Wednesday.  David planned a grand adventure for today.   We got up early and walked to the train station and took the 8:16 a.m. train to Tours.  We arrived in Tours around 9:00.  We left the train station and walked about a block to a company called Detours de Loire to rent bikes.  They have a network of shops along the Loire River to rent bikes, repair bikes, and help cyclists in general in their trips along the river.  David planned for us to ride on the Loire River bike path about 21 km which he says is about 13 miles one way. The owner of the bike store told us how to get from his store to the path but we weren't successful at first.  Although Tours has wonderful bike lanes, being there for the first time we were watching for trams, cars, pedestrians and a large number of bike riders.  Needless to say, there was a lot of sensory overload as we weaved our way through many moving obstacles.  

At one point we stopped to check our map and to get a second opinion.  I asked a passer-by if he spoke English.  He replied "Yes, parle Anglais" and chuckled.  Turns out he is Australian and was visiting France with his wife who was currently attending a language immersion class.  His name is Cliff and we had a nice chat with him.  He and David studied the map and agreed we were where we thought we were.  We followed David's good instincts and met up with the bike path soon thereafter.  

What a wonderful bike path!!!!  David said while riding through the tall corn stalks, the sun flowers and things we couldn't even identify that he felt like he was on his way to see the Wizard of Oz.

The forecast was for sun and temperatures in the 80s, but for most of the ride we had high clouds creating filtered sunshine which made for very mild temperatures.  We even had breezes throughout the ride.  Perfect bike riding weather!  We couldn't believe that for long periods of time we were the only riders on the path.  Occasionally we would see a runner or a rider or two.  Most of the day we felt like it was our private bike path!

Our goal of the ride was to visit the Chateau de Villandry.  I was very excited to see it.  As we turned off the bike path to head into the Chateau complex we could not wait to get something to eat and drink as we did not have breakfast before we left home and only had one bottle of water each -- we should have planned better.  There were a number of choices of restaurants but one drew us in offering pizza and salad.  It was called L'Orangerie and there were a few other people eating there at the time and their food looked really good.  And best of all they had a clean bathroom!

David had pizza with mushrooms and olives and I had mine with chorizo sausage.  Both pizzas were outstanding.  We drank a ton of water and had Coke Light and canned Nestea.  It was a terrific break for our butts too!!!

After lunch we walked about an eighth of a mile to the Chateau.  

Since it was getting late in the day we decided to only tour the gardens.  Cliff mentioned he thought the gardens there were the most beautiful he had seen.  David has traveled to many places in the world as have I and we agreed with Cliff.  Below are some pictures.

We wished we had had more time to spend there but we are thinking about taking our friends, Kema and Steve, there when they visit us next week.  And we had to think about heading back to Tours to turn in our bikes.  We knew it would be about a two hour ride and, of course, Tours traffic would be changing with people getting off of work.

The ride back to Tours was lovely.  We saw large fields of sunflowers that were past their prime but we imagined what they must have looked like when they were in bloom!  They look a little sad here.

Especially next to the other field which was in bloom!

We arrived back in Tours around 4:30 and returned our rental bikes.  By the way, the bikes were excellent!!!  I hate to admit this but I was extremely grateful I worked out a lot before this trip!  

We walked back to the train station, stopping once to buy very expensive bottles of water!  But we needed them so . . . .  We took the 4:58 p.m. train and arrived back at our train station around 5:50 or so.  By then we had ridden about 35 miles on the bikes and spent the entire day outdoors.  We were pretty tired -- at least I was -- so we took a taxi home from the train station.  

It was the most wonderful day and I love that David arranged everything for us!  Believe me, we went to bed very, very early.