired its soaring Gothic architecture, and we stopped in front of the small Château de Tours (which is now a city museum - we did not go inside). While in downtown Tours, we looked up the local winery that produced the fantastic bottle of wine we had the night before, and it turned out it was only 3 miles away and all along a riverside bike trail! We called and were told they are able to offer a tour and a tasting, so we got on our bikes and biked the beautiful path over to the Marc Brédif winery (with stops at many interpretative plaques along the way that told of the history of this region).

We arrived at a beautiful winery and ended up on a private tour of the underground cave system in which they vinefy the grapes and store over 1 million bottles of wine! The Loire Valley is impressive for its massive networks of “troglodytes” — cave systems created by miners who were extracting “tufa”, the local limestone used for construction. Tufa stones are the characteristic sandy color of French countryside homes and were used to construct the gorgeous chateaus we would see this week (and these same stones were transported to London and used in the construction of Westminster Abbey). The mining techniques used to extract blocks of tufa stone left behind huge networks of caves that are protected from the elements and maintain a perfect temperature of 12-14 degrees Celsius (53-57 Fahrenheit). For over one thousand years, humans have been using these temperature-controlled caves to store wine (popular legend holds that local monks were the first to do so), and many of the famous wineries in the Loire take advantage of these cave systems.

In the Marc Brédif caves, we also got to see pressing equipment from one hundred years ago, wine dating back to 1874, and an old bottle (without wine in it) dating back to the 16th century. We first learned about the pressing process for the grapes - white wine is pressed from green grapes and quickly separated from the grape skins, red wine is pressed from red grapes which then ferment with their skins, and French rosé must be made by pressing red grapes and then separating the wine from the skins early in the fermentation process. (Apparently, in California you can make rosé by mixing red and white wines once they are made, but this is illegal in France! The French wine bureau allows mixing of different grape varietals, but red and white grapes must remain separate.)

We next learned about the grape types used to make wine. In France, wine is labeled and defined by its region rather than its grape type. This winery was in the Vouvray region, so it is known as Vouvray wine. In this region, the primary white grape is the chenin blanc and the primary red grape is the cabernet franc, and other grape varietals are very rare. Therefore, a white Vouvray wine is understood to be made with chenin blanc grapes.

After pressing the grapes and fermenting the juice with yeast to produce alcohol, the wine is next aged in either stainless steel tanks or in oak barrels. The length of time a wine should be aged depends on many factors, and the container used impacts the final taste. Wines aged in oak barrels will take on a smoky, oaky flavor, while wine ages in stainless steel retains the fruity, flowery flavors of the original grapes. Because of the soil types in the Loire Valley, local white wines (made with the chenin blanc grapes) tend to have bright fruity flavors, high acidity, and a “mineral” taste (in contrast to the much more floral white wines made with Sauvignon blanc grapes we would taste over the next few days). Aging these wines in stainless steel tanks helps the bright flavors shine.

Next, we learned how to get sweet and sparkling wines from this same initial process. For a sweeter dessert wine, grapes are harvested at the very end of the season when the grapes are shriveled in order to get a higher concentration of fruit sugars in the grape. In fact, there is a fungus that can affect grapes that makes the grapes taste even sweeter, so a “good year for sweet wines” is a year when the grapes are cooked down by a very hot sun and then attacked by this fungus. In addition, after fermentation, they add additional sugar to the wine to make it extra sweet. Because the sweet wines requires so much hot sun, even overall good years do not always allow for production of good dessert wines. We learned that 2018 was a great year for all wines, but that was the last year with sweet wines. We also learned that 2010 (the year of our bottle from the previous night) was notable for the honey notes tasted in this vintage — we definitely tasted that!

