Saint-Sébastien-sur-Loire

I am the first to admit it. Although I have travelled quite a bit, sometimes I can be directionally challenged. While some people seem to have been born with an inbuilt compass in their heads, sometimes I am inclined to lose all orientation. At that times I can find myself heading in the entirely wrong direction.

Fortunately, in this wonderful age of technology, there is a little gadget that can be a real lifesaver in these situations. Some years ago I purchased a Garmin Oregon 650 GPS and it has been my almost constant companion on every trip since then. It has faithfully kept a record of hundreds of rides, both in Australia and all over the world. It has been with me on the Inca Trail, the Camino, all the way along the Danube, across the UK, Turkey, Scandinavia, the Baltics, Russia, etc. That little companion has travelled hundreds of thousands of km with me and has proven to be my faithful pathfinder wherever I have been.

You coan therefore imagine my horror when the little helper finally reached its end in Champtoceaux. When I tried to turn it on, the entire switch collapsed, leaving a big hole in the outer case. My distress was not only for the loss of my hitherto faithful GPS, but for the fact that we still had three more days of riding to complete. Up till now the Garmin had indicated every turn in the road - all I had to do was follw the little black line and I could not go wrong. Now we were really heading into unfamiliar territory. How on Earth can people navigate using primitive paper maps ???

After some further experimentation, I discovered that I could sometimes trigger it to turn on by plugging it into my external mobile phone battery. Perhaps all was not completely lost after all. Before we began our rider out of Champtoceaux I rigged up the GPS on the bike with a lead running to the battery in the pannier. What could possibly go wrong ? The only thing that could make it go even more pear shaped would be rain.

There is an old adage that "what goes up, must also go down". Since we had climbed up a steep incline to reach Champtoceaux, we knew that our day's ride would start with the same steep descent. It was a lot easier than the ascent, I can assure you of that. But the drizzle was a bit of a worry. I stopped to wrap the GPS up in plastic to keep the water out. The only problem was then I could not read it through the wet plastic. Oh well, someone once said that life was not meant to be easy - just fun. And we were certainly having fun.

Although the day's ride was not going to be long, it certainly was eventful. The bike path along the Loire was simply beautiful and the cooler weather made the riding easy. Can it be just a few weeks ago that we were all suffering in the heat ? The carpet of fallen leaves is getting deeper every day and the colour of the trees changes with each passing day. It is amazing to watch this take place before your eyes.

Although we went looking for a coffee stop for morning tea, a search of a likely looking town failed to discover any open shops. All we did almost succeed in doing was to lose Andrea as she was sent in search of coffee. We decided to forget the coffee and push on to Nantes instead,

A short distance further on we found ourselves surrounded by dozens of other riders and joggers. We had stumbed our way right into the middle of a mass participation cycling event. There were people of all ages and sizes wobbling their way along on a variety of bikes. Somewhere in the middle of them all was a group of 14 rather surprised riders from Australia. When people saw that we were from Australia, there were lots of friendly greetings.

On the outskirts of Nantes the bike path widens into a lovely smooth sealed bikeway that was a dream to ride along. Since we were still a little early early to check into the hotel, we decided to take a detour to see the huge animated creatures (Les Machines de l'lle) that are housed on the large island in the middle of the Loire. These creatures were designed to capture something of the imagination and vision of Jules Verne. He was the famous writer of works such as "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea". "From the Earth to the Moon" and "Mysterious Island". Verne is Nantes most famous son and the city has embarked on an ambitious plan to keep his memory alive.

The most famous of the animated creatures is the huge elephant. It really is enormous and can carry around 40 passengers on its wanders around the park. To the delight of the onlookers, it also regularly sprays everyone with torrents of water from its trunk and massive squirts of wee from its rear end. It really is a sight to beyond.

We finally checked into the Hotel Graslin about 4 pm. The hotel was in a superb location, but the rooms were about the size of a pocket handkerchief. It was a serious struggle to get our bags into the room and an even harder struggle to climb over the top of them to reach our bed. It was another example of the principle that the larger the city, the smaller the hotel rooms.

A short distance from the hotel is the Pommeraye Arcade. We had visited this incredible shopping arcade back in 2015 and wanted to see it again. It dates back to 1840 and gives a glimpse into what fashionable shopping used to be like before the days of Westfield shopping centres.

The undoubted highlight of the day was our dinner at La Cigalle Restaurant. This is surely one of the most iconic restaurants in France. It opened in 1895 and the sumptuous and flambouyent decor is still wonderfully preserved. It is also a spectacle watching the well disciplined staff work together to serve the clients in the quickest possible manner. When we arrived at the door, there was already a long queue of hopeful diners, all trying to gain admission. Of course we were the guests of honour and able to bypass the masses to proceed straight to our table.

Although the experience will never be forgotten, the food itself was not up to the same high standard. It was a case of "fish, fish or more fish". At least the desert was excellent.

It had been quite a day.Read more