11: Lunch in Loches

Our room was HUGE, with table and chairs and enough space for both of us to spread out our stuff. The Manoir is a 16^th century estate that has been converted into a 5-room chamber d’hôte and has a wonderful atmosphere.

Breakfast was exceptional in the fact that it featured no less than 18 different kinds of homemade jams, made from the fruit and vegetables harvested in the property’s extensive gardens. We sat at a large table with the other (mostly British) guests.

[map style="width: 300px; height:300px; float:left; margin:10px 20px 0px 0px; border: 1px thin #777777;" gpx="http://saras-bike-travels.de/wp-content/uploads/gpxFiles/20130902_day10_reduced.gpx"] After breakfast we drove into the village and parked the car and from there and rode on the véloroute de l'Indre to Loches. The route was far from ugly but way less than spectacular and involved lots of hills, never my favorite.

After arriving in Loches we found an outdoor café and took an early lunch of crispy salad topped with chicken and strips of bacon - yum. We worked off our lunch by pushing our bikes up through the steep and narrow streets of the old town to the medieval fortress. I visited the grave of Agnes Sorel (King Charles VII’s mistress and the cause of the demise of Jacques Coeur) and then we drank cokes and wrote postcards.

For the route back we decided take a more direct route via the secondary road along the river Indre. This turned out to be a good choice - the road was not too heavily traveled, was more direct and due to the fact that it ran more along the river, more scenic.

Dinner was another of our famous picnics.