Finally we learned about the traditional method for making sparkling wines, which is the same method used in Champagne (the region, which is the only region allowed to call its sparkling wine “champagne”). Marc Brédif sparkling wines are called Vouvray (for the region), Brut (for dry sparkling wine), or Extra Brut (for extra-dry sparkling wine). For this technique, after the initial fermentation, the wine is bottled, extra yeast and sugar are added, and a metal cap is placed on the bottle to seal it. The extra yeast eats the extra sugar and produces more gas, which is trapped inside the sealed bottle. Vouvray sparkling wines (and other Loire Valley sparkling wines) are known for their much smaller, finer bubbles than champagne or other sparkling varieties. This is achieved by letting the yeast work for longer so the large CO2 bubbles they produce break up into finer bubbles over time. While the yeast work inside the sealed bottles, the bottles are initially laid flat on their sides and rotated (rolled) 90 degrees each day. Eventually, the yeast eat up all the available sugar and then they die. Over time, the bottles are shifted to storage racks at increasingly steep angles (while still being rotated daily), which causes the dead yeast to pool and collect near the neck of the bottle. Once the bottles have achieved a steep enough angle that all the yeast are near the bottles’ caps, the bottles are placed upside down in a special machine that freezes just the neck of the bottle. The little ice cubes created at the neck of the bottle by these machines contain all the dead yeast and are frozen to the metal caps on the bottle — these metals caps are removed, the ice cubes are pulled out with them, and voila! Sparkling wine ready to be corked! (Or ready to add more sugar for a sweeter wine.)

It was a fantastic tour followed by an even more fantastic tasting of 5 of their wines. We were able to appreciate the delicate bubbles of their brut, the subtle differences in fruity flavors and dryness of 3 white wines, and the incredible sweetness of their “nectar” dessert wine. We purchased another bottle of the wine from the previous night (a “Demi-sec”, half-dry wine that they call “rich” from 2010) and then biked back to our hotel, for a total of 19 miles that day.

Finally, we enjoyed another fantastic (complimentary) dinner in the hotel’s dining room — this time with an entrée (appetizer) of poached egg over bread with sweet potato purée and sauce, a filet of cod for Josh and roasted root vegetables with risotto for Alice, and a fancy strawberry rhubarb tart for dessert. We also each enjoyed a glass of a different local Vouvray white wine with dinner. We went to bed to rest up before our first official day of the biking itinerary in the morning!

Wednesday, May 4

Wednesday morning we packed up our suitcases to leave at the front desk, where they would be transported to our next hotel by the tour company. We filled our saddlebags for the day, enjoyed another round of fresh, warm croissants and local yogurt in the hotel’s lovely dining room, and soaked in the beauty of this chateau-turned-hotel and its grounds a final time. Then, we walked our bikes down to the same bike path as yesterday and turned in the opposite direction - away from Tours and onward to our first official stop!

The bike trip was structured to have short (20-mile) or long (30-mile) route options each day. We always chose the longer path and the extra site it allowed us to visit. The tour was officially 3 days of biking, but we did the downtown Tours section on Tuesday to give ourselves extra time and extra biking — creating a full bonus day! Therefore, we would end up biking 19 miles on day 1, 26 miles day 2, 30 miles day 3, and 30 miles day 4. This gave us a final distance biked of 105 miles! (Measured by our odometers as 168.00 km when we arrived at our final hotel on Friday evening.)

Our ride from Tours to Villandry started in the public park and then took us on beautiful, protected bike paths along the Cher river (a tributary of the larger Loire River). We biked past white stone cottages with blue doors, blue shutters, and climbing vines filled with flower of all colors. We biked though green fields filled with what we identified as wheat and a mysterious plant we later learned was tobacco. We saw glimpses of the river and the huge sandbanks created by late spring’s low tide, and we enjoyed the shade on many tree-lined sections of the path (though we accidentally inhaled a few of the little gnats that are ubiquitous along the riverbanks!).

