Suggestions for Tours (the City, Valle de la Loire)

You will want to go to Old Tours (Vieux Tours) which is on the north side of the city, near the university, and just south of la Loire. Within Old Tours, visit Place Plumereau which has cafés, restaurants, and an abundant nightlife. There are also restaurants just to the east on rue Colbert.

Other areas of Tours are not of interest to tourists.

Tours has a museum that is unique in France. It houses the masterworks that a journeyman (nowadays woman, too) submits in order to be admitted to a craft guild after many, many years of study and apprenticeship. https://www.museecompagnonnage.fr/en

"Other areas of Tours are not of interest to tourists"

Of course it depends what the tourists are interested in. Along with the Musée de Compagnonnage (mentioned by Bets) the Cathedral is magnificent, the Musée des Beaux-Arts (with its Roman Walls) has some really good stuff, and the oldest buildings in Tours are all outside Vieux Tours (which is mainly rebuilt late mediaeval).

The Guinguette on the banks of the Loire is pretty good too.

Merci a tous.

We rode our rented ebikes (Velo Voyageur, self guided tour) from Amboise to Tours today.

We stopped for a wine tour, wine tasting and a bottle at Caves de Vouvray and then proceeded down the Loire right past the Guinguette where we did not stop. If we had some five year-olds with us, we might have. The long parkway along the north bank of the Loire was lovely as we approached Tours.

Thanks to some of your suggestions, we have just returned from an aperol at Place Plumereau! Merci.

The Cathedrale St. Gatien is pretty impressive and the Jardin des Prebendes d'Oe was very pleasant. The Hotel de Ville is an impressive building, just kitty-corner to where Velo Voyaguer booked us. The Musee du Compagnonage looks interesting; perhaps we might stop there tomorrow.

Again, thanks for your suggestions. We might never have found our way to Place Plumereau without your assistance. C'est tres jolie!

Weather today reached 82 - but in the sun it sure felt hotter. The shade and the breeze off the river is a wonderful relief.

PS - We also went to Les Halles. The more I see of markets in France, the more impressed I am with the Pike Place market in Seattle ... though today we did see a salmon entremet at Les Halles that looked like nothing I had ever seen.

Don't forget the Musée des Beaux-arts next to the cathédrale and say hello to Fritz!

Fred, how was that bike ride to Tours?
Well marked? Flat? Interesting? Was the winery right on the way?

My 25 year old and I are planning to rent e-bikes and ride from Tours to Amboise and back again later this month.

Thank you!

The Guinguette you cycled past was Rochecorbon. The Tours Guinguette is on the south bank of the river near Pont Wilson

kkmintz - There appear to be many well marked routes in the Loire. Quality of the route we took, from Blois to Amboise via Chaumont (Day 1), then a loop to Chenonceaux and back to Amboise (Day 2), then to ...
... Tours (YES, with a winery tour in Vouvray, about 1/2 mile detour from the main track) (Day 3).

...Azay le Rideau, via Villandry (Day 4)
... Chinon, via Chateau Usse (Day 5)
and finally Saumur (Day 6)
was a little variable. Mostly flat or gentle slopes, mostly but not entirely paved. Pavement was mostly, but not always, decent.

Little traffic, lovely towns, nice markets, fantastic chateaux, relatively few Americans except in Amboise. Ideal weather in May. June will be warmer.

As for Amboise, I would say that the Chateau Luce was far more interesting and charming that the larger, commanding Royal Chateau in the heart of town.

Throughout our Loire trip, we had lovely hotels; self guided tour by Velo Voyageur. Reasonable cost. MUCH BETTER bikes from their contractor in the Loire than from their contractor in the Dordogne.

Hello Fred

I sent you a direct message. Did you get it?

Jeannette

Hi Fred,

I expect you are back home by now. I followed the difficulties you had with BA. To the airline's credit they seem to respond to claims very well. We had a wheel broken on a spinner suitcase a few months ago. We claimed and after giving them a copy of an invoice they credited our account.
Anyway I hope it's ok to ask you a question at this point. I haven't been able to figure out what kind of insurance I need for such a trip with a rental bike. What did you do for insurance? Did the bike shop provide it?
Also I can't see the trip you did on their site. I see Blois to Angers but not Blois to Saumur. Was your trip customized?

Thanks
Jeannette

Jeanette

We took Days 4 though 9 out of the Velo Voyageur 14 or 15 day Orleans to the Atlantic tour. They were happy to schedule that. That gave us six days of cycling (Days 4,5,6,7,8 and 9), plus the bookend nights, for 7 nights. If possible, I'd suggest you get to Blois early in the day; we failed to do that. Our only 2 night stay was Amboise, so we could do a loop ride to Chenonceaux. Should you want 7 days of riding, you could take in another chateau than we found time for ... Chambord, for example ... and ask them to book a second night at Blois, perhaps. As it was, we visited many chateaux: Chaumont, Chateau Royale (Amboise), Luce (DaVinci's final home), Chenonceaux, Villandry, Fortresse Chinon, and Usse.

We did not insure this. The whole issue of insurance is mind boggling. We did insure some of our travel, but not this. Nor did we insure health care, given what I have heard about health care in France and our own supplemental plans. I figured we were unlikely to get charged if we needed health care in France and I was hoping that if we did (which I did not expect), then I would argue with our supplemental carrier here. Who knows? But it was not an issue.