Ride/walk: 18km
With a coffee machine and all the comforts of home it was too tempting to take our time over brekky this morning. The place is so quiet that it’s hard to believe anyone else lives around here. We did eventually drag the bikes out of the garage and head off into Blois, about 4.5 km away. A compact town with a very long history, (gets a mention in the books in the 6th century) evidenced by the remarkable number of medieval buildings and stately homes. Many Kings of France utilised the Royal Castle (first one built in the 7th century) here, Louis XII, Francois I, a couple of Henrys and Louis XIII, who gave it to his brother as a wedding gift. Why wouldn’t you, when you’ve got so many castles, you’re not going to miss one, even one as enormous as Blois. And it is huge. Joan of Arc was blessed in the Castle when she was on her way to kick the Poms out of Orleans in 1429. That’s a bit ironic because if I remember my history correctly, she was then persecuted and burned at the stake by that same religious mob.
Talking of big, they only knew huge when they built the two main churches in Blois, Saint Nicolas (real name St Laumur) and the Saint Louis Cathedral. The Saint Nicolas site first saw a church in the 10 Century while St Louis started growing out of the ground in the 12 century. Either one draws a “WOW” out of you when you walk in the door.
Another interesting feature of the city is the Denis Papin (1647-1713 the inventor of a type of pressure cooker) stairway. It’s been used over the years to display some great street art, this year it’s Mona Lisa.
Unfortunately, Blois could have been even more remarkable if the Germans hadn’t occupied it in 1940 as that caused it to attract some incoming bombs from the Yanks who liberated it in 1945.
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