After around 8 miles, we turned inland through an amazing corridor of trees and emerged into the town of Villandry, where we locked up our bikes and walked up to the stunning Château de Villandry. This chateau (French for “castle”) was originally built as a medieval fortress and included a dungeon that was the site of the Peace of Colombiers signed in 1189. It was razed and rebuilt by Francois I’s finance minister Jean Le Breton in the mid-1500s, and the building is a simpler, more purely French style than many of the other chateaux which were finished earlier.

The oldest remnant of the original structure is the tower, which gave us stunning views of the surrounding gardens. On top of the tower we met a lovely group of 4 retired friends from Seattle who took a photo for us! They were very excited to hear that we were on our honeymoon and admired Alice’s rings.

After touring the chateau, we explored the famous gardens of Villandry — these are made up of 6 distinct garden areas (numbered below), which are carefully curated with different themes. The main bedrooms of the chateau look out over the “love gardens” (1), which are made up of 4 squares of flowers and carefully trimmed hedges to create patterns representing tender, fickle, passionate, and tragic love. Next, the woods along the garden lead to a viewpoint, and we walked behind the greenhouse (used to nurture the young plants that are rotated seasonally through the gardens) to the garden area domanated by a lake in the shape of a Louis XV mirror (2). A staircase up the side of a hill led us to the Sun Garden (3) - the newest section of the garden with areas for the blues and purples of the sky, oranges and yellows around a starburst fountain for the sun, and an apple orchard with a children’s playground. Circling back toward the chateau we passed through an English-style hedge maze (4) before reaching the beautiful, colorful corridor of the herb garden (5). Finally, we crossed the main kitchen garden (6), with a rainbow of brightly colored flower beds surrounding squares of individual vegetables that are painstakingly maintained and used by the chateau’s restaurant.

After passing back over the chateau’s moat to the exit, we went to that very same restaurant for lunch! Josh had his best burger of the trip while Alice enjoyed a deliciously light and creamy quiche filled with all sorts of vegetables from the gardens. Alice also got a citrus fruit juice pressed from the gardens’ fruits — it was a wonderful meal with a stunning views.

After lunch, we retrieved our bikes and continued the trek inland, taking the “long route” for the day toward Saché. This is an adorable town famous for the chateau where the French author Balzac did much of his writing. Unfortunately, it’s on much higher ground than Villandry, so this leg of the journey was pedaling mainly uphill! After a final big hill right up into the heart of town, we took a break at the Château de Saché to drink water, rest, and explore the beautiful gardens. The flowers were in full bloom for this warm and sunny first week in May, and the colors were breathtaking. Then, we continued onward to Azay-le-Rideau, our final destination for the day. Overall, our biking was on a mixture of off-road bike paths and country roads with dedicated bike signage. There was one stretch on the way to Azay-le-Rideau with slightly more major roads, but drivers were very accommodating and we made it through without incident!

Arriving in Azay-le-Rideau, we finished our 26 miles of biking for the day at our charming hotel right in the center of this small town. They had a lovely courtyard, very modern rooms, and a dedicated bike storage shed. And our bags were already in our room when we arrived! After checking in, we walked 4 minutes down to the Château de Azay-le-Rideau, or “Alice’s Castle and Future House” as we would soon dub it.

This chateau was incredible! While the buildings at Villandry had a more modern French style with minimal embellishment outside, this chateau had the spires, swirls, and turrets resulting from more Flemish and Italian influences. It also had a majestic entry through beautiful gates and over a bridge, and the whole chateau was surrounded by man-made reflecting lakes and flowering bushes. It is considered one of the models of French Renaissance architecture. Inside, we toured rooms illustrating life in this building starting with its use as a medieval fortress, progressing to its transformation to a “pleasure-palace” (read: country retreat) from 1510-1522 by the Treasurer of France, and finishing with the 19th century additions that gave the chateau its final form.

