During my summer vacation to France I spent a week on a cycling tour organized by my friend Sue at The Physical Life. It was a fantastic trip in all respects. Super-organized, really nice hotels (mansions!), great food, and a good group of people to be around. Here are some photos from the week of cycling through the sunflower fields in the Loire Valley....
Off to a good start. After being picked up by Sue in the van, we headed to our first hotel. It was raining the first day but that didn't stop Sue and Julien (the other guide) from putting on a fantastic "traditionally French" themed lunch for us.
A typical setup outside the hotel in the morning. A snack table where we can load up with trail mix and our favorite snacks for the day while Sue and Julien get the bikes ready.
Did I mention that in France at the fancy restaurants there is a whole course devoted to cheese? This is someone's plate (not mine I don't think?) for the cheese course for dinner the first night. Yes this is what was chosen from the gigantic cheese platter. Wow.
We were cycling in areas with lots of sunflower fields so of course I had to grab a photo of them.
And then some people will stop at nothing to get a good photo of them in a sunflower field...
Decorative bike on the side of the road in a small town along the way during our travels. This was quite a common scene. Biking is embraced and encouraged on the roads in France and cyclists are well respected by drivers. Can you imagine a car in Ottawa following you on a road for 10min until they thought it was safe to pass?!?
We had some really nice bikes for the trip.
This was the last hotel we stayed at. It was gorgeous. At dinner our second night there they put us in the back corner instead of in the middle of the room like on the first night. Hey, its not our fault we laughed and had a good time. :-)
All of us outside the hotel on the last morning before we went our separate ways.
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