Le Bugue to Tours

The Beaune Hospital created with 20 kilograms of dough

As expected most of the was spent riding in order to cover the distance to Tours in the Loire Valley, our weekend base. Initially Rob found some attractive and relatively fast roads but eventually we had to pick up the autoroute.  We arrived at 4:30 and decided to squeeze in a museum before checking in at our hotel.

Our lucky choice (Rob's actually since he did the search) was the Musee du Compagnonnage, housed in what was once the monks dormitory for the adjacent Saint-Julien Abbey.  The museum covers the various trades and their guilds in Tours by displaying numerous historic and some newer pieces from these, among other, trades:  carpenters, metalworkers, pastry chefs (check out some of their fantastic creations), shoemakers, tanners, barrel makers etc.  I have included probably too many photos but there was a temptation to show even more.  Lots of photographs and history of the guilds supplemented the examples, though the text was in French with just a small English handout.

Tours Town Hall

We checked into our Best Western, cooled off from the mid-80s temperatures, and took an evening walk, after enjoying a beer at the local cafe next to the ornate RR station. Tomorrow we will do some riding and look at a couple of chateaux.