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- Jour 27
- dimanche 20 septembre 2015 à 17:48
- ⛅ 19 °C
- Altitude: 79 m
FranceTours47°23’39” N 0°41’55” E
A Colourful Day in Tours
20 septembre 2015, France ⋅ ⛅ 19 °C
Day 27 – In Which I Apparently Become Invisible (and we arrive in time for the Tours Mardi Gras)
After our free day in Amboise it was good to be back on the bikes and resuming our journey to the Atlantic once again. Even more important was the fact that the weather had finally turned in our favour. We woke to a beautiful clear sky and dared to hope that we might be able to complete the day’s ride without getting drenched.
Finally we might have a chance to emerge from our rain jackets and ride with our yellow Ghostriders jerseys proudly displayed for all the locals to see. We had seen the members of Group 2 arrive at Amboise in their matching tops and I had to admit that they did really look impressive. We might even be able to achieve some semblance of pelotonic precision and really impress all the onlookers with our professionalism.
Unfortunately I discovered at breakfast time that half of the women had been seduced by the local bike shop into buying green jerseys. Could you imagine if half the members of our Olympic team decided that they did not like the green and gold of Australia and decided to adopt the New Zealand colours instead ? Or what if the soldiers in our army went out and bought a different uniform because they thought it looked better on them ? Answer – CHAOS.
At least I was still wearing the traditional yellow jersey, even if it was a little stained by an unfortunate Nutella incident from a few days ago and also had a few samples of various morning teas scattered in various places. I knew it was going to be a comparitively easy day and I was looking forward to a relaxing day of cycling under a sunny sky. Priscilla had offered to act as guide for the day and expertly led us out of the hotel and straight into a dead end street. We all U turned and retraced our paths. Take Two. This time we managed to find the Loire River and started to ride along the bike path towards Tours. For about a 100 metres. Then chaos reigned once again.
We rode straight into the middle of a huge Sunday market. For the women it was like releasing a box full of moths right in front of a very bright light. They all shot off in different directions, looking for a bargain. The peloton was quickly reduced to 3 riders, all of them men. We stood with our bikes by the trail and waited. And waited, and waited. I took a few deep breaths and tried to remember something I read once about temper control.
Over the course of the next 20 minutes some riders emerged and joined those who were waiting, but there was no sign of the rest. Since they were not wearing the correct jerseys, we could not even identify where our riders were in the crowd. I was reminded of the old story about the Irishman who went into the department store looking for a pair of camouflage pants, but couldn’t find any. (Think about it).
We had no alternative other than to split the peloton and ride on in little fragments and tatters. Fortunately the path was clearly signposted and (almost) impossible to miss. The surface was smooth and the scenery beautiful. With the stillness of the early morning it really did make for some amazing cycling.
Our designated morning tea stop was at the small hamlet of Montlouis Sur Loire, about 20 km along from Amboise. When we rolled into the town I was delighted to spot a likely looking Boulangerie (cake shop) and pulled over to have a look inside. Indeed it did contain an enticing collection of tempting treats, just the sort of thing to increase the tension in my already bulging jersey zipper. I went inside and pulled out my wallet ready to make a purchase. Since I was the only one there I did not think it would take long to get served.
Just as I was about to order a lovely meringue, my mobile phone rang and I retreated to the shop entrance to take the call. I was trying to be polite and did not want to use the phone inside the shop. While I was on the phone, another customer entered, ordered a baguette and was served immediately. I returned and stood behind the man while his baguette was wrapped. At that moment another 4 locals all entered the shop behind me. They obviously knew the girl behind the counter and immediately started up a friendly conversation. I guess that would have been OK if she still had served me next, but she then proceeded to take each of their orders while I was left standing there just holding my wallet.
After a few minutes of chatter and laughs (probably at my stained appearance) I still had not been served and a couple of others entered the shop as well. I was beginning to feel that I would be left waiting until all the village had been served first. Was it because I was a foreigner or was it because of the Nutella stains on my jersey ? I really don’t know why I wasn’t served. I just put the wallet back in my pocket, turned around and left the shop empty handed.
Later on I thought about what had happened and wondered if it was just a different culture. Although we might think it was normal to serve people in the order in which they arrived, perhaps in that village it was the custom to serve friends first and then strangers. Maybe the others would have been offended if they weren’t served first. I did walk up the street and bought a cup of coffee and drank it without a cake. Maybe I didn’t need the cake after all.
It was only a short distance from the morning tea stop to our finishing spot at Tours so we arrived there at around 12.30 pm, just in time to get caught up in a huge crowd. I knew that we were famous but I did not expect this sort of welcome. I started to wave to those cheering but discovered that they actually weren’t cheering us after all. Apparently we had arrived in the middle of a huge marathon race. Hundreds of fun runners of all shapes and sizes jostled for position on the bike path while we did our best not to hit too many of them. When we finally turned off the bike path we found ourselves surrounded by a vast crowd of boy and girl scouts, along with elaborately dressed priests. It appears we had arrived right in the middle of some sort of carnival Sunday.
By a combination of cycling skill and sheer good luck we managed not to seriously injure too many joggers, scouts, priests or pedestrians and arrived at the front of our hotel. The girl at reception gave slightly confusing instructions because her understanding of the terms “left” and “right” were opposite to those commonly accepted. We parked our bikes and were told that rooms would not be ready for another 2 hours. Plenty of time to go and get some lunch.
The centre of Tours contains a beautiful railway station surrounded by numerous eateries. We checked out a few potential lunch spots before settling for a familiar old faithful – Macdonalds. At least the hamburgers were OK and the coffee was relatively cheap. We sat in the sun eating our lunches and wondering what was the significance of of the large rhinoceros statue nearby.
Dinner that night was at the Brasserie de l’Univers. I could not figure out the name but the location was superb. My choice of main course was “Pepper Pig” and I was glad that my grandchildren were not there to make me feel guilty. I tried hard to keep most of the dinner away from the table cloth and almost succeeded.
Later in the evening I realised that I could not remember what I had done with the walkie talkie radios after arriving at the hotel. Maggie and I spent an anxious hour looking for them in our luggage before I learned that I had given them to Ross to look after.En savoir plus
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- Jour 28
- lundi 21 septembre 2015 à 19:19
- ⛅ 18 °C
- Altitude: 57 m
- FranceBellevue47°15’43” N 0°27’53” E
Surrounded by Gypsies
21 septembre 2015, France ⋅ ⛅ 18 °C
Day 28 In Which we are Surrounded by Gypsies
It was a wonderful feeling to be able to ride out of our hotel under a cloudless blue sky. Considering the dramatic change that had taken place in the local weather, it made me think that we should have started the ride three days later than we did.
Tours has some glorious wide streets lined with huge trees and we followed one these beautiful streets past the Hotel de Ville as we made our way our of town. We learnt that the population of Tours is around 160,000 and it was obvious that there has been a lot of work put into developing local infrastructure. The trams and buses were the fanciest I have ever seen, although we never had a chance to actually try them out.
After about 20 minutes we broke free of the city and then followed the Le Cher river for quite some distance. This river runs parallel to the Loire for quite some distance before finally joining it at Cinq Miles la Pine. The riding was again absolutely delightful and somehow we managed to mostly stay in some semblance of cohesion as we rode along.
A few kilometres from Tours we noticed that the trail was almost blocked by a number of caravans and motor homes that had been parked tightly on both sides. At first I wondered what was going on, until I quickly realised that we had ridden straight into a cluster of gypsy caravans. As soon as we neared we were approached by one of the young gypsy boys who started following and shouting something at us. We quickly rode through the caravans, making sure to hold tight to our belongings and were all able to safely resume our journey.
At Savonnieres we stopped alongside the river for a lengthy rest in the warm sunshine. Since this small town was also home to a well stocked patisserie, we were also able to enjoy a cake while we rested. Once again we were witness to the fact that sometimes you can buy cakes and sometimes you can buy coffee but NEVER can you buy coffee and cake at the same time.
A short distance further on is the famous Chateau at Villandry. At the start of the ride I had made the decision that I was not going to try and visit every chateau, or even every second or third one for that matter. For me, the ride was never about the chateaux or huge churches, it was about becoming a part of French life. Neither Maggie or I have even taken a single organised tour since we arrived in France almost two weeks ago. On the other hand I did say that we would probably visit one or two castles and that would be enough for us. The rest we would be happy to just see from afar.
The Chateau at Villandry is famous for its incredible ornate gardens and it was that reason alone that persuaded us to part with 10 Euros each to visit the building and grounds. I learned that this castle was built by the Finance Minister of King Francoise 1st. When you see the size and opulence of the place, it would appear that Finance Ministers must have been very well rewarded for their services (or maybe they just made sure that a lot of the state finances went in their direction).
I must admit that I was a little underwhelmed at the inside of the castle, but the gardens were something else entirely. Whenever I have tried to set up even a small vegetable plot, the only things that flourished were the weeds. Yet here were acres of hedges, flowers, vines, trees and assorted vegetables where not even a blade of grass was out of place. When I looked down into the large moat I was met with return stares from dozens of huge carp. They crowded to the surface with their mouths open and I imagined them to be pleading with me to save them from being eaten. I could not resist sampling a couple of grapes from the overhead vines and then spitting the pips surreptitiously into the garden bed.
After 75 minutes of wandering the chateau and its gardens (and ignoring the pleading of the fish), it was time to move on. We discovered that there were two alternative routes from Villandry to Azay le Rideau and spent some time trying to decide which alternative to choose. After a period of collective confusion I made the decision to follow the river a little further. This meant that we able to stay on the top of the high levee bank and enjoy some great cycling before turning away from the river a few km further downstream.
Whichever way we went we knew that there would have to be a hill to be crossed before reaching Azay le Rideau. And there was. It was interesting to note that, even though we have been riding for only a few days, it is already obvious that the strength of our riders has improved in that time. Although the climb was extended, the gradient was not too extreme, and I think that many of the team actually enjoyed the challenge of being able to pedal to the summit.
