My wife and her parents have discussed spending a week pootling around/up and down / near the Loire*, sometime in May-ish.

before we make too many decisions, does anyone have any advice for location / accomodation?

ta!

(*it sounds nice, the area is easily accessed from Portsmouth)

Its a great area for riding, particularly those who want a leisurely experience. the river side cycle ways are being given a really big push by local councils We’ve (a group of mates who ride all over the continent) been to Saumur several times. Plenty of places to stay and the ability to ride to places and catch the train back.

If you can go at the end of June there is the Anjou Velo Vintage event (google it). We went last year and there was so much going on in a retro styleeeee that the riding almost got in the way. We’re going again and taking the wifes this time! You get to ride with people like Joop Zoetemelk and Bernard Thevenet and they talk to you as normal people. Food, wine, jazz, music and bikes. Can’t recommend it enough!

We’ve stated at some excellent places from this website in Chablis and Burgandy after it was recommended to us by someone who uses it for the Loire regularly.

Sawday website

As for trails the local tourist offices have VTT route maps although frustratingly they are generally not online. The VTT France website sometimes has them scanned in.

Look for Loire a Velo online for maps of the cycle routes.

had a holiday with Loire Valley breaks, cycling was good fun, we were a family so riding plans were tailored to that, but the choices were near endless – for a pooling location it was great..

Went to the Loire with my wife a couple of years ago, northern reaches from Blois to about Angers. Was nice, but felt a bit disappointed with the area. Plenty of beautiful Chateaus and many towns were picturesque, but found the cycling a bit uninspiring and the river and surrounds were a little industrial, but not in a nice way. Can’t comment on further upstream, but not the romantic place i had imagined. that said, Amboise and Chinon are both great places and the wine is brilliant.. worth visiting one of the many wine caves. PLenty of marked cycle routes too, mostly flat with the odd steep climb up to and through the vineyards.

Cycled the Rhine north of Frankfurt this year and that was kind of what i expected of the Loire (castles, scenery, vineyards etc)

The Rhine between Frankfurt and Koblenze is a nice ride, and then going from Koblenze to Trier is much the same only with some nicer small towns and villages on route.

We followed the Rhine to the North Sea, gets a bit more industrial beyond Koln but still somehow attractive. Landscape changes from Gorges, to vineyards, to big(ish) cities, to industrial landscapes to open flat flood plains. in comparison the Loire was just flattish farm land and vineyard on repeat. Towns were nice, but again a bit repetitive in character, preferred the Normandy section of my French ride.

Worth checking while in the loire though, is that the first Sunday of the month some of the chateau and museums are free to enter. not sure if it is all or some each month, but worth a bit of research.