64.4km (ish)
250m elevation gain
I had a leisurely start to day 1, as I wanted to stop by the tourist office in Saint-Brevin to buy a 'passport' and obviously had to wait for the office to open for that. Then i set off to find the route. My Garmin had a wobble and then I forgot to restart it so missed the beginning, but hey-ho.
The route is extremely well signposted and the first section was all lovely gravel, flat and fine. On my left was the Loire estuary, with its ports and industrial facilities, on the right a little canal. Eventually the gravel turned into tarmac and after a bit away from the river the path found water again, along the Canal Maritime de la Basse Loire. This bit was frankly delightful, lots of cyclists and very little traffic.
I stopped for lunch after about 38km, enjoying a baguette sandwich by the river. I knew I was due to cross by one of the free ferries which runs over the Loire, but without properly consulting the route jumped on the one from the village I'd stopped in. Realised my mistake as I got off on the other side so jumped straight back on to resume the correct route.
There was more gravel and shaded paths but I never found the other ferry; at one point the route I'd planned in my Garmin diverged from the signs, and I found myself in slightly unknown (also slightly hilly) territory. Basically the Loire à Vélo has several points where you can go north or south of the river, but evidently there is a kind of priority route and it wasn't what I'd planned. The alternative was actually pretty nice and I picked up the planned route for the run into Nantes and up to my hotel, where I discovered I was too early for check-in. Eventually I got into my room, showered off the dust, popped to a nearby laundry as I already had enough stuff to warrant a wash, and then set out to reacquaint myself with a city I briefly called home.
That's for next time.
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