After reaching the summit we had a great downhill the rest of the way to town. A short time later we were checking to the lovely Hotel de Biencourt. This hotel was located in what used to be separate boys and girls school buildings. The proprietor welcomed us warmly and insisted on carrying our bags to the rooms.
The town itself is a real gem, with narrow cobblestoned streets and dozens of medieval buildings. We were also delighted to discover a shop that supplied the first milk shakes we had seen in a long while. After a walk around the town I returned to our room to shower and change for dinner.
One thing we have noticed on this trip is that hotel showers come in an almost infinite variety of configurations and no two are exactly alike. I stood naked outside the spacious shower recess and looked at the complex array of controls, buttons and pipes. It looked like the control centre of Dr Who’s time machine. I decided to do what any enterprising man would do and simply turned the first control my hand touched. I was immediately met by a horizontal jet of scalding hot water that sprayed out of the shower recess and across the bathroom. When I rapidly tried to turn it off I must have turned it the wrong direction as the jet turned into a torrent. In something of a panic I yelled out in pain and started rotating every pipe and tap I could find. In a few minutes I finally had the situation under control, although by that time, the place looked like Albert Park Lake. I blamed the unfortunate incident on a combination of lack of instructions, poor eyesight and senility. When I finally worked out how the system worked I stayed under the deluge for a very long time.
Our dinner for the evening was at the, apparently Michelin rated, Cote Cour Restaurant, which was just a short walk from our hotel. It did not take long for us to discover just why the place was so highly rated – the food was SUPERB. The only small problem was that the waiter kicked my chair leg every time he walked past my chair. The first couple of times he apologised, but after the count went past ten kicks, it did not seem to matter any more. I suspected that he must have had a huge bruise on his foot by that time, and I wondered if I should start apologising to him. Since my chair was already pressed hard up to the table, there was nothing more that I could do to get it out of his way.
In spite of this small irritation I have to admit that it was one of the best meals I have had in a long, long time and I am sure that it will remain a highlight of this trip. As we walked the silent streets back to our hotel we met a local women who was walking her two small dogs and her cat on their evening walk. France is somehow just like that and it seemed the most normal thing in the world. Overhead the waxing moon cast a pale glow over the ancient rooftops. It had been another magical experience that we will never forget.En savoir plus
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- Jour 29
- mardi 22 septembre 2015 à 19:20
- ⛅ 14 °C
- Altitude: 85 m
- FranceForteresse royale de Chinon47°10’4” N 0°14’10” E
A Mouthful of Razor Blades
22 septembre 2015, France ⋅ ⛅ 14 °C
Day 29 – In Which I Awake with a Mouth Full of Razor Blades (but twice escape a bullet)
Yesterday I could tell that things were not all as they should be. Each time I tried to swallow it felt like there was piece of sandpaper lodged somewhere near my tonsils. A trip to the local Pharmacy in Azay le Rideau provided me with a box of probably what was something like the French version of Strepsils. The only thing on the box that I could read was the brand name Drill. It sounded more like a cure for a cavity than for a sore throat, but I tried sucking on a couple of them before I went to bed and hoped that they might kill whatever foul colony of microbes was apparently thriving in my throat’s hinterland.
In the morning the throat was even worse, but it was now accompanied by a thumping headache to keep the microbes company. It was going to be a difficult day. Oh well, on every trip everyone usually has a day or two when all they feel like is heading back to the familiar sanctuary of their own bed and bathroom. That can be a little difficult when your luggage is on a fixed itinerary and will soon be speeding off to the next major town down the river.
I staggered into the nearby breakfast room and forced myself to eat a baguette. Even when I felt sick I had to admit that it was really good. And I mean really, really good. Why can’t we make bread like that in Australia ? No wonder that 80 million French people line up twice a day at their closest Boulanger for their daily bread. I would too if the bread in Woolworths tasted like that.
The hotel in Azay le Rideau really has been a gem and the proprietor has gone out of his way to do everything possible to make our stay memorable. In return for this hospitality, Fran and Ross also went well out of their way to ensure that the proprietor will also remember our stay – for all the wrong reasons. While mixing up her morning concoction of bright orange Barocca and red ink, she sent the entire glassful right across the brilliant white sheets and expensive mattress. While Nutella stains are not exactly pleasant, at least they can be partially removed in time. The stains all over Ross and Fran’s bed looked like it had been the scene of some recent carnage and would no doubt necessitate the purchase of new linen and mattress. Just as well the floor was timber or else the carpet would have had to be ripped up as well. I felt sorry for causing the flood in my bathroom the previous afternoon and hoped that the water damage to the downstairs ceiling would not be too expensive to repair.
As we waved goodbye to our host I am sure that he was mumbling something more than just “Au Revoir”, but I could have been mistaken. His eyes were bloodshot and his hair looked like he had received an electric shock. I worried that all the devices I had plugged into the power point in our room might have caused some kind of major damage to the hotel’s wiring. Maggie did say that she could smell burning, but I was too concerned with my sore throat to care.
As we rode out of the town leaving the proprietor to negotiate with his bank manager for an increase in his overdraft, my concern was for more immediate matters. The weather forecast had not been very promising. We were due for more heavy rain at times so our schedule would have to be adjusted carefully. Our first stop was at the nearby Musee de Maurice duFresne.
Monsieur Defresne was an amazing collector of just about anything and everything who had amassed a huge personal stockpile of engines, cars, planes, toys, weapons, farm equipment, projectors, bicycles, in fact just about everything. Although the place does not look too impressive from the street, inside it contains a labyrinth of huge buildings that store what must be one of the best collections to be seen anywhere in the world.
Since we managed to arrive just as the first downpours were threatening, it was an amazing stroke of planning and timing. We negotiated with the cashier for the traditional Ghostriders discount and, even more surprisingly, managed to get the price reduced from 10 Euro to 7 Euro each. This was an absolute bargain and would have been worth it, just to escape the rain.
With the torrential rain falling on the roof we spent the next hour wandering the corridors, spellbound at the unexpected items that had been gathered together. He had even managed to find and restore a huge guillotine, complete with sharp blade and basket. By the time we had our morning tea, the rain had stopped and we were able to continue our ride along the river. If I had more compassion I would have felt sorry for Group 2 who had presumably been wet through in the deluge. Since they had escaped our disastrous first day when we nearly got wiped out on the ride from Orleans to Beaugency, it was only fair that they catch up on the misery scale.
A few kilometres further on we came across one of the most unusual sites in the whole of France. It was a shop that sold baguettes, cakes and coffee. It was an even more exciting discovery than finding Lassiter’s Lost Gold Mine. We all simultaneously did our best to confuse the poor owner by providing contradictory orders in a mixture of English, French, Gibberish and hand waving. She disappeared into the back room and reappeared some time later with an armful of fresh baguette sandwiches. I sat down to try to improve my health and morale by tucking in to a huge cake with the intriguing name Le Religiouex. I thought that maybe it was meant to be a replica of Notre Dame Cathedral made entirely with custard and sugar. It certainly took some serious eating and even more concentration not to spill most of the sloppy interior down the front of my jersey.
While this was going on, about half of the group indicated that they were in a hurry and could not wait for me to disgrace myself any further. They grabbed their baguettes and cycled out of sight. The remainder looked at the sky and used common sense to make the decision that it would be prudent to wait a little longer for the next downpour to pass over. Sure enough, about 3 minutes later the skies opened with another huge downpour of rain. By this time I had worked my way through the bell tower of Notre Dame and was making steady progress on the chapel itself. Only a small amount of the contents had managed to escape and jump onto my fingers.
About 30 minutes later the rain stopped and we resumed our ride, refreshed and DRY. We felt completely vindicated with our decision and only a little sad for those who had got drenched.
About ten kilometres further on we reached the turn off to the famous “Sleeping Beauty Castle” at Usse. Since I had already visited this place on our previous ride, I knew that the correct approach was from the second turnoff. That way you follow the main axis of the castle all the way to the front wall. It gives fabulous opportunities for photo shots along the way. When we caught up with the first group we not only found them looking a little waterlogged, but also learned that they had taken the wrong turn as well.
After a brief rest we resumed the ride to Chinon. For most of the way it closely follows the river bank along an elevated levee wall. The cycling was smooth and easy and the sun even broke through on a few occasions to brighten the ride. Unfortunately I was still battling the headache I had woken with and was feeling rather second rate. I battled on for a few more kilometres before announcing that I would like to head straight to the hotel as quickly as possible. For some reason the rest of our little group seemed pleased to see the last of me, so I increased the pace and set my sights on Chinon.
The poor weather of the morning had completely cleared by that stage and I was able to make good time on the lovely undulating path. Around 3 pm I pulled up outside our hotel and waited for the others to arrive. The rest of my group arrived about 30 minutes later, the other group got lost looking for a vineyard and also had two punctures and did not arrive till quite a bit later.
When we checked into our hotel Maggie and I were excited to see that we had finally secured one of the better rooms in the place. With its large bedroom, dining table and chairs we had plenty of space in which to spread out all our dirty clothes. The bathroom was also full of all the latest modern cons and some interesting automatic functions. There was no light switch in the bathroom as the lights come on automatically whenever you entered the room. Another automatic feature which was not quite so easy to get used to was the automatic door opener which opened the bathroom door whenever I sat on the toilet.
After arriving I went straight to bed and fell into a deep sleep, not waking till it was time for dinner. It was then that I learned that a couple of our group had already made their way to the restaurant next door and had secured our table. When I joined them I had a strange feeling that all was not well. I checked the name of our allocated restaurant and found that it was completely different to the name outside the place we were in. Quelle Embarrissmente !