After finishing at the chateau, we went back to the hotel to change and then went to our complimentary three-course dinner at a small gourmet restaurant by the river. We each started with an herbed zucchini frittata topped with the lightest, creamiest goat cheese we’ve ever tasted (the Loire Valley is known for its distinct goat cheese) and delicious flaky sea salt. We also had wine - both local - with a glass of white for Josh and rosé for Alice. Next, Josh had roast duck in a honey/balsamic sauce with vegetables, while Alice had roast vegetables with black rice. We both especially loved the local white asparagus in these meals and at our previous hotel! For dessert, we shared a strawberry and goat cheese cheesecake as well as a deconstructed baked apple tart. Both were fantastic. We followed dinner with a quick stop to buy ourselves a souvenir (a small bronze sculpture of a bicycle) and a walk along the river. Then it was off to bed to rest up for another full day of biking!

Thursday, May 5

Thursday we awoke in Azay-le-Rideau, packed our bags and left them with the front desk for the tour company, and enjoyed a tasty breakfast of more croissants, cereal, local yogurt (in a tiny glass pot this time!), and goat cheese and brie with fresh bread and honey. Yum! We saddled up and hit the road early, biking past Château de l’Islette for a quick view (one of the rare chateaux that is still actively inhabited by its owners!) and then onward until we hit the river. While we primarily headed west on this trip, at this point we made an out-and-back detour east to Château de Langeais (adding 4 miles in each direction for the “long route” option of the day).

Langeais is tiny, charming town situated directly on the river, and we approached via an amazing (but quite modern) bridge made of stone arches. The chateau itself faced directly onto the street with entrance via an imposing drawbridge. This was the oldest chateau we would see, with parts of the structure dating to around 1000. With its location as a midpoint between Tours and Saumur, this fortress was a point of major rivalry between the counts of Blois and Anjou until it passed into royal possession in 1206. During the Hundred Years’ War, armed bands occupied the fortress until Charles VII bought it in 1428 and ordered it demolished apart from parts of the keep.

The new construction started on this site in 1465 under Louis XI and demonstrates the architectural style in vogue at the time: business in the front (fortified wall, moat, drawbridge) and party in the back (sprawling courtyard lawns viewed through big open windows, as was expected by the royal guests who would stay there, not super defensible). This chateau was the site of the 1491 marriage between Charles VIII and Anne of Brittany, who brought her duchy into the kingdom through the marriage. This is also where they signed the marriage contract that said Anne would marry Charles’ successor if he died before they produced an heir — this is indeed what happened, and Anne married Louis XII.

Walking the gardens to digest all this history, we discovered the oldest castle ruins, a stunning Belvedere (viewpoint) with views of the river, and a hut that has falconry demonstrations! Sadly it was closed. Then back to our bikes and onward, heading west along the river. Several more miles in, we stopped for a bit of fuel, sharing a goat cheese mini-quiche and a beautiful pear tart, then we finished the ride to Ussé.

The road to approach the Château d’Ussé is several miles long, through large flat fields, until suddenly you ride over a small hill and see a fairytale castle magically appear before your eyes. It sits high on a hill with towering spires, a large white wall, and a bridge crossing another tributary river directly in front. It is jaw-dropping, and it was easy to see why this castle inspired the original story of Sleeping Beauty and was used for the story’s illustration (including as the model for the Disney movie and the centerpiece castle of Disneyland in Los Angeles!).

We visited the castle and took a wonderful tour through the Sleeping Beauty exhibit, which takes you up the highest tower and walks you through the ramparts and attics while reading selections from the famous story and viewing beautifully staged, life-sized scenes. We explored the impressive chapel and wine caves, saw an exhibit on carriages in the stables that included one almost small enough for Jackson (intended to be pulled by a hunting dog to amuse the children), and went down a very spooky staircase to see the very old dungeons. After wandering the gardens, we had another small snack of sandwiches and water at the cafe (Alice’s sandwich was just 3 large rounds of goat cheese on a baguette with lettuce - she is not complaining) and saddled up once again.

