I slept really well, despite being woken in the night by high winds, which left me worried about pitching the tent so high to aid ventilation. I quickly tightened the guys and made sure nothing could blow around in the porch. While cooking breakfast I noticed “the couple” waving at me from some strange hire tent on legs – the chances of us hitting the same site are a bit spooky. I’d first spotted then just after Ancenis, when I popped out of a mountain bike track in front of them three days before, and something like 180 km. Anyway after they left I haven’t seen them (today). There was one other bike parked around the bike hut, and I’d been chatting to the British owner yesterday. He was on his fourth day (of a month tour to Spain), never been on a cycle tour before and only ever really cycled to work and back. He had just started really enjoying his trip. Overcoming the fears about the bike breaking or finding it too hard. I remembered four days into my Finish trip from Inari to Utsjoki when I spent the whole day overcome by the whole experience (in a good way).

Anyway I packed up and got away later than usual but was expecting an easy 80km day to Amboise mostly along routes I knew. First suprise is that the village I’d been staying in, had an old part with a magnificent abbey. The route crossed the river and wound across farm land with occasional views of Chinon Nuclear Power station. The distance markers really were confused with it seeming possible to lose up to 5km while never leaving the route, the signsposts seemed pretty random. There was quite a headwind at times and I had to get down on the drops to avoid the worst of it. I’d seen quite a few recumbent bikes in the last few days which must really help in headwinds (and comfort), but they always look awkward – today, an old boy on a really heavily laden one came the other way and just clattered over the lumps and bumps as your legs can’t do any shock absorbing.

A strange thing is that I never usually notice the wind, unless it is a headwind. I’m oblivious to a tailwind but based on the pain of a headwind, it must be a real assistance..

There was a very fast stretch along the levee (tailwind or super human effort?), with a good surface got me to Brehemont, to buy a sandwich and cake, and eat the croissants I’d bought earlier. It was heating up, and while I had a filled a water bladder in one of my panniers as a reserve, I thought I would check out the cemetery/tap situation. I had full success all day, with only one aborted search due to the size of the cemetery – it could have taken a long time to search the whole cemetery for the tap.

The route started to get near familiar territory, first with Langeais, where there wasn’t a good view of the chateaux from the south bank, but I didn’t cross over the river to see it as I knew there were more chateaux to come. Next was Vilandry, it was quite busy and I know from experience the gardens are fantastic. I found a bench outside in the shade, watched the tourists and ate my previously bought sandwich. The route then headed into Tours, the path lead through a mini golf course and into a park. The park was just a ribbon of green which seems to follow a river, but I thought it had a really nice feel. It had many types of gardens and was being used by many varied groups of people, including evidence of a recent colour run. The path popped me out right by the Tours open air swimming pool. I’ve visited it before and its a lovely pool, I was very tempted as it was another hot day, but with 35km still to do I decided to push on. The last few times I have visited Tours, the whole of the town had been a construction site with a tram being built. It was really good to see the trams working – and looking unusual in their chrome plate livery.

There was a cycleway all through town, it was just hard trying to second guess where it was going to go next, so had to stop at each turn or slowly sharing paths with pedestrians. Eventually made it out and continued on the south bank (this meant missing out on Lulu Park, the Guinguette, Vouvray and the troglodyte dwellings – I recommend them all except Lulu Park). I was getting close to Amboise, and my anticipated 80 km day was touching 100km, so the route kicked up into the vineyards for bit more exercise. I got into Amboise about 5:00 and shopped before going to the campsite. The small shop didn’t have any meths (or Alcohol a Brulee as the French call it), so I bought a cold tea. While I was in the town, a huge parade of vintage (?) Suzuki two strokes motorcycles went past. There must have been around 100 bikes including quite a few GT750s, a mad machine. Back in the day a friend had one – a triple cylinder, water cooled two stroke that were nicknamed “Kettles” for their ability to boil water! The two stroke noise was immense and the air was filled with blue two stroke fumes, ahh the good old days!

I was expecting the campsite to be busy as it was a weekend and in a prime spot (on an island right opposite the chateaux), but it was really quiet, and it also had lots “tent only spaces” (ie no cars) when things get busy. Only €7 but no toilet paper!