We all climbed to our feet and made our way out the door. This time we made our way to the correct establishment. Eugenie told us that she was glad we were going to move because the first place “only had rubbish on their menu”. Fortunately the correct restaurant had other choices beside rubbish on their menu, and we all had another lovely meal together. It had been a long and trying day and I was hoping that tomorrow would be far less eventful.En savoir plus
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- Jour 30
- mercredi 23 septembre 2015 à 19:22
- 16 °C
- Altitude: 55 m
- FranceSaumur47°15’33” N 0°4’44” W
Carol's in the Closet
23 septembre 2015, France ⋅ 16 °C
Day 30 – In Which Carol gets caught in the Closet (and we lunch with the Troglodytes)
Since we were to be only riding around 45 km of mostly flat paths near the river, we knew that today’s ride was going to be quite enjoyable. We just didn’t realise at the start just how much fun it would turn out to be. The fact that we were able to ride out of Chinon under a lovely clear blue sky certainly did wonders for our early morale. For obvious reasons, even the toughest riding always seems easier when the sun is shining.
When we rode into the small hamlet of Savigny, it did not take me long to find a lovely Patisserie, well stacked with a fine assortment of sugar laden cakes. I instructed the peloton to stop as “it could be some time before we found another suitable cake stop”. A few minutes later we left the shop laden with lovely white bags packed with all sorts of tooth rotting goodies. We had learned all along the ride that it was virtually impossible to find a shop that sold coffee and cake and a quick scout around the town suggested that this place was to be no exception.
I went back into the Patisserie and asked the lady in my best French whether there was a coffee shop in the town. She looked at me a little strange and assured me “oui, oui”. I thought that maybe she thought I was asking for the closest toilet, but smiled and walked outside her door. We looked for the elusive coffee shop again without success, before going back in the shop and asking the same question all over again. The lady rolled her eyes, before indicating that the coffee shop was actually right next door. No wonder we couldn’t find it. It was hiding in plain sight.
I went to the door of the coffee shop and knocked. No answer. I tried turning the handle. It opened. I walked inside. “Bonjour” I called in fluent French. No answer. “BONJOUR”. Still no answer. Eventually the owner emerged from a rear room and looked like she might have either been in the toilet or fast asleep, or both. I asked for coffee and she flashed a big smile and beckoned for us all to come inside. Even better was the fact that she did not object when we asked if we could eat our cakes inside. This was a real bonus.
The women also quickly discovered that there was even a toilet situated at the end of a short corridor. Carol apparently had the greatest need, and rushed to make use of it. The rest of us sat and drank our coffees and munched on great globs of rich cream. About ten minutes later someone noticed a faint tapping noise coming out the back somewhere. We ignored it, but it would not go away. “Probably just something blowing in the wind”, I surmised. Ten minutes later Carol still had not returned, and the knocking increased in intensity. Perhaps the two items were related ? It turned out that Carol had somehow locked herself in the toilet and was starting to panic that she could not get out. I assured her that we would have realised her absence when we gathered for our evening meal.
The rest of the ladies were a little nervous about the inescapable toilet after that, especially as we had noticed numerous life sized effigies along the roadside just outside the village. Maybe they were a little more sinister than just dummies ? Would that have been Carol’s fate if we had not rescued her ? I guess we will never know. After doing a final head count to ensure that no one was still in the toilet we resumed our ride.
A short distance further on we reached the larger town of Candes St Martin, home to a huge ancient church. This was probably one of the oldest we had seen so far and, judging by the large cracks opening up on some of the walls, perhaps it will not survive to see another 700 years after all. While some stayed to mind the bikes, the rest took a short but steep walk up to The Panorama. This was a sensational vantage point which gave a glorious view out over the surrounding countryside and right across to the impressive nuclear power station which was belching a mammoth amount of steam into the otherwise blue sky. I am not so sure that I would like to live with that sight every day.
At this point we had two choices as to which route to take. One path led to the nearby Abbey of Fontevraud, while the other continued along the river. Since I had already seen enough Abbeys and Abbots to last me for quite some time I decided to follow the river. Some of the others will still working on their Abbey Quotas and grabbed their bikes, cameras and selfie sticks and headed for Fontevraud.
We had not ridden far before I remembered why I wanted to come this way. This area is famous for its huge underground caves and dwellings. Many of these huge underground caves are used for wine storage, but the most interesting of all were actually used as underground homes. The bike path actually passes through a series of these medieval tunnels, and all agreed that it was one of the most amazing things we had seen in our ride so far. Certainly far more interesting than another Abbey.
We even managed to find an underground restaurant/winery and settled down for a delicious and somewhat leisurely lunch before resuming the ride.
All though our ride so far we had been in the Eastern hemisphere, but each turn of the pedals took us further west towards the Atlantic. I had been monitoring our progress on my GPS and knew that we would soon be approaching the prime meridian of longitude. This is the meridian that passes through Greenwich and marks the dividing line between east and west. I walked the final few metres and marked the exact location with a prominent pink chalk line across the road. We then proceeded to conduct our own traditional ceremony. Since we didn’t quite know what to do, we though that maybe a bit of Moorish Dancing might be fitting (since we were due south of London).
At that moment a rather pompous looking Frenchman drove out of his drive, looked at what we had drawn on his road and did not look pleased (even when I waved and tried to look intelligent). I suspect he came back as soon as we had gone and washed it all away.
The rest of the ride into Saumur went without a hitch. The consensus of opinion was that it had been one of the most enjoyable days of the entire trip so far.En savoir plus
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- Jour 31
- jeudi 24 septembre 2015 à 19:24
- 🌧 17 °C
- Altitude: 51 m
- FranceLes Plaines47°27’23” N 0°31’29” W
Carol Barks at a Frenchwoman
24 septembre 2015, France ⋅ 🌧 17 °C
Day 31 – In Which One of our Riders Barks at a Helpful Frenchwoman – and DISASTER STRIKES
In every extended ride there is the longest day. That is the day that all the riders look forward to with a mixture of apprehension and excitement. Once that day’s ride is completed, they know that the rest of the ride will be easier in comparison. For the Loire River Ride the longest day’s ride is the section from Saumur to Angers. Although the distance is only around 62 km, it does contain a wide variety of riding experiences and finishes with a demanding entry into Angers (a city of over 400,000 population with a lot of very busy roads).
At least I knew that the weather forecast from the preceding couple of days was quite good. That meant that we would not be contending with rain as well as long hours in the saddle. It was a pity that the local weather bureau did not inform the actual clouds themselves about what sort of weather they were meant to provide for us. When we wheeled our bikes out of the storage shed we were greeted with drizzle and the promise of much more to come. Not exactly a perfect start.
I skilfully led the peloton out of the city and straight into the middle of army maneuvers. Numerous groups of waterlogged soldiers were jogging in various directions staring at maps. Presumably they were trying to read the directions to the nearest Patisserie. Some of them looked keen but I had to admit that the majority looked like they would rather be somewhere else. I thought I would assist by yelling out an encouraging “Allez, Allez”, but I suspect that it was about as welcome as a stale baguette at Christmas. We dodged around the soldiers and kept on riding.
The early rain slowly dried to a stop and a few breaks in the clouds became visible. Spirits immediately lifted. They lifted even more when we rolled into the small town of Gennes and found a likely looking place for morning tea. To our unmitigated joy, the place not only sold pretty good coffee, but it also had a good supply of chocolates and lollies as well. This really was a lovely surprise and we set about stuffing our panniers with copious quantities of sugar laden treats for the remainder of the ride.
It was now time to cross the Loire River back onto the north bank. This involves traversing a long and busy bridge at Les Rosiers Sur Loire. As we walked our bikes across the bridge we could see how much the river had grown since the early days of our ride. Walking across such a long bridge built up quite a hunger and we immediately set about looking for a place to buy lunch before the shops all closed for the compulsory daily siesta. It was a relief that we managed to find one of the most awarded Boulangeries in the region and were able to order our baguette sandwiches just before the shop closed at 1 pm sharp.
We then all happily sat on the church steps munching our sandwiches and eating cake. Obviously Malcolm Fraser was completely wrong when he said that “life was not meant to be easy”. At that moment we all thought it was pretty darn perfect. After finishing our lunches the women demanded the 14th toilet stop of the day so we went riding around the town looking for the familiar toilette sign.
After a vigorous search they did locate a single toilet a little further down the road and then all proceeded to line up to utilise its facilities. The men waited while the ladies created history by setting a new Guiness Record for the longest toilet stop ever (by a considerable margin). I watched the sun sink lower in the sky while we waited and waited for the queue to slowly progress, until finally the last bladder was emptied (mine) and it was time to leave.
As we rode back past the church a local French lady caught our attention. She was trying to ask us (or tell us) something. Unfortunately she couldn’t speak a word of English and we had absolutely no idea what she was saying. Finally Pauline deciphered the word “lost” and guessed that she must have lost something. Carol immediately took a huge leap of deduction and for some completely unknown reason assumed that the lady must have lost her dog. “Woof woof”, Carol barked at the lady, while pretending to be a large dog. You could imagine the lady’s surprise and confusion at this turn of events. What she had been trying to tell us was that someone had left their purse on the church steps and they wanted to know if it belonged to one of us. Of course it was one of ours, in fact Carol has made an art form of leaving valuables everywhere she goes. When she was reunited with her purse she hugged and kissed the finder (well he was quite a good looking fellow after all) and resumed the ride. It really was a stroke of good fortune that we had not just ridden straight off and left the purse behind.
Mid way through the afternoon we also faced another serious challenge. We had to cross a sizable river without using a bridge. The only way across was a small ferry which had to be dragged across by pulling on a chain. Because of its small size, only about 4 or 5 could travel across at a time. The challenge was not so much as in pulling the little boat across, but in trying not to wet yourself laughing in the process. After an hysterical 15 minutes or so, all our team members were gathered on the opposite bank, ready to resume the ride.
The final 30 km of the ride took us right away from the towns and through a variety of quiet rural areas and some new housing estates. It was only when we reached the outskirts of Angers that we rode straight into the peak hour traffic of a very large and busy city. This is a rather stressful time, but somehow we avoided being run down by trucks and buses and made it safely to our hotel. Since the longest day was now behind and, since the next day would be our second rest day, we were all looking forward to a shower and a rest.
