Tours to Orleans...& back

I’m not sure how I did this, but I managed to get Orléans and Tours in the wrong order: stayed at the latter first, which meant retracing my route from there to here and then back again as I head out to Poitiers.

Can’t think what I was about when I did that. I’m sitting here looking at the order in which I stopped at various places in ’79, and it’s as clear as can be: Fôret de Rambouillet, Chartres, Orléans, Blois, Tours. Somehow in my conversations with Amex travel I lost the plot in those first bookings.

It’s annoying, because of the extra car time; but I’m chalking it down to the entire Emerald City experience.

It’s Seattle, Jake.

Still, I’m here now, and it’s not a bad thing to go up and down the Loire Valley a couple of times.

Today I was on one of the smaller routes (Jill keeps trying to get me on the Péage, the toll highway. Back in ’79 at the Bordeaux Auberge de Jeunesse, I was talking with another American girl about how we each had started down one of the ramps to a Péage before we were honked off by drivers. Bikes not allowed. We referred to them as “plagues”.)

Well, Jill just wants me on the Plagues and she’s a terrible nag if you ignore her.

At one point I told her to get stuffed and proceeded to go in exactly the wrong direction on my own. However, I got some great shots of the Loire just west of Tours.

My signature shots happen to be fountains and bridges. And I’m the queen of the hand-held. (Back in ’79 I took a night picture of a lighted fountain on the Champs Elysées, and then stood in the middle of an intersection to get one of the Arc de Triomphe.)

I also go for things that amuse me.

Some samples from Friday and yesterday:


Michelin man perching on a news stand. Note added decoration in groin area.


Bridge over branch of the Loire at Langeais


Some sort of construction project, Tours.

I’ve got to say that having a car—with or without Jill—is both more complicating & somewhat less enjoyable than being on a bike. Sure, you’re dry and warm, if you want to be. and there’s more room for stuff. But you’re also more regimented. It’s not so easy to just pull to the side of the road if you want to explore something, especially if someone’s riding your tailpipe.

Plus—it’s harder to see stuff from a car. Even at 50km/hour you’re moving too fast, especially in cities, to really know what’s there around you. And then there are those cars crawling up your tailpipe. When you’re on a bike, you’re colder (or hotter), but if something catches your eye, you just pull aside and go investigate.

Also, I’ll confess that I have to fight my California heritage of wanting to just get there, to lay on the speed and just do it. It’s a constant struggle, and Jill doesn’t help by continually sending me to the Plagues. (Why don’t they make a sat-nav that adapts to your obvious preferences? Or at least allows you to tell it NO PLAGUES!?) But then I get on one of the D-roads and start chafing behind someone SLOW.

And this is part of the reason I’m on this trip—to slow down. Speeding got my route mixed up when booking hotels and speed got me to accept that job in Seattle. Speed is not all it’s cracked up to be.

(No puns intended, actually.)

And having a car makes city navigation very anxiety-producing. Even with Jill. In fact, I spent about an hour trying to get to my hotel this afternoon, because Jill kept directing me to take an exit that was blocked because it’s a pedestrian zone. And I couldn’t get her to give me a different way to approach, she kept sending me there. Finally I had to park illegally (in a handicapped space, no less) and walk around trying to find the hotel on foot. It eventually got sorted, but it was way more troublesome than if I’d just been on a bike.

Once in a city, of course, it’s not too hard to walk it. Yesterday I put on more than 11000 steps on my pedometer. And it’s a lot more enjoyable to be out in the place, not catching a glimpse of it from a glass-&-fabricated substance box.

Speaking of which, it’s time for me to get out and about. By the time I got in yesterday I’d missed the cathedral hours. And this is a special cathedral—where Jeanne la Pucelle gathered strength before leading the Dauphin’s army out to drive the English and Burgundians away. And Jeanne is special to me.

More later.

(Posted at 0738 Orléans time, Sunday 22 novembre)