Saumur / Montreuil-Bellay
La Vélo Francette leaves Saumur via a pretty greenway beside the Thouet River. Then the route adopts farm tracks and quiet country roads. Crossing villages, fields and the sloping vineyards of the Saumurois area, this stage finishes at the foot of Montreuil-Bellay, an historic fortified town on Anjou’s southern border and listed as a member of Les Plus Beaux Détours de France and a Petite Cité de caractère, given its many charms.
Gradients and elevation
Road types
Surface
Cycle route
Follow the signs indicating Le Thouet à Vélo once you have crossed the river between St-Hilaire-St-Florent and Saumur, at the level of Breil plain. Then a greenway leads beside the Thouet up to the port of Bagneux (in Saumur).
Take care at Munet, as you arrive at and exit the section with a surface suitable for traffic, as there are obstacles to limit access in the middle of the way.
You take a mix of quiet roads and farm tracks to reach Montreuil-Bellay.
Tourist Offices
SNCF train services
Saumur train station: TGV high-speed services and TER regional services, line 5 Nantes > Angers > Tours > Orléans and line 14 Les Sables d’Olonne > Bressuire > Saumur
Montreuil-Bellay train station: TER regional services, line 14 Les Sables-d’Olonne > Bressuire > Saumur
www.ter.sncf.com/pays-de-la-loire
Don’t miss
Saumur: the splendid hilltop Château des Ducs d’Anjou, dominating the town; beautiful churches and squares; wine cellars, including many underground ones; Cadre Noir elite riding corps at the presitigious national riding school, the Ecole Nationale d’Équitation; Musée des Blindés (tank museum); Distillerie Combier (producing liqueurs the old-fashioned way)
Artannes-sur-Thouet: St Peter’s Church; megalithic bridges
Montreuil-Bellay: fortified château and town dominating the Thouet Valley