A single phone call can change the complexion of a day instantly, and this is exactly what happened when the phone in our room rang just before we were due to meet for dinner. When Maggie answered it, it did not take long for me to detect that it was bad news. Very bad news. Carol had slipped under the shower and had fallen heavily on her right ankle. We are fortunate to have a doctor in our team and Sue had already had an initial examination and felt that it was broken. An ambulance was called and the news quickly spread around our shocked riders. This really was a disaster. Carol had worked so hard both before and during the ride and we were all so proud that she had made it through every challenge. She always wore a huge smile and was very highly regarded by all of us. We all wanted so much for every rider to be able to roll across the final finishing line together in a few day’s time. Although we hoped that the ankle was just sprained, I think we all feared the worst.
The ambulance soon arrived with a couple of energetic young paramedics. They even managed to get Carol to break into another of her huge smiles when they loaded her into the back on the ambulance and sped off down the street with lights and sirens sounding. Although it was not the way the script was meant to go, I had to admit that it was a dramatic moment and one that we will be able to laugh about in the years to come. Later that evening we received the confirmation that the ankle was indeed broken and that she would require surgery to pin the bones. Her ride had ended prematurely and we all deeply shared David and Carol’s shock and disappointment.En savoir plus
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- Jour 32
- vendredi 25 septembre 2015 à 19:26
- 16 °C
- Altitude: 48 m
- FranceMonplaisir47°28’58” N 0°32’35” W
Angry in Angers
25 septembre 2015, France ⋅ 16 °C
Day 32 – In Which I get Angry in Angers
On our first night in Angers we were kept awake for quite some time by multiple groups of locals enthusiastically practising for that little known new Olympic event – loud talking, shouting and singing in the streets in the middle of the night. If that event does actually make it into the next Olympics, then the residents of Angers will be the white hot favourites for the gold medal.
Somehow we managed to finally get to sleep in spite of the commotion outside and we even had a little sleep in until 7 am. Our main task for the morning was to catch up on what was happening with Carol, as well as try an make some inroads into the enormous pile of dirty clothes that threatened to take over our luggage. After breakfast Maggie and I joined Sally and Eugenie in search of the Holy Grail – a Laundromat. Sally studied the map and said that there was one about 5 minutes walk from the hotel. I staggered along behind, dragging a huge Santa sack of dirty laundry.
I suppose the walk would have taken 5 minutes if we had been in a motor car, and also if all the women did not stop at every shop window to look at what was inside. About 30 minutes later we were in the Laundromat looking for vacant machines and trying to decipher the French instructions. We crammed our loads into two machines and hoped that the motors would not blow under the strain. A pocketful of Euros disappeared into the controller and the women all went shopping, leaving me with the exciting job of watching the smalls go round.
I carefully calculated the duration of the wash and went to look for a nearby coffee shop. After ordering a nice coffee I sat in the sun to watch the people and enjoy my coffee. My plan half worked. Somehow, after one lovely mouthful of coffee, I accidentally knocked the tray and sent the rest of the coffee pouring all over the table and onto the footpath. I tried to look nonchalant and pretend that it was OK. It wasn’t. At least I could enjoy some of my pastime of people watching.
We had already deduced that there were some very interesting people in Angers. In the middle of the main plaza we watched a very well dressed man wearing a set of headphones. He was dancing his way around the square, oblivious to all those around him. Even more surprising was the fact that no one else seemed to notice. That is one thing we have seen time and time again in France – people embrace individuality.
My watch finally told me that it was time to remove our loads from the washing machines and put them in the dryers. When I arrived there was no sign of the women, although they did arrive about 15 minutes later. The loads were dragged to the dryers, more coins were dropped into the abyss and the women disappeared again. I sat and waited while the world went round and round.
Every washing machine was in use at this time and there was a young girl waiting for a vacant machine. A load of washing belonging to an eccentric middle aged Frenchman (is there any other kind) with dyed hair finished the end of its cycle. The man then proceeded to take each piece of washing (sock, handkie, underwear, etc) carefully from the machine, shake it vigorously and fold it precisely. It was obviously a process he had done many times before. Gradually the machine was emptied, but it took a good 15 minutes. The young girl just sat and waited patiently. If the scenerio had been happening in Australia, I reckoned that the guy would have found himself covered in his washing.
When he finally removed the last article, he then proceeded to feel around the inside of the tub, carefully probing each dimple of the agitator for some elusive lost item. I thought he was about to climb inside the drum, but finally he seemed satisfied that his job was done, picked up his load and walked out. The girl took over the machine and started her load.
After what seemed like a geological time span, my load finally finished in the dryer. There was still no sign of the women. I tried ringing Maggie. No Answer. I tried ringing Eugenie. No answer. I wasn’t sure what to do. I eventually removed all of our washing and tried to stuff it into the Santa sack, but had no idea of what to do with Sally and Eugenie’s huge pile which was now just sitting in the dryer. Too bad about those waiting to use it. I tried several times more to contact them on the phones. No answer. I waited for about another 25 minutes before finally spitting the proverbial dummy and heading back to the hotel.
About an hour later I got a call from Maggie, saying that they “had lost track of the time” and were wondering where I was. I explained that I “had grown old waiting and was now spending my twilight years in a French Nursing Home”. It was a shame that my “rest day” in Angers had mostly been spent in the Laundromat.
In the late afternoon Maggie and I walked to the hospital where Carol was waiting for her operation. The place was huge with a capital H. With its myriad of outbuildings we would never have found our way without being told to head for the huge dome in the centre. While some buildings were obviously new, others looked like they belonged to a bygone era of dinosaurs. I half expected to see Florence Nightingale emerge from one of the dark corridors, carrying her famous lamp.
We finally located David and Carol and were able to spend some time with them. Carol appeared to be in good spirits, although they were obviously both very shattered at not being able to complete the ride. The doctors had said that they may be able to operate later that afternoon. We made the long walk back to the hotel and prepared for dinner. In the meantime the riders from Group 2 had arrived in Angers and would also be sharing the meal with us.
Our designated dinner location was at the nearby Brasserie du Theatre, an impressive three story restaurant right in the middle of the main plaza. A waiter met us at the door and disappeared up the staircase. We followed him up the stairs to the top but there was no sign of him. Perhaps he was a street magician as it certainly was a good disappearing act. We looked around but he had gone without trace. This was probably a good indication of what was to come later.
We finally located him on the second floor and our large group was directed to sit at three tables in the corner of the room. After waiting for what seemed like an eternity, another waiter appeared and took some drink orders. It seemed like Eugenie must have upset him for some reason because he ignored her order and then ignored her again when she repeated it some minutes later. You know what they say about a woman scorned…..
The waiter then sat nearby and busied himself scribbling something on a piece of paper. I think he was making up the menu, because the place apparently did not have any printed ones. He then proceeded to come to each table, mumble a few words of French and expect us to make our decisions. There were no explanations and certainly NO courtesy either. Several of our table were a little upset and asked if he could make up salads instead of whatever options he had mumbled into Ross’s left ear. When the meals were finally delivered, those that had ordered salads were given a small saucer with two tiny lettuce leaves on each one. I had to agree it was a rubbish meal by anyone’s standards. This was even more disappointing considering that there were three places that had been prepaid for people that would not be eating. Following this additional insult Sally and Eugenie stood to their feet and headed to the nearby Macdonalds for a real meal deal. Compared to the other restaurants we had visited over the past 12 days, this place really was a disgrace. When we added up the drinks bill we certainly made sure that there was no tip included. If I had my way I would have deducted quite a few Euro from the total to compensate for the way we had been treated there.
Back at the hotel we met David who informed us that Carol had been operated on earlier in the night and that she would probably be released in two day’s time. Our time in Angers had been rather mixed. Soon after we went to bed the local Olympic Shouting Team resumed their raucous street shouting routines. They continued for most of the night. I will be glad to ride to our next stop at Montjean.En savoir plus
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- Jour 33
- samedi 26 septembre 2015 à 19:27
- ☀️ 16 °C
- Altitude: 8 m
- FranceMontjean-sur-Loire47°23’34” N 0°51’45” W
Sally Takes the Lead
26 septembre 2015, France ⋅ ☀️ 16 °C
Day 33 – In Which Sally Takes the Lead into Montjean
After the very stressful ride we had into Angers in the Friday afternoon peak hour traffic we were all a little apprehensive about running the gauntlet again on the way out of town. We needn’t have. As we rolled away from our hotel at 9 am on a quiet Sunday morning, the streets were still almost deserted. Obviously those who had once again spent the night in the streets training their vocal chords for the shouting championships had finally retired to bed.
Just as important was the fact that the day had dawned bright and clear and the advance weather forecasts promised no more rain for the remainder of our ride. It was finally appearing that things were falling into place. We managed to quickly leave the confines of Angers and resume our journey along the bike path. There were quite a few out jogging, walking their dogs or just enjoying the sunshine. Since we only had a relatively modest distance to cover, we did not need to rush and decided to take the ride slow and easy.
The European Autumn has now officially started and this often provides delightful periods of sunny and mild days and cool nights. This is often perfect for cycling. We even saw the first signs of the the changing colours of the leaves on the trees. In a few short weeks the whole appearance of these regions will change again as Autumn rapidly moves forward into winter.
After we had ridden about 10 km we noticed a large number of spectators gathering along the sides of the bike path. I knew that some locals were aware of our epic ride, but I had not expected this sort of reception. I looked down at the faded stains on the front of my jersey and wished that I had worn my best one for the day. Proudly taking the lead for once, I tried to maintain some semblance of pelotonic discipline as we approached the waiting throng. To my surprise and dismay, they weren’t actually there to meet us after all. We had ridden into some sort of huge kayaking event and there were hundreds of rowers and spectators, long lines of motor homes, countless support and transport vehicles, not to mention several hundred pet dogs as well. It became something of a challenge to wind our way through the throng without becoming another item on the local nightly news.
