A family bike trip through the Loire Valley, Part 1

Castles, food, and gorgeous landscapes

Castle Chambord

A 4-day bike ride through France’s famed Loire Valley promised to be a big adventure for our family. Though we are all bike riders to some measure, we had never done a tour like this with our two teenage children.

Fortunately, the Loire Valley offers moderately easy terrain, spectacular views, an embarrassment of castles, and the good food you’d expect from this region. While there are countless companies that will book the whole tour for you, we opted to cobble together our own route and accommodations. For those who wish to follow in our wake, here is our itinerary.

Day 1

A little picnic in Blois before getting our bikes.

We started off in the town of Blois, where we parked our car for the weekend in an underground garage. (cost: €27). From there, we walked to Detours de Loire, where we had reserved bikes for four days for five people (our nephew Peter had flown in to join us).

Five bikes, helmets, packs, and emergency kits cost us €430. The nice thing about Detours de Loire, aside from the friendly and helpful staff, is that they have several shops around the region. So you don’t necessarily have to find a way to cart your bikes back from your final stop.

From Blois, we headed northeast where we found the route mostly flat, an easy start for our first 17 km that would take us to the legendary Chambord.

While it’s tempting to seek out places off the well-trod tourist path, it’s also sometimes worth checking out the mainstream ones. Chambord is magnificent and worth a day or more to see the entire site. That includes 90 rooms in the Renaissance-era chateau and the 5440 hectares that surround it, including a little village with shops and various restaurants. The cost for five tickets is €39.

Domaine Chambord

We spent just over half a day at Chambord because we still had 20 km of biking ahead of us to get to our sleeping quarters that night. Riding southwest, we encountered some minor ascents, up and down about 50 meters or so. Nothing severe, but we were definitely worn out when we arrived at le Chateau de Troussay.