Biking Down the Loire Valley - The Sixth Day

Left early – 7:30 – it was supposed to be at 7, but I overslept!  Did not attempt breakfast that morning, but went to a lovely patisserie in a river-side village down the road a ways and had coffee and pastry.  Pain au chocolat for me.

Taking a Break

The terrain was mostly flat, along the river or canal, with the weather getting a bit cooler as we got closer to the Atlantic.  Lots of back roads and trails, and villages, with a good deal of head wind as we approached the sea.

At the end we were faced with a spectacular narrow bridge over the mouth of the Loire to get to St Nazaire.  We investigated a bit and one could hire people with a trailer to take us and our bikes over the bridge, or find a bus stop and wait for a bus with a bike rack.  In the end we decided to go for it. 



THE BRIDGE!

Tom and David  After The Bridge

 

Roger and Tom After The Bridge

It was a pretty scary ride – VERY narrow bike lane, side winds, and lots of traffic for 2+ miles.  I allowed myself to follow too close to Tom and had to stop.  There was not much room to get back on, so I walked up about a quarter mile until I was near the top and could see a break in the traffic.  At this point I quickly remounted and managed to get to the other side.  We then headed for the SNCF station in the center of town to get our train tickets for Blois for the next day. 

We headed off to find our hotel and wound up getting a bit lost, but managed to see a bit of St Nazaire that way.  We checked into our hotel, put our bikes in the garage, and headed off for a celebratory drink in an outdoor mall a few blocks away.  While at the brasserie I scouted out restaurants in the vicinity.  We then headed back to the hotel to get cleaned up, change clothes, and went out to eat. 

To our surprise, when we came out of the hotel on our way to dinner, the clouds and fog had rolled in off the ocean and the temperature had dropped about 10 degrees F.  We had dinner at the Rialto, an Italian restaurant with a covered outdoor eating area.  I had what amounted to a steak with shallot sauce and a shared bottle of local sparkling wine.  Very good.  Profiteroles for dessert.

Le Rialto - Where We had our Celebratory Dinner Friday

We did 81 km Friday