A Train to Orleans

This morning the weather in Paris turned a litle cooler as a thunderstorm broke the run of hot days, just at the same time as we were due to leave our hotels and begin the journey to Orleans. Initially we all got a little drowned, but that actually felt like fun. We said that Paris was crying because the Ghostriders were leaving.
A short walk with our bags to St George Metro and a couple of train changes brought us to the huge station at Austerlitz. We climbed aboard a long train and were somewhat surprised that no one asked to see our tickets (in fact they were not checked for the entire trip).

The train was only sparsely filled so we had plenty of room to spread out and enjoy the very fast trip down to Orleans, where we arrived a little over an hour later. Our hotel was only about 1.5 km from the station so it would have been a waste of money to use taxis. Instead, we all lined up into a long line of suitcase rolling tourists and walked the entire distance. This gave us a good chance to see the city along the way. We are now at our hotel, right on the banks of the Loire River and we were excited to get the first glimpse of this impressive waterway that will be the central theme of our riding for the next 16 days. Later in the day our bikes were delivered to the hotel and we spent some time getting them adjusted to suit. All agreed that they were comfortable and easy to ride.

Tomorrow, we get underway at last on our odyssey to the Atlantic Coast.Read more