Wheel Estate: Biking the Loire Valley

Wheel Estate: Biking the Loire Valley

A fairy-tale realm par excellence, the Loire Valley is studded with storybook castles, forests primeval, time-burnished towns, and—bien sûr—the famous châteaux de la Loire, which are strung like a strand of pearls across a countryside so serene it could win the Nobel Peace Prize. With magic at every curve in the road, Cinderella's glass coach might be the optimum way to get around, but the next best thing is to tour the Val de Loire by bike. There's nothing like seeing Chenonceaux with your head pumped full of endorphins, surrounded by 20 new best friends, and knowing you'll be spending the night in a pointed turret bedroom that savors of sleeping princesses. If you want to experience this region at its most blissful—but not blisterful!—take the VBT (Vermont Biking Tours) Loire Valley Tour. Many participants found it to be the most wonderful, truly oooooooooo-lala travel experience they ever had in France.

Every morning, for six days, you sally forth not to kill dragons, but to cycle down village roads that look like Corot paintings, visit feudally luxurious châteaux, and explore medieval towns like Chinon at 180 heartbeats a mile. Each day sees from two to four hours of biking (about 34 to 56 km ), with an option of either calling it quits at lunch and returning to your hotel or continuing on with the rack pack for the afternoon. The tour guide likes to joke that "real men don't ask for directions—at least not in English," but since the instructions direct you along the route virtually pebble-to-pebble, this faux pas never arose. The itinerary reads like the pages of a Perrault fairy tale, studded as it is with such legendary abodes as Azay-le-Rideau, Chenonceau, Villandry, and Ussé. It's a good morning's work to see two châteaux, non?

You can have an even better evening of it, thanks to VBT's splendid choice of châteaux-hotels. At the 16th-century La Bourdaisière, retreat of King François I, you'll feel a wand has been waved over you as you repair to the candlelighted Richelieu-red dining room to enjoy a supper-lative filet de carpe au Bourgueil. Audrey Hepburn's favorite, the Domaine de la Tortinière, fulfills anyone's "Queen-for-a-Stay" fantasies. Your final hotel, the Château de Rochecotte, was the 19th-century Xanadu of Prince de Talleyrand-Périgord. It's little wonder that most of the 20 bikers in the group were in a state of dumb intoxication after six days with VBT (614 Monkton Rd., Bristol, VT 05443800/245-3868www.vbt.com). And we're not talking about all the wine tastings.