(Stage 26) right at the river mouth; this became (and still is) an important shipbuilding centre.
Twentieth-century France
Despite being on the winning side, the French economy was devastated by the First World War and the depression of the 1930s. Invasion by Germany in the Second World War saw the French army retreat south across the Loire. Almost all Loire bridges were destroyed either by the retreating army or by German bombing that also damaged many riverside towns – Gien (Stage 14) being particularly badly hit. Surrender saw France temporarily partitioned, with all of southern France becoming part of Vichy – a nominally independent state that was in reality a puppet government controlled by the Germans. In St Nazaire the occupying Germans built an impregnable submarine pen that was so vigorously defended that the city was the last in France to be liberated.
After the war, France was one of the original signatories to the Treaty of Rome (1957), which established the European Economic Community (EEC) and led to the European Union (EU). Economic growth was strong and the French economy prospered. Political dissent, particularly over colonial policy, led to a new constitution and the establishment of the Fifth Republic under Charles de Gaulle in 1958. Subsequent withdrawal from overseas colonies has led to substantial immigration into metropolitan France from ex-colonies, creating the most ethnically diverse population in Europe. Since the 1970s old heavy industry has almost completely disappeared and been replaced with high-tech industry and employment in the service sector.
Shipping on the river
The Loire is only properly navigable below its junction with the Maine near Angers (Stage 22). Above here the river is classed as sauvage: a wild river with shifting sandbanks, rapids at high water-flow and shallows when the flow is low with no locks or cuts to avoid them. In the past, before railways and roads provided a viable alternative, barges floating downstream took merchandise (mostly coal from St Étienne coalfield) from St Rambert (Stage 5). As river conditions prevented any up-stream navigation, these were one-way trips with the barges being broken up at the end of the voyage. Bi-directional trade was possible up to Roanne (Stage 6) only when river conditions were favourable, but became possible year-round when canals that ran parallel with the river opened at the beginning of the 19th century. Small pleasure craft can still reach Roanne by a mixture of canal and river, but the Villerest dam (built 1984) prevents them going any further. There is no commercial shipping on the river nowadays, although enthusiasts have restored many old wooden Loire barges, some of which are used for commercial fishing, but most for leisure pursuits.
Flat-bottomed barges like this reconstruction at La Charité-sur-Loire (Stage 11) once carried goods downriver
The route
The 1052km Loire Cycle Route starts in the Massif Central mountains of central France, then heads north to Orléans (only 100km south of Paris) before turning west to reach the Atlantic at St Nazaire. En route it passes through the French regions of Rhône-Alpes, Auvergne, Bourgogne (Burgundy), Centre, and Pays de la Loire.
Our route (Stage 1) starts at the Loire source on the slopes of Mont Gerbier de Jonc in the Monts du Vivarais, a northern extension of the Cévennes range. From here the river is followed downhill, threading its way through a series of gorges between the puys (volcanic cones), crater lakes and basalt plateaux of the Massif Central before following a voie verte (rural cycle track) along an old railway line to reach the pilgrimage city of Le Puy-en-Velay (Stage 2). The volcanic landscape continues (Stage 3–4) with the route climbing in and out of the gorges and crossing more basalt plateaux. After Aurec the route crosses the edge of the Monts de Forez (Stage 5) before descending into the Forez basin. A final forested ridge is encountered, an outlier of the Monts de Beaujolais (Stage 6), before the route crosses the Villerest dam to reach Roanne, the end of the mountains and the beginning of navigation in the Loire Valley.
The volcanic plug of Mt Gerbier de Jonc (1551m) rises above the Loire source (Stage 1)
Quiet roads and another voie verte are followed (Stage 7) past the Charolais hills with pastures full of eponymous cream-coloured cattle. At Digoin the route joins the towpath of the Canal Latéral à la Loire, which is followed (Stage 8) most of the way to Bourbon-Lancy. Between here and Decize (Stage 9) there is no dedicated cycle way, so quiet roads are followed through gently rolling hills. After Decize the canal is regained and is followed (Stages 10–13), with a few deviations, all the way to Briare, passing opposite the city of Nevers and below the hilltop wine town of Sancerre. Beyond Briare, the Loire, which has so far flowed north, turns to a north-westerly direction, looping round the Sologne (Stages 14–15), a huge area of forest and lakes that was very popular with French royalty and nobility for the pursuit of hunting. The city of Orléans, the most northerly point reached, was the ancient capital of France and is closely linked with the story of Jeanne d’Arc.
Part of the route follows the towpath of Canal Latéral à la Loire (Stages 8 and 10)
Downstream from Orléans, the Loire is known as the ‘Royal River’, so called because of the large number of royal châteaux in the area built by a succession of monarchs between the 14th and 18th centuries. Between Orléans and Blois (Stages 16–17) the route first skirts the fertile Beauce plain, north of the Loire, then crosses the river to visit the spectacular Château de Chambord in the Forêt de Boulogne. Blois and Amboise (Stages 18–19) both have large city-centre royal châteaux, while the smaller château at Chaumont hosts an annual garden festival. The river is now flowing between low chalk and limestone cliffs, into which many caves have been cut to extract building stone. These nowadays have a variety of uses, including wine cellars and mushroom farms. The basilica in Tours is the burial place of France’s patron saint, St Martin, a Roman soldier who converted to Christianity and became bishop of Tours.
Stage 20 leaves the Loire briefly, following its Cher tributary past the châteaux at Villandry with an immaculately kept 100 hectares of formal gardens and Ussé, inspiration for the story of Sleeping Beauty. There are more riverside cliffs, with the route going underground through the caves of a troglodyte village, and hillside vineyards before Saumur (Stage 21). Entering Anjou, heartland of Norman-English France during the Hundred Years’ War, an excursion can be made to visit its capital, Angers (Stage 22). Stages 23–25 follow the river through the Vendée – an area that provided the greatest level of resistance during the French Revolution – and the Muscadet wine region to reach Nantes, a city that grew rich on profits from the African slave trade. Finally the generally flat coastal plain of Loire-Atlantique is crossed (Stage 26) to reach Brevin-les-Pins, opposite the shipbuilding town of St Nazaire.
Natural environment
Physical geography
The Massif Central mountains are the oldest in France, formed mostly of gneiss and metamorphic schists. When the African and European tectonic plates collided approximately 30 million years ago, pushing up the Alps and raising the eastern edge of the Massif Central, they triggered a series of eruptions that formed a chain of volcanoes in the eastern and central parts of the range. Subsequent erosion and weathering have exposed the central igneous volcanic cores, and these dot the landscape through which the first part of the Loire flows – Gerbier de Jonc being a particularly well formed example. This collision of plates also caused rippling of the landmass to the north, creating a series of calcareous ridges. After leaving the Massif Central, the Loire flows down between these ridges, forming a wide basin with outcrops of chalk and limestone. Where the river has cut down through the ridges, tufa limestone cliffs abut the river and these have been extensively quarried for building stone.
The Loire is a