The ride inland toward Chinon took us from the wildflowers of the riverbanks to miles and miles of vineyards - definitely wine country here! We stopped at Chateau de la Grille, one of the few tourable Loire Valley wineries that is located on its own vineyard (most are located in the temperature-controlled caves and have their associated vineyards several miles away). There, we took a self-guided walk (using their excellent English guide paper) and learned about the vineyard. Now that we had crossed into the Chinon wine region, we were surrounded by Cabernet franc grapes. We learned that 97% of wine produced in Chinon is from red grapes (the Cabernet franc), and the white wines made with chenin blanc are only 3%. During this tasting, we enjoyed 3 red and 3 white wines. Here, we were able to appreciate the difference between wine aged in stainless steel vs oak barrels, and the combined flavor that results from a mixture of the two aging processes. It was very interesting! We also tasted their chenin blanc white wine (with many of the same fruity, acidic notes we had tasted in Vouvray) and compared it with their Sauvignon blanc (made with grapes from a different region, and definitely a more floral taste - Alice learned on this trip she actually doesn’t like Sauvignon blanc very much). It was a great experience!

Finally, we finished our bike trip (30 total miles for the day) into Chinon and checked into our hotel, leaving our bikes locked up in the hotel’s incredibly picturesque, flower-filled courtyard. Then we found a patisserie for a quick eclair - this one had a salted caramel filling that was divine. Next stop: another winery! This one was another troglodyte (cave) winery with a well-interpreted self-guided visit through the caves. At the end, we enjoyed a tasting served by a very friendly woman from England who had moved to France 30 years ago with her French husband. At this location, we again compared white wines made via the same process with chenin blanc vs Sauvignon blanc grapes and again noted the contrast of fruits vs flowers. Then we tried their lovely “perles fines” sparkling wine with the tiny bubbles particular to the Loire area. Next, two rosé wines made with Cabernet franc grapes that were grown on sandy soil (light, fruity flavors) vs denser clay-limestone soil (stronger, more mineral flavors). Then finally, two reds, again from different soil types, with markedly different flavor profiles. By this point, we could identify which wines could be enjoyed as an aperitif, which ones would pair with cheese or seafood, and which were more complex and required a more flavorful meal. We finally felt like sommeliers!

We ate dinner (steak frites for Josh and pasta with zucchini and pine nuts for Alice) in Chinon’s main plaza, and then moved to a small bistro for dessert of crème brûlée and profiteroles to share. Then off to bed! One more day of biking to go.

Friday, May 6

On Friday, we had a more relaxed breakfast in the hotel’s flower-filled courtyard, where we enjoyed an impressive buffet of cheeses and local jams on several types of toast. They also served us fresh, local apple cider. There, we chatted with a lovely couple who moved to France to retire (he is English, she is from Colorado) and who originally met on a bike trip through France!

Our first stop of the day was right in Chinon, at the Forteresse Royal (what they call their chateau). This site, high on a hill overlooking the river, has been occupied for at least 3000 years according to recent archaeological finds. The promontory was first fortified around the year 500, but the oldest part of the existing complex was built in 954 to help protect the royal money workshops there. At the turn of the 12th century, the current complex took shape under the Dukes of Anjou. Then Chinon became part of the holdings of Henry II Plantagenet (King of England) and was a site of at least 20 visits by his court between 1160 and 1180. We climbed the old keep, including hiking down into the prison chamber at its heart that was used to hold several of the Knights Templar arrested for heresy, and hiking below that to find the entrance of an old secret escape tunnel.

After walking back through town to the hotel’s courtyard, stopping at 2 separate patisseries along the way, we each had a delicious mini-quiche (salmon and chive for Josh, vegetables for Alice) with fluffy fillings and flaky crusts, and we shared 2 more eclairs - this time one chocolate and one vanilla. Then we walked next door to one more winery, where we enjoyed a private tour of their caves holding 1.5 million bottles of wine. This winery had the most impressive tasting room setup, and we enjoyed tasting one white and two reds while feeling like kings.

