The Big Dry

Today's ride had just about everything (and even two of some things). The day began with yet another glorious morning, without a cloud in the sky. Since we arrived in France three weeks ago, this is the weather pattern that we have been greeted with every morning, and the forecast says that it will continue like this for at least the next week.
Since Sancerre is situated right on the top of a mountain, our ride began with an exhilarating descent back down to the riverside. The main highlight of this section was crossing the elevated Viaduc de Saint-Satur. This imposing viaduct was built back in 1893 and now forms part of a dedicated bike path. We spent some time admiring the nearby small village, listening to the church bells and taking pictures, before getting on the bikes to resume the ride.
We had not gone far before the track deteriorated into a rough and loose surface, which demanded full concentration and a white knuckled grip on the handlebars. Just to up the ante even more we came across a steep and potentially dangerous descent that had quite a few of our team walking their bikes.
By the time we finally reached the relative safety of the canalside bike path, we realised that the canal was no longer there. It had dried up almost completely. The prolonged hot and dry weather has taken a terrible toll on Europe's rivers and canals and now we could see the stark evidence for ourselves. On the ride out of Nevers we had ridden alongside the Lateral Canal de la Loire for most of the day and wondered why we had not seen any boats. We were later informed that the canal is currently unnavigable, due to lack of water depth. The mighty Loire is also currently just a shadow of its normal majesty. What a contrast this is to what happened on our last European ride in 2024, when we rode alongside the Elbe and Danube Rivers from Hamburg to Vienna. At that time, massive rainfall in central Europe had sent these rivers into full blown flood and we were forced to shelter in Dresden for 5 days, before we could resume our ride. Two years later we are faced with the opposite extreme.
About 10 km from Sancerre we started to see the two giant cooling towers of the EDF Bellevue Nuclear Power Plant. As we rode closer and closer the incredible scale of these towers steadily became more evident, although we did notice that no steam was being emitted. Since nuclear power stations require enormous quantities of cooling water, we could guess that the plant has been temporarily shut down due to the ongoing water shortage.
It was along this section of the ride that we observed another unexpected spectacle. Turning a curve in the path I noticed a walker in front of me, sporting a tiny mini skirt, a large back tattoo and NOTHING ELSE. I didn't see that one coming. At first I did not know if it was a man or a woman, although the tiny floral mini skirt would suggest the latter. As I rode past I could not help but notice a couple of points that indicated that she was indeed a woman (although we did have some suspicions that she might not always have belonged to that category).
For a time, our new nude French companion seemed determined to become a part of our peloton, as she insisted on walking so rapidly that we found it hard to get away from her. There was probably an interesting story there, but I was much too shy to try to strike up a conversation.
The bike path skirted right around the nuclear plant with its high perimeter fencing liberally adorned with warning signs and many kilometres of razor wire. By this time we were all looking for somewhere to eat and have a coffee, but all the likely places turned out to be locked up.
After riding alongside another sad and empty canal we reached the outskirts of Briare, famous for its aqueduct bridge over the Loire. This 660 metre aqueduct bridge was opened in 1896 and was for many years the longest such canal bridge in the world. The stone and iron work bear the unmistakable input of Gustav Eiffel, who was one of the designers.
Impressive as the aqueduct bridge is, we thought that the nearby cafe was just as impressive. It's collection of cakes and chocolates certainly was eagerly devoured by our hungry team members. After a lengthy cake stop, we only had a very short distance to ride to our hotel in the centre of the town.Read more