Walk: 2km; total: 180km
No sleeping in this morning, almost up before the sun! We were having breakfast about 6:30am and were on the road at 7:40am. Greg and done a route recon last night during his walk which made really simple this morning. Basically we turned right out of the hotel right onto our bike path. It was a great way to start the day, 1.7km downhill. The Loire path today was varied from smooth bitumen and concrete, to potholed dirt, and everything in between. The best path was on the top of a levee; the km klicked by with ease. The breeze was sometimes behind us, sometimes in our faces, but most of the day it was fairly well non-existent. We stopped regularly for photos, water, mornos and lunch breaks and arrived at our hotel, Aparthotel Adagio Access Orleans just before 3pm (hotel check-in time). We have a nice room, #304, with a kitchenette, a kingsize bed, Wi-Fi (advertised as high-speed but it couldn’t even download all the emails - we’ll see) and breakfast included.
Mornos was had beside the path using infrastructure especially built for the Loire à Velo path. It was also adjacent the Saint Laurent nuclear power plant. As we were riding past the plant we heard what we thought may have been an alarm, however there were no people rushing around and we weren’t told to move on, so we enjoyed our stop. It was probably just the morning tea signal.
Onwards we travelled to Beaugency where we had lunch on a park bench adjacent a car park. Greg went for a wander up the hill to check out the church and other sites. We stopped again at Meung-sur-Loire for a cold drink and a pit stop. Last stop for the day was at Saint Pryvé-Saint Mesmin just to use up some time before arriving at the hotel. It was a very peaceful setting apart from an outside diner telling everyone his story, whether they wanted to hear it or not. From there it was only another 10km to the hotel, but it still took us 45 minutes due to traffic and having to stop at lights, etc.
After checking-in, we unpacked slowly, then Greg went for a walk to try and find the tourist info centre in town, almost 2km away. However, he got sidetracked and decided we could do it in the morning. He did find the Japanese restaurant he and Bob dined at in 2019, and we will give it a go tomorrow night. The problem with dining out is that the places only open at 7pm, and when you’re tired from a long ride or doing the tourist thing, the last thing you want to do is wait for 7pm to even start ordering dinner.
We visited our go-to supermarket for dinner supplies, and were all done by 6:30pm, including the dishes.
An old disused bridge in the middle of nowhere
Nice, the first 10km or so was just lovely
A copybook crop of wheat near Suèvres
The cooling towers of Saint Laurent Nuclear Power Plant, the newest reactors have been in use since 1983 and have a unit power of 915 MW. The first two reactors, which are still there, were put into production in 1969 and 1971 and closed down in 1990 and 1992.
Mornos stop
B1 and B2 and the water cooling towers
Notre Dame de Beaugency
The surviving tower of Saint Fermin Church (11th Century) demolished during the revolution
Joan of Arc
Beaugency street
Artificial tree on a communications tower
Afternoon rest stop
Bridge coming into Orleans
Our room, #304
And old house on our dinner acquisition walk