Finally back on our bikes, we set off for a 17-mile first leg of our trek to L’Abbaye Royale de Fontevraud. On the way, we made a single stop, where Alice rested with the bikes and Josh followed a sign to view a “Panorama” (Alice planned to check it out after Josh scoped out the view and came back to watch the bikes). Little did they know, these signs would lead him half a mile straight uphill! 30 minutes later, he returned to Alice and the bikes feeling exhausted from the surprise hike. Alice decided to skip it.

Next stop: L’Abbaye Royale de Fontevraud. This sprawling abbey complex has been home to orders of both nuns and monks since its founding nearly a millennium ago - a rare example of early gender diversity in religious life and overseen by an Abbess! This abbey has had lives as a quiet religious order, a refuge for Queen Elinor of Aquitaine, temporary home to a few royal children, and one of the roughest prisons in France under Napoleon I. It also houses recumbent sculptures of Elinor of Aquitaine, her husband Henri II of England, and their son Richard the Lionheart that were commissioned by Elinor around 1200. It was beautiful and peaceful, and we had a very pleasant snack of (surprise!) more mini-quiches and more eclairs (this time vanilla cream with fresh strawberries) while sitting in the plaza outside.

The stretches of biking both to and from the abbey were the hilliest of our ride - we don’t understand how it was uphill in both directions! By the time we reached the river again, we were ready for a break in the adorable town of Tourquant. There, we stopped to tour a troglodyte apple pressing shop that is the only place in France that still uses the old traditional style of apple press.

In the mid-19th century, an insect plague that originated in the U.S. killed off a huge percentage of the grapevines in the Loire Valley. Therefore, many grape growers started focusing their efforts on growing apples instead. With all these apples, they needed a way of preserving the fruits throughout the winter. They developed a technique of slow-cooking the apples at low enough heat that the nutrients are preserved and then pressing the apples flat using a hand press. The resulting dried apple rounds could be stored for a long time, could be used to prevent scurvy on long boat trips, and can be rehydrated in either local apple cider or wine to create a tasty treat - we tasted both versions and they were great! A unique and special treat.

The final (still uphill! How?!) stretch of biking took us up and into the city of Saumur, where we were greeted with a stunning view of the Château de Saumur. We found our hotel, formally handed in our bikes and equipment, and settled into our lovely, modern room inside the historic old home converted to a hotel. The best part: the view outside our window looked directly up at the chateau!

Exhausted from 105 total miles biked in 4 days (30 of them this afternoon), we walked a short distance to a stretch of restaurants by the river and ate at a burger restaurant. Alice ordered the vegetarian burger, which she thought was a veggie burger patty with vegetables, goat cheese, and goat cheese sauce. It turns out, it was just a large piece of goat cheese with a topping of vegetables and goat cheese sauce on a bun. Delicious, but definitely surprising! Josh successfully ordered a normal burger, and we both enjoyed the best frites of the whole trip. Back at the hotel, we opened our treasured bottle of demi-sec wine from Marc Brédif winery back in Tours and toasted a safe and successful bike trip.

Saturday, May 7

Saturday morning, we slept in and took our time at the hotel’s impressive breakfast. They had wonderful croissants, scrambled eggs, local applesauce, fresh squeezed apple and orange juices, and individual Nutella packets! They also had a setup to hard- or soft-boil your own eggs which we had also seen at a couple of our other breakfasts! We didn’t try it, but it looked fun.

Next we hiked (slowly! And painfully) up the steep hill to the Château de Saumur. The inside has been preserved as a city museum, so we opted to just walk the grounds and the impressive ramparts, getting great city views in the process. We then found a shady bench looking at the chateau and read Agatha Christie short stories together for a very pleasant hour. When the shade disappeared, we walked back down the hill to the Saturday Saumur farmer’s market - a very impressive collection of food, clothes, and foods in stalls that spanned the whole city center! We wandered through the whole market, stopping at a few stalls and acquiring Alice a new pair of flowy pants, and then walked to a quieter street for lunch at a crepe restaurant. We both had galettes (apparently just savory crepes with a slightly darker batter) — Josh’s with corn and cheese and Alice’s with more goat cheese! (Plus walnuts and raisins and salad. Alice may have overdone it a bit with the goat cheese.)

