Brehemont / Azay-le-Rideau / Montbazon

Your strolling itinerary begins in Bréhémont, a town in Tours recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. A stopover village on the Loire à Vélo, it is also the starting point for the promising Cyclo Bohème for a dive into history, literature, the gems of the regions crossed and the omnipresence of preserved and poetic nature. The town is dominated by the Sainte Marie Madeleine church dating from 1843, and it has a long history marked by inland waterway transport and the hemp trade.

There, the choice is yours. Go back in time to the sources of our modern era by visiting the Maurice Dufresne retro-mechanical museum, a reading of our era through mechanical and industrial evolution. In search of romance and a beautiful garden, escape to the Château de l'Islette after 10 km of pedaling. Nestled in the heart of a green setting, this Renaissance castle, an ideal place for a picnic, was the nest, in the XNUMXth century, of the love affair between the sculptor Auguste Rodin and his talented student Camille Claudel.

In Azay-le-Rideau, don't miss its castle that seems to float on the Indre, a jewel of the Renaissance, described by the writer Honoré de Balzac as a "faceted diamond", it is a must-see on your getaway. On leaving the town, immerse yourself in the world of the peasantry in the troglodyte valley of Goupillières, by visiting three farms ingeniously built in the tuffeau to protect against brigandage.
La Cyclo Bohème then invites you to discover the places of writing and inspiration of Honoré de Balzac who, in the 19th century, found in Touraine the ideal refuge far from the torments of Paris, offering him calm and long inspiring hikes to write in particular Illusions perdues but also Le Lys dans la Vallée. It is in Saché that the Château de Saché – Musée Balzac will allow you to discover the world of the famous writer.

Then follow in Balzac's footsteps towards Pont-de-Ruan, and let your imagination guide you as you read the extract from this letter written in Saché in August 1837 to Mrs Hanska: "I picked up this letter at midnight before going to bed, my room that the curious already come to see here out of curiosity overlooks woods two or three centuries old, and I take in the view of the Indre and the small castle that I called Clochegourde. The silence is wonderful". There are many references to Balzac on your way and prove that the tranquility of the route and its scenery has been inspiring for several centuries and above all preserved.
You will soon arrive in Montbazon, a town where the Château d'Artigny, commissioned at the beginning of the 20th century by the perfumer François Coty, is today a hotel and restaurant which majestically dominates the valley.