Stage Orléans - Beaugency

Leaving Orléans opens one of the gentlest sections of the Via Turonensis: the Loire valley, inscribed on the World Heritage List as a cultural landscape. The stage to Beaugency is short and flat, and nearly always runs close to the river, along towpaths, levees and paths shared with the Loire à Vélo cycle route.

The way leaves the city along the riverbank and passes through La Chapelle-Saint-Mesmin and Saint-Ay, villages stretched out between the river and the cultivated terrace. The Loire, broad and shallow, shows here its character as a wild river, with sandbanks, wooded islands and rich birdlife. The surface is comfortable and the route impossible to lose.

Halfway along lies Meung-sur-Loire, the most interesting stop of the day. The town preserves the château that was the residence of the bishops of Orléans, in whose dungeons the poet François Villon was imprisoned, and the collegiate church of Saint-Liphard, of Romanesque origin. Jean de Meung, one of the authors of the Roman de la Rose, was born here. Several mills on the little streams that cross the centre lend it an intimate air.

Those who prefer the south bank will find in Cléry-Saint-André a traditional pilgrimage alternative: its Gothic basilica of Notre-Dame holds the tomb of King Louis XI.

Beaugency is one of the best-preserved medieval towns of the middle Loire. Its long stone bridge, for centuries one of the few crossings of the river between Orléans and Blois, leads to an ensemble presided over by the Tour de César, an eleventh-century keep, the abbey church of Notre-Dame and the Tour de l'Horloge. Cobbled streets, old houses and a good range of services complete a stage end of great charm.