We finally emerged from the chaos and resumed our riding along the bike path. Since we had traveled for over an hour without a single coffee or toilet stop, our situation was becoming somewhat desperate. Fortunately we had not ridden much further when we found a lovely little open space, right on the river bank. It even had several likely looking eateries on both sides. The prospect of getting a coffee and cake looked promising, but once again we had to be satisfied with the proverbial “glass half full”. Although we were able to get quite reasonable coffee, the girl looked at me as though I had bitten her when I asked if they sold cakes as well.
While we were stopped we studied the flood levels for the major floods over the past century. It was quite staggering to see just how high the river does rise on regular occasions. I think the worst was in 1910, when I suspect that manufacture of arks must have been a popular pastime. In the Autumn of 2015 the Loire is peaceful and there is little prospect that we will be flooded out.
A little further on we reached the large bridge at Chalonnes Sur Loire. Although our route dictated that we stay on the right bank, as soon as we saw the array of eateries on the left bank, we agreed that it would be worth crossing the big bridge in order to get something for lunch. Since the Loire is now a wide river and the bridges are rather infrequent, any bridge crossing is usually associated with a busy road and lots of cars and trucks.
Although the first place we stopped at had not tables available, we soon found a full scale market in operation and also a fine Patisserie and Boulangerie. We were not going to starve after all. Since we only had about 10 km left to ride, we all decided that it would be a good place to sit in the sun and have a lazy lunch stop.
When we finally staggered to our feet, somehow something really strange happened within the peloton. Over the course of the previous 10 or so days, there had been a pattern established with some riders always heading to the front and others very happy to ride at the rear. I know that in a classroom, it is always those students who sit at the back of the class that are the ones that the teacher needs to watch the closest. Exactly the same principle applies to those riders who always go to the back. They are usually there to tell jokes, fool around, stop to take silly pictures and regularly go into fits of giggling. The ones at the front are those who study the maps, do their homework, diligently identify hazards and set a brisk pace for the ride.
You can imagine how surprised I was to find that, on the final 10 km leg into Montjean, the peloton had inverted itself. The naughty riders were at the front, with Sally actually leading the way. I must admit I had not seen that one coming and I nearly rode off the track and into one of the roadside stinging nettle patches, such was my amazement.The only other time Sally had taken over the group was way back in Paris when she led us on an errant goose chase all over Paris looking for a Metro Station.
This time Sally managed to find a couple of the direction indicators and we almost followed the correct route all the way to the lovely riverside town of Montjean. This is a quiet and quaint town that reminded me immediately of the town where Doc Martin terrorises all his patients. The architecture is distinctly maritime and there is an increasing number of fishing boats and other vessels visible in the river.
We had a superb evening meal, probably one of the best so far and the brilliant full moon shining on the river outside was a fitting final touch to a wonderful day.En savoir plus
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- Jour 33
- samedi 26 septembre 2015 à 19:29
- ⛅ 16 °C
- Altitude: 15 m
- FranceHâvre47°20’13” N 1°16’40” W
Ron Gets a Belly Full
26 septembre 2015, France ⋅ ⛅ 16 °C
Day 34 – In Which Ron Gets a Bellyful
The road away from the hotel was smooth, flat and almost deserted. On our right hand side was the mighty Loire River. With another clear sky overhead and no rain predicted for the next few days, it should have been a perfect ride. It wasn’t. A bicycle is meant to be quiet. Mine wasn’t. For the past few days a small click had been growing somewhere in my bike’s nether regions. By the start of today’s ride the click had developed in both volume and regularity so that it now accompanied every damn turn of my cranks. Click….Tick….Click.
A similar irritating and entirely unwelcome noise had become my companion for most of the Italy ride, and I had loved the sensation of riding in quietness for the first few days of this ride. My nemesis had now caught up with me and looked like it was going to be with me all the way to Le Croisic. I tried tightening the pedals. If anything it seemed to make the clicks louder. I tried kicking the bottom bracket. It didn’t get rid of the click, but it did make me feel a bit better. Short of chucking the bike in the Loire, there was not much more I could do. Perhaps I was being taught a valuable lesson in patience and long suffering. If so, I was obviously a poor student, as all it succeeded in doing was make me cranky.
Apart from my own on board symphony of sound, the rest of the ride went exceptionally well. Everyone was in high spirits and we were making excellent progress. If anything, our progress was actually too excellent. If we kept this up we would be at our destination at Champtoceaux far too early. We had plenty of time to fill and needed something to do with it. I came up with an idea.
The first likely looking opportunity for a coffee stop was at Saint Florent le Vieil. I decided to turn from the bike path and explore the town. My first effort led the peloton up a hill and straight into a dead end (en impasse). I tried to look like I had planned it and instructed the group to turn around. We then proceeded up another hill and discovered the town centre, complete with large coffee shop and, not one, but two Patisseries/Boulangeries. This was just what I had been hoping for, and revealed my plan for the day.
“Let’s buy lunch and then make a picnic by the river”, I suggested. Ever since this ride had begun we had learned to make sure we “bought enough food for Ron”. Whenever we had the chance to buy lollies or baguettes, we had to make sure that there was also plenty for Ron as well as ourselves. And who was this mysterious Ron ? Of course it was the legendary “Later Ron”.
Although the first patisserie was a complete disappointment as they didn’t sell sandwiches and their cakes looked second rate (some even went so far as to classify it as a rubbish cake shop), the second one turned out to be a veritable El Dorado. It had enough tooth rotting cakes to satisfy even the hungriest pelotons and the cooler was piled with freshly made baguettes with a delicious range of fillings. We really had struck it lucky this time. Some time later we all staggered from the shop with large bags filled with more than enough for us AND a whole army of Rons. There was no chance that Ron would be hungry today.
Since it was still too early for lunch we walked to the nearby coffee shop, ordered our coffees and then sat in the warm sunshine chatting and drinking coffee. This cycle touring can be highly demanding at time, but today was NOT one of those times. It was just plain good fun.
We managed to lose half the peloton on the way out of town, but that was not a serious matter as we did find them again later. Our next task was to find a place to enjoy our picnic by the river. When a suitable place was suggested a few kilometres later, there was no argument. Everyone was hungry and this was deemed a great time to share our lunches with Ron.
Another extended time was spent sitting in the sunshine, watching the river, wondering if the swans would swim our way and munching on our baguettes. It will remain a treasured memory of this trip, but when someone threw a banana peel into the undergrowth, I warned that could be dangerous as someone could slip over on it.
Reluctantly we remounted our bikes and rode for a few minutes before the women starting asking for another toilet stop. We managed to find a lovely opportunity (the location, not the toilet) by a series of green lagoons. The ladies lined up, the men waited. And waited.
The remainder of the afternoon’s ride was warm and easy and put everyone in a lovely mellow mood. When we were about 4 km from the hotel at Champtoceaux I stopped for the final rest break of the day. At the time some may have wondered why we stopped so close to the hotel, but the reason was answered when they turned the corner and saw the road reaching up to the skies. The hotel was situated on the top of a hill. Gears clicked down, heads dropped and the climbing started. If this hill had been encountered two weeks ago, it would probably have caused a riot. Now that all the riders are stronger, it was fascinating to see that most actually enjoyed the challenge. Even with the heavy bikes and loaded panniers, it was a strange sort of fun. The views from the summit certainly made all the effort worthwhile. The so called “Promenade of Champalud” rewarded us with the finest views of the entire ride. Standing at the lookout we could see up and down a huge section of the Loire Valley.
After dinner we all climbed back to the lookout. The experts had predicted the best full moon of the year – the so called “Blood Moon” and we wanted to experience it from the best spot possible. As we stood and gazed at the twinkling lights of the scattered villages and the enormous full moon overhead, I am sure that we were all satiated. And I am sure that Ron slept especially well that night.En savoir plus
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- Jour 35
- lundi 28 septembre 2015 à 19:32
- ⛅ 18 °C
- Altitude: 21 m
- FranceÎle Beaulieu47°12’3” N 1°32’12” W
Two Lost Sheep
28 septembre 2015, France ⋅ ⛅ 18 °C
Day 35 – In Which Two Lost Sheep are Found and Returned to the Fold
With only two more day’s of cycling left to be completed before we reach our destination at Le Croisic, it is normal for riders to feel mixed emotions. On the one hand it is a great personal achievement for all the participants and there is a natural desire to reach the finishing line, but on the other hand it is usually tinged with the sadness that our long awaited adventure will soon be over. After one final free day at Le Croisic our riders will each scatter all over Europe to continue their own individual journeys.
The hotel in Champtoceaux was very popular with all modern facilities and a breathtaking view. It was a pity about the unreliable Internet connection here. When I last stayed at the same hotel two years ago they had the same problem and I was disappointed that they had not taken any steps to improve it. It was a strange sight to see a group of our riders huddled with their tablets and notebooks in the downstairs lounge at 7 am in the morning, trying to get a reliable Internet connection before breakfast.
Like the meal of the previous evening, the breakfast was also of a high standard, especially the wonderful baguettes from the nearby Boulangerie. I am sure that we are all going to miss that crunchy bread when we go home to Australia.
The sky was again clear as we began our ride, although there was an early morning chill in the air. We did not ride back down the big hill we had climbed up to get into town but followed a series of quiet roads in the opposite direction. A final quick descent brought us back to our familiar river bank. Just as welcome as the downhill was the steady tail wind that was pushing our backs for most of the day. It was such a contrast to those early freezing wet days we had suffered at the start of our ride when we left Orleans. That suffering now seems like a dim distant memory as conditions have certainly swung in our favour. It now looks certain that we will have bright sunny weather all the way to the end. Absolutely perfect for riding.
Once again we stocked up with supplies for a riverside picnic and rolled along happily with our baguettes and cakes safely in our panniers. There was no chance that Ron would be going hungry this afternoon.
