Loire Valley - Orléans to Tours

My wife and I had a wonderful time. The routes, the chateaus, the bikes, the app, the luggage transfers, and the lodging were all good. Thank you for an excellent experience!

In May 2024 my two friends and I did this bike trip.
Tripsite was fabulous organising our hotels and bikes. The best part was by 9 am each morning our luggage was picked up and delivered to our next accommodation in a beautiful town. The e-bikes were perfect to make the days ride very pleasant. The paths are very well sign posted, so extremely easy to follow and the terrain was for the most part flat making the riding easy.
I’d recommend staying an extra night in Amboise and Tours, lots to see.
We used the standard accommodation, all a bit quirky but clean and comfortable enough for 1 night stay.
All the accommodation are geared up for cyclists, all having places to store the bikes and some even for charging e-bikes.
You will not be alone on the path passing other cycling enthusiasts. France is a cycling country so you’ll notice lots of families out as you get closer to towns.
We rewarded ourselves with a chateau stay once we finished at Tours, it was the best experience for all of us..
We enjoyed it so much we are now booking the next stage of the Loire river.. we could not get enough of the scenery and especially the beautiful Chateaux.....stunning.

Scenic ride along the Loire using quality bikes. Overall accommodations were comfortable enough, and breakfast were adequate but basic.
Looking back, I wish we had downloaded the Road to Discovery App beforehand, as we were tired after travelling down to France and it would have been more seamless if we'd have had all road info in front of us.

Road cycling in and between small villages in the Loire Valley countryside is a great experience that we will remember for a lifetime. The air was fresh and clean; the farm roads and paths quiet and almost entirely car-free; and the locals we encountered along the way were delighted to attempt conversation with us. We often stopped along the way at small local patisseries, boulangeries, and ice cream shops for sustenance, which was heavenly and inexpensive by American standards. We traveled by train from Paris to the start of our tour in Orleans and again by train from the end of our tour in Le Croisic back to Paris. The trains conveniently ran frequently, quickly and on-time.

We bookended our self-guided cycling tour with a few days in Paris at both ends of the tour. We were glad that we gave ourselves time to adjust to the nine-hour time difference and the attendant rigors of travel before getting on our rental bikes in Orleans. Taking a few days at the end before returning home gave us an opportunity to visit the Palace at Versailles, the Louvre, Musée d’Orsay, Eiffel Tower and Arc de Triomphe, as well as learning how to navigate the Paris Metro and RER transit systems without the pressure of catching a flight or a train.

Our tour was customized at our request to include the routes of three six-day tours offered by Tripsite, run back-to-back. If we were to do this tour again, we'd include some extra overnight stays in the tour to give us a chance to spend more time doing activities off the bike.

We elected to purchase a dinner package. This was helpful as it made sure we had reservations at suitable restaurants where we sampled French haut cuisine that we likely would have missed had we not bought the package. In France, many smaller towns have limited dinner service on Sunday and Monday evenings, so having reservations in advance saved us from going hungry a couple of times. We also elected to purchase a château tours package, as we anticipated long lines at the ticket windows for château tours.

Our accommodations were excellent. All of them were well suited to cycle tourists, providing safe and secure places to park our bicycles overnight.

The rental bikes we used were very suitable for touring and well-maintained, and came with repair kits that came in handy when we experienced a couple of flat tires. The rental service was very accomodating when we wanted to change our pedals to SPD-style pedals and replace a non e-bike with an e-bike during the tour. The e-bike had a removable battery so we could charge it in our hotel room.

Tripsite provided an app for our smartphones, “Roadbook for Discovery.” The app proved to be useful for navigating the trip stages as it would notify us when we were off-course, provide use with descriptive information for places of interest and the availability of food and picnic areas along and near the route. It also includes an “SOS” feature that we did not need to use. Having the routes on our GARMIN GPS devices with European cycling maps would have been an improvement in navigating the routes. We learned to rely on the Loire Vélo road signs for most of our journey. Having a GPS is helpful when the "official" route is blocked or detoured.  SHOW MORE 

My husband and I have taken six trips with TRIPSite, mostly self-guided bicycle tours. We continue to appreciate the outstanding value we receive from TRIPSite and their vendors. Whether we ask for customized routes, additional layovers, comfortable accommodations or wayfinding/GPS materials, TRIPSite delivers every time. The regular bikes (not eBikes) we choose are high quality, the distances are manageable for two +70 year old cyclists, and the new GPS app worked beautifully. Our luggage was always delivered to our destination in a timely manner, our rooms were always ready when we arrived (really important when we craved a shower) and the included breakfasts were hearty and substantial prior to a day of cycling. Sixty percent of the two Loire Valley tours were on spectacular roads and picturesque trails without cars, a huge advantage for us for safety considerations.

We discovered that when we cycled through the vineyards, countrysides and forests, it was often difficult to find fresh water. On hot days in August, we had to carry up to 4 liters of water to ensure we avoided dehydration. Be prepared!

We did two back-to-back Loire trips for a total of 12 days and 250 miles. The chateaus were fabulous, the countryside was spectacular and the rivers and forests were verdant and lush. We highly recommend these two trips.

Amazing! We've done many organized and self supported tours, but this one by far is our favorite. We combined two 4-day (of riding) tours into one, the Orleans to Tours and Tours to Angers tours, for eight days of riding and a day on each end for coming and going. We chose the lowest level of hotels and all were fine. We don't spend much time in the room anyway, we just need a comfortable bed. The itinerary was perfect, average of 50km a day and usually one chateau visit along the way so at an easy pace we had plenty of time for a morning coffee stop, a few hours at the chateau du jour and lunch, and arrived at the hotel in time to do laundry and head to dinner. The overnight stops were a good mix of big cities (Orleans, Tours) and quaint towns. We didn't take a rest day, but if you're considering it, think about Amboise, a quaint town, rather than the midpoint Tours. Amboise was our favorite town-a good selection of restaurants, a beautiful chateau reflecting on the rivers, and if you're there on a Sunday, don't miss the local market, "the best in France" according to the guy at our hotel. The route was well marked, the maps they gave us were excellent, and if you have the GPS capability, definitely ask for the GPX tracks because those came in handy more than a few times. My wife upgraded to an e-bike which was absolutely worth it. Although it's mostly a flat course, it made it much more enjoyable for her. And we bought the chateau package which was worth it. It includes the best chateaux to visit, and although it doesn't save you much money, it saves you a lot of time waiting in line to buy a ticket which at some chateaux could be lengthy.

The Loire River Valley tour was spectacular in every way: bikes, scenery, route, trails, signage, difficulty level (which was "easy" and fit our previous experience level), the towns and accommodations.

Our group of 12 took this tour in 2010. We combined it to go from Orleans to Angers.

The routes are pleasant and the hisoric sites are aewsome. As usual, Pack and Pedal took care of us in a very first class way.

Stan Pearson

I really enjoyed my experience in the Loire Valley thanks to the great service Carla, Hennie, and Mary provided. The tour went smoothly, the bicycle was comfortable, the maps were detailed and the whole experience was exactly as it was described here in the website. I chose the 2-3* option and the hotels were clean and nice (for the most part), and the restaurants (all but one) were absolutely delicious!! I would highly recommend tripsite to anyone considering cycling through Loire, and I intend to use them again on my next trip in Europe--BON VOYAGE!