Hoping to sit at the lovely outdoor table and read our books for a while longer, we ordered post-lunch coffees. Josh ordered a cappuccino — the lovely manager who spoke some English told us they don’t have a cappuccino, but they can do “cafe with crème”. Josh said great! Due to a miscommunication with the server, he ended up with a sundae containing three scoops of coffee ice cream, a shot of coffee, and about a pound of whipped cream. Alice successfully ordered a tiny black coffee, and then proceeded to eat most of Josh’s sundae. Yum!

After lunch, we walked a block over to the Combier distillery, where triple sec was invented in the 1800s. Today, they call this original recipe “the original orange liqueur” because the reputation of triple sec has been so diluted by inferior brands. We took a distillery tour which was all in French, but they gave us an English info sheet to read and the guide was wonderful about answering our questions. And when we asked how much the tour costs, they said “nothing for you, because you won’t understand it anyway.” Free French tour! Highlights of the tour included learning about the triple distillation process that defines triple sec (or “triple dry”), seeing the still-functing copper distilling vats, and admiring the painted scaffolding that holds their distilling equipment that was built by Mr. Eiffel of Eiffel Tower fame! Eiffel met Mr. Combier on a boat to visit America, tasted his triple sec liquer, and volunteered to help out. It was such a cool story to hear.

This was all topped by the tasting itself. We tried the original triple sec with its bright orange flavor, the “Combier Elixir” with 15 herbs, and the “Royal Combier” which combines these two flavors. Then we tried their strawberry liquer, their gin, and their coffee liquer with notes of chocolate. Every single one was fantastic. The strawberry was the runaway winner, but tragically it’s not yet available in the US! And our carry-on luggage wouldn’t permit us to bring it home — something we will be sure to remedy on our next trip to France!

After the distillery, we headed back to the hotel and spent a couple relaxing hours enjoying the outdoor pool and hot tub with views of the chateau, reading our books and reflecting on the absolutely perfect weather we had every day in France. Still somewhat full from lunch and having not biked the length of a marathon to get our appetites up, for dinner we found a quiet outdoor table and shared a pizza, a caprese salad, and a final side of French frites. Then we scooped up a few macarons from a shop and went back to the hotel where we shared the rest of our bottle of wine, the macarons, and a few of the remaining bonbons from our chocolate class in Paris. Then, bon nuit France! An early night because we had a train the catch in the morning.

Sunday, May 8

Today, we woke up bright and early to walk to the train station for a 7:30am first leg of our trip. As we checked out of the hotel they were just setting up breakfast and we could smell warm pastry dough — Alice begged for a croissant to go and the lovely concierge let her take one for the road. It was wonderful.

We had an uneventful two-part train to Paris (with a coffee break during the layover), and then walked from the Paris train station to the metro that would bring us to the airport. Close to the metro entrance, we found a lovely brasserie that was just starting their Sunday brunch service, and we decided to make our last meal in France special. The brunch included choices of coffee, pastry, juice, eggs, mini burgers(!), and a sweet. Josh had a coffee with créme, pain au chocolat, orange juice, omelette, salmon burger, and brioche French toast. Alice had an espresso, croissant, orange juice, omelette, veggie burger, and pancake. Every piece was delicious and the portions were reasonable. We ended the meal very content. Then a metro to the airport and a flight to Dublin! Check out the Dublin page to learn about the final leg of our wonderful trip.

Total Miles Biked: 105

Total Chateaux Visited: 9

Total Croissants Eaten: 27

Total Crepes Eaten: 10

Total Wineries Toured: 4 (plus the troglodyte apple press and distillery)

Total Wines Tasted: 32 (plus 7 liqueurs)