Since the day’s ride was quite short, we knew that we would be arriving in Nantes relatively early in the day. Soon after 12 noon we started to see the first signs of high rise buildings on the outskirts of this large city. With almost 1 million people living in Nantes and its suburbs, it is the 6th largest city in France. After our somewhat stressful entry into Angers we were a little apprehensive at the prospect of riding into such a large city in the middle of a weekday.
We managed to find a likely looking spot for our picnic lunch and entertained a couple of local residents with our antics by the side of the bike path. After a lengthy break it was back on the bikes and into the big city. To our relief it was actually quite civilised and we managed to find our hotel safely and easily. The Best Western Graslin Hotel is situated in a beautiful part of town and it has a distinctly Art Deco character. Apart from the unfortunate noxious sewer smell permeating the main city plaza, we were all quite impressed with the city itself.
While we were returning to our hotel after having an initial look around the town, we were thrilled to see two familiar faces making their way up the hill to the Hotel entrance. It was David and Carol, our two lost sheep. Carol had only recently been discharged from hospital following her operation and David had apparently been trying to entertain her by driving her around Nantes in ever diminishing circles for the past hour and a half. He had also adjusted her new walking frame by setting each leg to a slightly different length, ensuring that it was virtually impossible for her to stand upright. Judging by the way it wobbled like a $2 rickshaw, it looked like David had also forgotten to tighten any of the screws that held the contraption together. No wonder she looked like she was ready to beat him around the head with what was left of it.
We grabbed David’s suitcases and pointed up the hill to the hotel door. It was only about 100 metres away and I calculated that it would take Carol no more than about 45 minutes to make her way there. In the meantime David looked like he had been dragged backwards through a meat grinder. I had to admit that the normally unflappable guy was showing distinctive signs of fraying around the edges.
We were glad that the friendly concierge from the hotel also came out to help by barracking for Carol to shuffle faster, before finally lifting her off both feet to get her through the doorway. I think that, if I had been in the same position, some of the nearby people would have been severely injured by this time. Once again she impressed us all by retaining her sense of humour in spite of what was a very difficult situation. Carol and David really have captured all our hearts over the past few weeks and we were all devastated when Carol’s accident took place. It was wonderful to see them again but we can appreciate what a challenge the next few days will be for them.En savoir plus
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- Jour 36
- mardi 29 septembre 2015 à 19:33
- 16 °C
- Altitude: 16 m
- FranceRocher de Bourg47°14’46” N 2°9’42” W
La Cigalle and a Bad Baguette
29 septembre 2015, France ⋅ 16 °C
Day 36 In Which we Dine at La Cigalle and Ron’s Baguette nearly Kills Me
I have eaten at some interesting places in my life but the restaurant we dined at in Nantes surely was right up there. It was only a very short walk (or roll as in Carol’s case) from our hotel to the nearby La Cigalle Restaurant. Apparently this is a very famous place, and the line up of uniformed staff at the front entrance certainly made for an impressive welcome. I am not so sure that we were correctly dressed for the occasion. After so long on the bikes, the selection of available, even reasonably, clean clothes was rather limited.
We followed Carol in her wheelchair up the street like some procession of acolytes following the Delai Lama to his royal inauguration. The Maitre ‘d looked us up and down and I suspect that we all fell well short of his high standards, but he did do his best to open the door to allow Carol to enter without crushing her foot more than seven or eight times, then ushered us through the elaborate interior to our allocated table. The interior of this restaurant really is something else, looking a bit like a combination of something from the Arabian Nights and Donald Trump’s toilet. All the available walls are covered with an incredible assortment of coloured tiles and murals. I am sure that the pictures I tried to take will never really capture the spirit of this place.
We then spent the next two hours eating and laughing until the staff were very happy to see the last of us. With only two days of riding to go till our adventure is completed, I think we all had a mixture of emotions. Although a ride of this type is not on the same scale as swimming the English Channel, it still constitutes a significant challenge for most people. The physical demands are only one part of the equation. There are also the added pressures of living out of a suitcase day after day, adapting to other people’s personalities and dealing with food that might not always be to your particular taste. It is normal for the demands to start to take their toll towards the end of a ride, and for riders to look forward to climbing off the bike for the last time. On the other hand, when you have looked forward to something for such a long time, you don’t want the magic to ever end.
The next day we began our final day of riding along the Loire to the wide river estuary at St Brevin. The following day of riding would then take us away from the river and up north to the lovely coastal town of Le Croisic. Since the wild weather we experienced in the first couple of days out of Orleans, we were all relieved that the true autumn sunshine had returned and we had enjoyed a succession of lovely sunny days. As cyclists we were also extremely happy that our early run of punctures had stopped and that we were being gently pushed along by a wonderful tail wind. In fact the conditions for riding were ideal. Perhaps too ideal.
For the past couple of days we had been buying our lunches and then taking them to a convenient picnic stop by the river. It became part of our routine to visit the Boulangerie and buy a baguette and a cake for Ron (later Ron). When we found a likely looking pile of prepared baguettes I bought one for me and one for Maggie. We joked that they were “both for Ron”. As it turned out I wish that Ron had been there to eat the one I bought for him.
As we sat and ate our picnic lunch I thought that the egg, mayonnaise and chicken tasted a bit strong, but what would I know ? I was hungry and there was no sign of Ron anyway. I not only ate his baguette, I ate his cream filled eclair as well. We did not have too far left to ride and, since the conditions were so lovely, I quickly forgot about the lunch. I wish lunch had forgotten about me.
We reached St Brevin and posed by the side of the huge estuary and looked at the massive bridge across the river to St Nazair, relieved that we would not have to ride our bikes over that monster. It was a wonderful feeling of accomplishment that we had followed this river for so many hundreds of kilometres and had seen it change so much along the way. For the past three weeks we had been witnesses to so many fascinating aspects of French life and culture. On a ride like this you not only learn a lot about the country you are riding through, but you also learn so much more about yourself. You learn that it really is possible to achieve some amazing things if you just put your mind to it.
Within a few minutes of arriving at the hotel in St Brevin, I also learned quite a bit about myself that I wish had remained unknown. After collecting our key I went to the room, looked at Maggie and said “I don’t feel well”. About 20 seconds later I repeated it with renewed emphasis “I really don’t feel well”, making a beeline for the toilet. The rest of that afternoon and evening was a bit of a blur. I didn’t get to see much of the town as it is quite difficult to see much when your head is deep inside the toilet bowl. Whatever I had bought for Ron, it certainly kicked like a mule.
The last time I had experienced food poisoning was on a trip to Kathmandu in 1999 and I remembered it as one of the worst experiences of my life. This was certainly not on the same scale, but it was enough to ensure that, while the rest were enjoying what was apparently one of the best meals of the whole trip, I was restricted to making short, but frequent trips back and forth between my bed and the toilet. I felt like an elephant was sitting on my stomach and could not help but curse Ron for not eating his own foul toxic baguette.
It turned into a long and mostly sleepless night and I knew that the final day of riding was going to be a real challenge.En savoir plus
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- Jour 37
- mercredi 30 septembre 2015 à 19:35
- 16 °C
- Altitude: 5 m
- FranceBaie de Jumel47°17’2” N 2°30’55” W
The End of the Road
30 septembre 2015, France ⋅ 16 °C
Day 37 In Which Nous Sommes Ici a Le Croisic
The final leg of our France ride was not meant to be the most difficult. No more than the last 100 metres of the climb to the summit of Everest or the final few strokes in the English Channel swim. After all, we only had about 50 km left to ride, there were no major climbs left and the weather was as close to perfect as we were ever likely to get.
The problem was that my body was not perfect. I had spent a restless and mostly sleepless night with a tangle of delirious thoughts racing through my head. That toxic baguette from the previous day had left my stomach empty and my energy levels at around zero. My big problem is that I had never failed to finish any of the previous 30 or so overseas rides we had conducted in the past 10 years and I really didn’t want to blot my copy book at this late stage.
When the alarm went off at 6 am, the only thing I wanted to do was hide from the world and wish the whole thing was over already. Somehow I crawled out of bed and staggered to the bathroom, tripping over my suitcase in the process. The day was off to a great start. Maggie looked at me and asked “Are you sure you really want to ride ?” Of course the answer to that one should have been blatantly obvious – of course I didn’t. On the other hand I knew that there would be a peloton of yellow jersey wearing riders who would need someone to lead them the final few kilometres to Le Croisic.
I tried to face breakfast, but a few mouthfuls of orange juice and a little tub of apple puree were the only things I could trust my stomach to hold. I then bundled the panniers for the final time and tried to fill myself with some plain old bloody minded stubbornness.
Our final day began with a short bus ride over the huge estuary bridge to nearby St Nazair. This bridge would make the Westgate Bridge look like a little tacker by comparison and the combination of a very narrow bike lane, high winds, vertigo and speeding trucks would not make it either a safe or pleasant proposition.
On the other side of the bridge we were reunited with our bikes for the last time. The final 50 km would take us north, away from the Loire and to the delightful coastal town of Le Croisic. Since we would no longer be riding the Loire a Velo bike path, the navigation also promised to be a bit more challenging.
The first few kilometres out of town seemed to meander back and forth, without making any real progress. It did not take long to realise that I had virtually no strength left at all and even the small climbs were seeming like mountains to me. I was however aware of one change that had taken place in the following peloton. For most of the trip the group had sorted itself out into the “serious riders” and the “naughty girls”. While the former always liked to ride at the front and set a brisk pace, the latter group loved to fool around at the back making numerous unnecessary toilet stops, taking pictures of just about anything, and riding as slowly as possible without actually stopping.
The naughty girls group consisted mainly of Eugenie, Sally, Carol and Maggie. When Carol had her unfortunate accident in the shower at Angers, the naughty girls were depleted to only three members, but I did notice a change in their riding behaviour from that point on. Rather than always laughing at the back, on quite a few occasions they actually burst through to the front and even looked like real riders. On this final day of riding I was surprised and pleased that the errant backmarkers were now occupying the front of the peloton. All of these women had all taken up cycling only relatively recently and it was an amazing achievement to not only complete the ride, but to get stronger as the ride went on.
