Late addition: May 23rd Ballan Mire, Tours to Chambord

Here is a late addition that slipped through the net:

May 23^rd Ballan Mire, Tours to Chambord  78 kms

The main thing this morning was getting away from the camp site early enough to avoid the rush hour traffic in Tours. This I succeeded in doing but, in any case, I think I would have been all right because the cycle path into Tours was excellent, passing through parkland and by ornamental water, and even the long 5km avenue into the city centre had a facility of sorts for cyclists, though its efficiency was somewhat restricted by road works. 

The centre of Tours, itself, was surprisingly traffic free and it was quite a pleasure for once to be able to  cycle freely and enjoy the cathedral and some of the mediaeval streets. The biggest hazard was the students going to school round the back of the cathedral, a beautiful setting, although they didn’t appear to appreciate it, lounging on the lower stonework of the impressive building, doing the usual things that school students do, and catching a last few minutes of freedom before they checked in through the very serious iron gate which seemed to be the main entrance to the school.

Even the D751 was not so bad once I had found the excellent cycle track to Montlouis-sur Loire (before that it was a death trap) and after Montlouis, ignoring the Eurovelo recommended route, I made very fast time on the 751 as far as Amboise, a lively cosmopolitan sort of place.   The expansive green banks of the Loire at Chaumont, 40 minutes later provided a comfortable lunch stop, and it was there that we decided that tomorrow I would take what I hope will be a short cut, cross country to Sancerre, thus gaining an important day of lost time. After Tours I had no desire to take on Orleans, and in any case we wanted to see the chateau of Chambord, supposedly the model for Royal Holloway College of London University with which we have

 some acquaintance, so we left the Loire and headed through pleasant villages to a campsite near Chambord. There was just time to walk in the grounds of the chateau  in the evening light. I must say I found the building overly ostentatious, unharmonious, almost ugly;  not a patch, in my opinion, on Villandry which we saw yesterday, though I admit I am not a good judge.

Today was marked mostly by passing the 1000 kms mark. Pleasant warm weather, some wind and apart from the immediate environs of Tours relatively little traffic. 

78 kms.  

Total since Galway 1062 kms.