Rigney-Ussé to Saumur

Peter was a not happy this morning because we had to do an early wake up. It was supposed to get up to 90 degrees though, so I didn't want to get stuck in the heat of the afternoon. I made scrambled eggs from the eggs we bought last night, it's good to get some protein for breakfast instead of the french bread with jam and pastries, standard at hotels.
It's always beautiful to get out in the early morning. Photos turn out better, it's nice and cool, nobody else is on the road. Actually in general the bike trail was quieter, I think we're getting past the busiest part. 
We stopped for coffee and hot chocolate at candles St Marten, also an interesting very old church there that had the heads of statues of saints and royalty chopped off, the saints apparently during the religious wars of the 1500s, and the royalty during the French revolution.
We ran across two great mulberry trees, the first one a black mulberry, very tasty but more sparse berries, and the other a white mulberry tree, very prolific, but the white ones are not as tasty. Still pretty good though.
Biked up a hill, it was tough even though it was pretty trivial honestly. But I'm glad we got up there, there was an interesting church and a great view.
Next was an interesting area, the trail went right through the troglodytes area, which was an old underground city. The official trail is only part of it, you see other roads going into the other underground area, it would be interesting to spend a long chunk of time wandering there. 
Got into town and into the hotel that I  booked, I really wish that hotel check-in here was a more normal time like one or two instead of four or five. But at least they let us get in at 3:00, that was apparently an exception for them. We were on the fourth floor! That's a lot of steps.
We rested for quite a bit, showered, relaxed, and then walked around town. It was still quite hot. We walked up to the castle and took in some of the views, then wandered through town. Peter was thrilled to find a public piano available and played for quite a bit. Then the plan was to have dinner at the main plaza, where there was going to be a band playing. We sat down and we're about to order, but then - a big thunderstorm! It lasted for quite a while, we ran over to a kebab place next door in order to take away to take back to the room.

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