After about 25 km we reached the small town of Andre des Eaux. This was our final chance to buy supplies for a picnic lunch a little later on. I still could not face eating anything (especially a baguette), but I did enjoy resting in the warm autumn sunshine. About another 10 km further on we rode into the amazing medieval walled city at Guerande. I remember being astounded when I saw this place for the first time and I knew that the group would enjoy some time to explore the place before the final section to Le Croisic.
While the others went into the medieval city I lay on the grass and used my helmet as a very uncomfortable pillow. At this stage I knew that the only section left to ride was the flat section through the salt pans. Nothing would stop us now that our final target was almost in sight.
An hour later we remounted the bikes. The afternoon sun was warm on our faces and the friendly tail wind returned to give us a welcome assist. A couple of minutes later I discovered that the battery in my GoPro camera that I had carried around my neck for the entire ride had gone flat. It reflected the state of my own energy reserves.
In less than an hour we were gathered on the waterfront of the Atlantic Ocean, looking out at the vast expanse of water. With the lovely white holiday cottages and the sounds of seagulls filling the air, I am sure it will be a moment that none of the group will ever forget. It was a time for well earned hugs, kisses and congratulations to all. What an amazing time we had shared together.
When we arrived at our hotel we found that we were not the first ones there. David and Carol had arrived earlier in the day and were there to provide a huge welcome for us. We were all so glad that they were able to complete the trip that they had set out to do. Maybe it had to be finished in a hire car, but at least they would be able to share the excitement with us. Compared to the challenge that they had both faced with Carol’s broken leg, riding a few extra days on a bike seemed a distant second.
That evening we gathered for our celebration dinner at Restaurant de L’Ocean , a prestigious seafood restaurant situated right on the beachfront. With its panoramic windows providing a breathtaking view of the ocean, it would have been hard to imagine a more fitting end to an incredible trip. Unfortunately sometimes things don’t always turn out exactly as planned.
As we sat down at the starched white table cloth and the impressive array of crockery and cutlery I was very conscious of my distinct lack of breeding. For someone who was brought up with just a knife, fork and spoon, I still cannot really feel at home in this sort of establishment.
The meal began and I was a little surprised when we were given no choice whatsoever. It would be a pity if you did not like seafood as the only choice available was to either eat it or go hungry. We were even more surprised when we were never offered a drinks list, but one of the young waitresses just worked her way around filling every glass. I could have tried to tell her that most of the riders in Group don’t drink, but I didn’t think that the message would have got through. Apart from the wine, none of us were given anything other than tap water to drink. A rather strange way for such a fancy restaurant to operate.
I did manage to eat quite a lot of my dinner but by around 9 pm I was feeling sick and exhausted and excused myself and went back to the hotel, leaving Ross and David to sort out the final arrangements. It was only when the group returned to the hotel that I heard the rest of the story. Apparently when the group rose to leave, they were presented with a drinks bill with a wine cost of over 40 Euros per bottle (around $70AUD). Considering we had never asked for the wine and were given no choice as to any other option, David and Ross refused to pay this charge. I think if I had have been there I would not have been able to maintain the same degree of self control that they apparently exercised. By this time the young waitress really had a bad attitude and even refused to accept the meal payment voucher because it had a tiny piece missing from one corner. It was a shame that such a lovely day had been tarnished by such petty and unprofessional behaviour.
Since we were all booked in to return to the same restaurant the next evening, in the morning I returned to the restaurant to discuss the matter with the staff. It seemed that everyone had experienced a wonderful change of heart and that it would be “no problem” to provide us with just about anything we wanted. I just hoped that my appetite might have returned enough for me to do it justice.En savoir plus
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- Jour 38
- jeudi 1 octobre 2015 à 21:17
- 12 °C
- Altitude: 11 m
- FranceBaie du Crucifix47°17’0” N 2°30’39” W
Group Two Cross the Line
1 octobre 2015, France ⋅ 12 °C
Day 38 In Which the Riders of Group Two Finally Cross the Finish Line
Le Croisic is a beautiful little fishing town on the Atlantic coast in Brittany. In the peak tourist season this place is packed with holidaymakers and would not be the ideal spot for a quiet retreat. However, once the summer ends the majority of houses are locked and shuttered for the winter and I could not think of a more perfect place to spend a peaceful time after the demands of a long distance bicycle ride.
On the south side of the peninsula there are a succession of rocky beaches with unbroken views out over the Atlantic Ocean. The fishing port is a short walk away on the north side and here you can find a large assortment of waterfront eateries to satisfy your hunger. The tidal variations here are enormous and, when the tide retreats, all the fishing boats are left high and dry in the mud.
Although we still had access to our bikes for the final day in Le Croisic, due to the fact that I was still recovering from the food poisoning and feeling a little weak, we were quite happy to just spend the time having a quiet walk around the deserted streets. The mid autumn weather is cool in the early morning but wonderfully mild once the sun is high in the sky. It was a perfect end to another memorable cycling adventure.
Those early days in Paris now seemed a long time ago, I sat and looked out over the ocean and thought back over the past few weeks and the countless highlights we had all shared together. I thought of our group walk around Sacre Coeur Cathedral, coffee time at the Place du Tertre, the concert at La Chapelle, the night cruise down the Seine, standing on the river bank in Orleans, the terrible storm on our first day’s ride to Beaugency, the manic Chateau of Chambord, the ornate gardens at Villandry, the incredible dinner at Azay le Rideau, riding those magnificent cycle paths along the river, eating crunchy baguettes, dinner at La Cigalle, the walled city at Guerande and so many more memories that have now become a part of our lives. For me the most important thing about any such trip is not stopping to capture as many selfies as possible in front of as many tourist hot spots as you can find in the guide book. It is about the privilege of being able to be a part of another culture for a period of time. We had a unique opportunity to see a wide cross section of the real France, to see what France is like below the surface. Sometimes this is magical, at other times it can be frustrating and downright bewildering, but that is what travel should be about. Those who never leave the main A roads never see anything other than the famous sights and they really do miss out on so much. As the French would say “Quelle Domage!”.
We returned to our hotel just in time to hear the excited shouts and sounds of the riders of Group 2 completing their ride. The official record keepers could record that they had finished their ride almost 24 hours behind those in Group 1. With all the “chickens” now safely home in the coup I could really relax, knowing that all the complex arrangements had gone according to plan. It is not easy to get 25 people from around Australia to ride bikes across a foreign country without something going astray, and yet all the logistics had gone right according to the script. The only dark side was Carol’s accident in the shower, but now that they were back with us, it was beginning to seem like not such a big deal after all. It even scored her a flight upgrade on the flight home, showing that there is a silver lining to every cloud.
In the evening both groups returned to the Restaurant de L’Ocean for our combined dinner. After the unpleasant events of the previous night I was rather apprehensive. I shouldn’t have been. The staff were delightful, the food beautiful, we were given choices with food and drinks, the views were breathtaking and it was a perfect ending to an epic trip. It was also Maggie’s Birthday so they provided a lovely cake for her to celebrate while the rest of us sang quite a few choruses of “Happy Birthday to You”. France is like that.
The word adventure has been hugely devalued in recent time. I hear people talking about having an “adventure” by the pool at Port Douglas, or an “adventure” on a luxury cruise. Adventure ? Adventure ? By its very definition an adventure must involve a challenge. It has to be something that takes you away from the comfort zone and forces you to confront the unfamiliar, the tough, the challenging and then still prevail. There is no doubt that most people find these long distance cycling trips demanding and challenging. It is hard to get up each day, pack your bags and get back on the bike for another 4 or more hours riding.There are also the other challenges of coping with unfamiliar foods, not speaking the language, living from a suitcase, living in close proximity to other people, variable weather, laundry, etc, etc. They are not meant to be easy, but there are always huge rewards for facing a personal challenge and prevailing. It is hard to explain that incredible feeling of “it was tough but I did it” that everyone feels at the end. It is even harder to explain that, whenever I ask people which days they remember most, it is always the tough days that people look back on with affection in the years ahead.
We had all spent the past few weeks riding together, laughing together, eating together, chatting together and sometimes crying together. I am sure we have all grown personally as a result and the friendships we have made will be cherished in the years ahead.
Tomorrow Maggie and I leave to begin our own extended journey around France, but the next few weeks will be spent in a hire car and not on a bike. Next year the Ghostriders will be back in Europe again for our biggest ever ride. Although all spaces are currently filled, I am still taking expressions of interest in case any extra places become available.
Au Revoir and thanks for being a part of our ride…..En savoir plus
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- Jour 39
- vendredi 2 octobre 2015 à 21:19
- 🌧 16 °C
- Altitude: 177 m
- FranceCordes-sur-Ciel44°3’57” N 1°57’15” E
Goodbye Le Croisic
2 octobre 2015, France ⋅ 🌧 16 °C
Days 39 -45 In Which we Travel Back in Time to 1222
Although the Ghostriders’ European rides have now been completed, I have had requests to provide an update on what we have been up to since we left Le Croisic. I thought you might like a quick recap of the past week or so.
Since Carol’s unfortunate accident in Angers, David has taken on a couple of new roles. As well as becoming Carol’s unwilling permanent carer, he was also quickly appointed as the official taxi driver for our group. Since we all had heavy suitcases and since the Le Croisic Railway Station was about a km from our hotel and also since David was the only one with a lovely big rental car, his services were rapidly booked for series of transfers from the hotel to the station. In fact, on the morning of October 2nd, he spent his whole time driving back and forth. Maggie and I booked his 10 am departure slot and we soon had all our bags jammed into the boot of his car.
It really was hard to say goodbye to the group for the final time. Over the past three weeks we had become very close and had all shared a series of wonderful times together. I have to admit that I had a big lump in my throat when I gave Dave a hug at the station and thanked him for all that he had done.
