Day 8 - to Bassay (120km)

The plan today had been to look around Orleans in the morning an to go for a shorter ride in the afternoon. We started the day by walking into the city centre for breakfast, coffee and orange juice before looking around the cathedral. In the end, we decided against a tour of the (1960/70s) reproduction of Joan of Arc's house, which was awarded to her by the city after she rescued it from the English in the 100 years war. Before checking out of our hotel, to avoid further instances of booked-out hotels, we booked the evening's accommodation further down the Loire valley.

The route today took us away from the châteaus by the river, which by now is getting quite wide and shallow, and instead follows the “Canal lat. a la Loire” - i.e. the canal built to allow the flow of boats along the path of the Loire, despite the silted up river.

The highlight of the day was the Pont Canal at Briare – a beautifully decorated bridge which carries the canal over the Loire river. We enjoyed a sorbet each as the boats passed over the river. It was already quite late in the day that we reached here – Simon had (again) underestimated distances and, despite the plan to cycle a 'half day', we actually managed 120km by the time we reached the hotel overlooking the canal at Bassay.

We had another great French dinner, entertained by the owners 1 or 2 year old son, Rafael, who danced for us in his high chair. Our main disappointment for the day was the fact that the hotel's
WiFi was not working – we were forced instead to watch a repeat of NCIS dubbed in French.