Beautiful Beaugency

It was certainly a relief to wake up to much cooler conditions. Although there was no sign of rain, the temperature had dropped at least 10 or more degrees from those we had been experiencing for the past few days. Not only had the weather blessed us with more more benign cycling conditions, but today's ride could have been the shortest of the entire trip.

On paper the distance from Orleans to Beaugency is only around 30 km, a mere doddle for hardened cycling athletes like us. However, we we studied the route map, the planners had decided to introduce some extra detours, presumably just to bring the total distance up to a more respectable total. I was somehow reminded of that Grand old Duke of York who apparently gained pleasure from marching his men up and down the same hill, just for sake of it.

Back in 2015 this same ride has now gone down in annals of infamy for being one of the foulest days we have ever spent on our bicycles. On that occasion it rained non stop, the temperatures plummeted to near zero and, just to add some extra misery, we had at least 5 punctures. It was not a pleasant day. When we arrived at the hotel, we were not only frozen and soaked to the skin, but the luggage had not arrived yet, so we had no dry clothes to change into. So what did we do ? You woul dhave to ask one of the participants of that ill fated ride. Needless to say that there is truth in the saying that "desperate times demand desperate measures".

This year it was evident that no such desperate measures would be required. The cycling was absolutely idyllic. The scenery was lovely and the cooler conditions meant that we could cruise along effortlessly. Not only was the cycling amazing, but somehow David managed to find us the best Boulangerie of the entire trip. The place was a veritable cake eater's paradise, complete with a vast array of sweet somethings AND a working coffee machine. To make matters even better, it had a toilet. The elusive trifecta.

Somewhere along we also stopped at another old church to admire the unbelievable acoustics of the place, They certainly did not need microphones and speakers to fill the place with echoing sound.

Tim and I rode into Beaugency around 1pm and enjoyed a lovely lunch at one of the eateries. The rest of the team had stopped about 8 km earlier to visit a castle. After lunch it was only a couple of minutes to our hotel - L'Ecu de Bretagne, a very comfortable place that I remembered well from my previous rides along this route.Read more