Decize to La Charité-sur-Loire
After a day of rest I was ready for another week of cycling. I got up earlier to beat the heat. My friend drove me back to Decize, dropping me off at 8 in the morning, just to realize I’d forgotten my speaker at his place. So we did an aller-retour, and by the time I finally got on the bike it was almost 10am. Luckily, most of the route followed the canal under cover of trees — it’s only after Bec d’Allier, where the Allier flows into the Loire, that I had to cycle along a levee fully exposed to the sun.
Halfway through I swung by Nevers. Visited the cathedral, with its amazing stained-glass windows, passed in front of the ducal palace, and off I went.
This is where many cyclists actually start their Loire Valley trip — about ten kilometers downstream, La Loire à Vélo officially begins.
The destination was La Charité-sur-Loire — a quaint medieval town with ramparts and crooked little streets, albeit a bit rundown and a little abandoned. I wandered around for a while, but the heat was unbearable, so I promptly retreated to the campsite and its shade.
Today in numbers:
80 km — distance cycled
2 — princesses born in Nevers who ended up Queens of Poland
5 000 — worshippers Notre-Dame de La Charité could hold, once the second-largest church in France, after Cluny