Timing is everything....Matt and Lisa were celebrating their 20th anniversary a year later and we just happened to have two days of holidays in May! The Taylors booked a fantastic two week European trip which is their habit on every 5 year anniversary. They always do something athletic during their travels and we gladly accepted the invitation to join them to tour the Loire Valley in France on bicycles!
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| This was our hotel...no shit y'all |
This is the view from our hotel, which is more appropriately referred to as a chateau. We didn't even bother to go into this castle. Can you imagine? My friend Donnell visited the Loire Valley after us and I now know of a few things that we may have missed :) Good excuse to go back, I guess?  |
| Guest Cottage that we stayed in - notice castle in background! |
We cycled for three days; each day was approximately 30-35 miles of mostly flat terrain. I hit a brick wall every day at mile 25-30. One of these days I will realize that you really do need to train for endurance sports! This is one of those trips that I would really like to do over and over again. We realized that we have such a great opportunity to cycle while we are here and it is easy to just toss our bikes in the back of the family wagon and off we go! So, the only reason we didn't do just that in June is that we are saving our shillings for our summer visitors....
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| If you think this is reminiscent of the Biltmore House in Asheville, you would be right. |
So, this castle is in need of a good owner! I can only imagine what it would be like to turn this into a B&B Chateau. You would stay there wouldn't you? It seems that it is barely kept up and could be so much more! Let me know if you want to become a partner in this adventure :) |
| These are the horse stables. You can see where they expanded over time. |
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| Maybe I could just buy one stable? |
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| This is the local castle, right behind our hotel. We REALLY should go back and go inside! |
What, no bicycle pictures? Yes, we took an oath with the Taylors not to publish spandex related photography of any sort! Matt is the professional photographer of our group, so I may have to edit this post at a later date once he has completed his masterpiece of their trip.