A few minutes later we were on our train bound for Nantes. There we had a brief wait before catching our second train to La Rochelle. This is a medium sized town on the Atlantic Coast. As soon as we got off the train we could sense that things in La Rochelle were not as prosperous as they had been in the northern cities. The numerous holes in the footpath took a heavy toll on our luggage castors as we made our way to our hotel and we had to be careful not to get snagged in the blackberries that were happily thriving alongside all the pathways.
The Kyriad Hotel was large and modern – and we hated it. It had no character and reminded me of a huge concrete jail. As we found our way to our allocated cubicle, I felt like a battery hen looking for its cage. We already missed our riding companions and could help but feel lonely in this place.
La Rochelle has a long history and is famous for its three huge waterfront towers. These have served a variety of functions over the years. One of them was used for a considerable time as a prison and apparently housed a number of infamous pirates in bygone times. I would have liked to have seen inside, however I arrived at midday siesta time and would have had to wait another two hours for the front door to open again. I did not want to see inside that much, and contented myself with a look at the outside only.
My walk also found me looking at the huge Hotel de Ville (town hall). Apparently this particular Hotel de Ville was the oldest in France, at least it was until it burnt down during restoration works two years ago. I suspect that some careless tradesman probably flicked his cigarette into the tinder dry roof beams and the rest is history. Among the priceless artifacts that were quickly converted to ashes was the wooden sabre of Charles IV. Of course there is a silver lining in most clouds, and now there is a much bigger project underway to recover and rebuild the structure in something resembling its former glory. I hope it’s now a non smoking work site.
In the evening Maggie and I walked back to the historic old port for dinner by the water. The mid autumn weather was delightfully mild as we walked back to our hotel and locked ourselves back inside our cubicle for the night.
After a couple of nights in La Rochelle, our next stop was the large city of Toulouse. This is actually the 4th largest city in France and we had spent a single night there on a previous trip in 2013. At that time we were sorry that we did not have more time and promised ourselves another visit. This time we stayed in the Ibis Toulouse Centre Hotel (and hated it). Like the Kyriad in La Rochelle, it had clean rooms and working lifts, but the designers had completely forgotten to add any soul. I could not help but think how sad it would have been to have spent the entire trip staying in places like that, but that is exactly how many people travel.
After two nights in Toulouse we were rested enough to face our next challenge – picking up the rental car. Driving in a large foreign city is always stressful, especially when you are driving on the wrong side of the road and don’t understand many of the road signs. We arrived at the Europcar office and handed over our booking form. They asked me for my driving license and passport and were happy with those. Before leaving Australia I had also wasted about $40 buying an “International Driving Permit” from the RACV. I had made the same mistake in the past and decided that it was just a waste of money, but somewhere we had been warned that the regulations had recently changed and that we would now need the permit. We needn’t have worried. The lady at the counter had never seen the International Permit and was certainly not in the slightest bit interested in it. She was much more interested in my credit card and made sure that she warned me that they would make a huge deduction straight away (presumably to save time when I returned the car in Dijon). The last time I hired a car from Europcar they apparently thought I had also given them carte blanche to make ongoing deductions from my card, even long after the car was returned. It was only when I was going through my statements that I discovered these extra deductions and was able to have them all reversed. I sincerely hope the same does not happen this time.
We were handed the keys to our allocated car and given instructions on where to collect it. I asked what type of car it was and was told that it was a Nissan Juke. I had never heard of such a car but decided to nod sagely as if I was a motoring expert. Maggie and I caught the lift to the rooftop car park, and we would have got there sooner if our places in the lift had not been taken by a young couple of American backpackers who apparently had never been taught about correct etiquette that those who were at the lift first should be allowed to get in first. When we got to the roof and found our car we were less than impressed as it had a couple less doors than what we had ordered and paid for.
Full of righteous indignation we went back down the lift and up to the counter. “We booked a 5 door car, and have only been given a two door”.
The lady stared back at me.
“Are you sure ?” she asked.
“Of course I know how to count, and it’s only got two”
I could see a smirk spreading across her face as she shared an obvious joke (in rapid French) with her workmates. She then suggested we should go and have another look. We did and discovered that the back two doors are actually cleverly disguised as body panels. Now nobody ever told us that ! We felt like two stupid foreigners as we packed our bags into the boot and I built up the courage to drive out into the peak hour Toulouse traffic.
The first challenge was to successfully navigate the corkscrew exit ramp. It had obviously been designed for drivers of tiny cars and our bright yellow (and quite large) Nissan Juke seemed in danger of getting jammed tightly between the two walls. Somehow I narrowly avoided rearranging the panels and we safely emerged into the traffic and managed to get out of town without accident or road rage.
Soon we were driving through the magical rolling hills of the Midi Pyrenees. With the myriad autumn colours spreading through the trees and a clear blue sky overhead, it really was as pretty a scene as you could find anywhere. Our destination for the first day was the hilltop medieval town of Cordes Sur Ciel. I had discovered this place on the Internet and it looked like the sort of town that would provide a memorable stay.
The town was established way back in 1222 and it is still incredibly well preserved. Our hotel was situated right at the top of the hill, in the middle of the oldest part of the town. In order to get there we had to navigate a series of tiny cobblestoned alleyways. More white knuckle driving, especially when I had to squeeze past another car that had been illegally parked right in the middle of the road. There was no way to turn back so Maggie had to climb out and guide me inch by inch between the parked car and a solid bluestone wall.
In spite of the trauma in getting here, when we reached our room, we quickly realised that it really was worth the effort. The views from the window were amazing – probably the most incredible view I have ever had from any hotel anywhere. The medieval city was quiet and peaceful with not a single selfie stick carrying tourist in sight. We spent the next three days exploring this incredible place. It is hard to imagine that this town was already 500 years old at the time of the French Revolution. It is even much older than the Inca city of Macchu Picchu. There is magic around every corner and down every narrow staircase and alleyway. The weather also played its part by giving us a succession of absolutely perfect warm and still days.
I am sure the pictures will never do the place justice, but they might at least give you an idea of what this place is like.En savoir plus
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- Jour 44
- mercredi 7 octobre 2015 à 15:45
- 🌧 16 °C
- Altitude: 15 m
- FranceMarais de Aytré46°8’4” N 1°7’39” W
In La Rochelle
7 octobre 2015, France ⋅ 🌧 16 °C
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- Jour 46
- vendredi 9 octobre 2015 à 15:50
- 19 °C
- Altitude: 189 m
- FranceCordes-sur-Ciel44°3’58” N 1°57’9” E
Cordes Sur Ciel
9 octobre 2015, France ⋅ 19 °C
The name Cordes-sur-Ciel literally means "Cordes in the Sky". When you arrive there, you will see why it is so called. The medieval village sits precariously on the top of a hill. When the air is still, the lowlands fill with clouds, giving the impression that the town is floating above them.
We had the privilege of spending three glorious days there.En savoir plus
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- Jour 48
- dimanche 11 octobre 2015 à 21:23
- 🌙 16 °C
- Altitude: 118 m
- FranceCassis43°13’24” N 5°32’16” E
Roussillon to Cassis
11 octobre 2015, France ⋅ 🌙 16 °C
Days 46 to 49 In Which I have to Have my Fingernails Surgically Removed from the Steering Wheel
Our time in Cordes Sur Ciel had been one of the most amazing experiences we have ever shared together. We were expecting something a little different, but we had no idea of just how different this place really is. The four days we spent wandering the narrow streets, gazing at the view, exploring the nearby villages and soaking up the history of this town will never be forgotten. Unfortunately time marches on and the morning arrived for us to pack our bags and bid farewell. Of course that meant once more driving up the tiny cobblestoned alleyway to the front of our hotel. The day that we arrived in this town was the same day that we picked up our rental car and I could still vividly remember the sheer terror that I felt trying to navigate the unfamiliar streets in a totally unfamiliar car.
Now that we had become more familiar with the streets, it did not seem quite as daunting. I safely made it to the front door, collected our bags and said “Au Revoir” to the staff. We bounced and rocked our way back down the hill, ready for the next stage of our trip. Since Maggie had requested that we stay away from the major arterial roads this time, I asked Tom (aka “TOM TOM”) to give us a route that would avoid all the toll roads. We set off.
We had not gone very far before we realised that avoiding the toll roads might have seemed like a romantic notion, but we were then placed with the challenge of driving along diminutive back roads that were barely wider than our car. I guess that is the problem when you take a track that has only been used for walkers for thousands of years and try to convert it to a road. Our progress was painfully slow as we crept around a series of tortuous hillside tracks and squeeezed our way between barns and houses. At that rate we would not have arrived at Avignon till about mid December.
By the same token I did have to admit that the Provence countryside was beautiful. With the rolling hills and the brilliant autumn colours that were now blanketing the countryside, it was not hard to see why many foreigners are seduced by this place and end up living here. We had already met a few Australians who had made the decision to start a new life in France and their obvious enthusiasm was quite contagious.
After three hours of twisting and turning, Tom kept revising our expected arrival time in Avignon and it became evident that we would have to modify our original plan and head to the closest toll road. France has a growing network of these super highways and they do constitute a quick and efficient way to get from major centre to major centre. The only problem is that they tend to be rather boring and you do need a pocketful of coins to keep feeding the regular pay stations along the way. The nominal speed limit is 130 kph, although many drivers seem happy to drive considerably faster than that.
Soon we were flying along the relevant tollway and the kilometres finally started to tick by. I did discover that the Nissan Juke we were driving was a bit of a gutless wonder and had to be prodded and coaxed to get anywhere near the 130 kph limit. Downhills were OK, but on any sort of a climb the speed quickly dropped away.
After about 7 hours of driving my eyelids were getting heavy as we finally arrived at the famous city of Avignon. This place was actually the seat of the Catholic Popes for a period of the 14th century. The centre of the old part of town is surrounded by a huge fortified wall and the city was made a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1995. Since we had only booked one night here we would not have much time to explore, especially as it was after dark when we finally reached the B & B we had booked. The owner said it “was easy” to get back into town and gave some handwaving directions as to where to park the car. We didn’t understand a word of it, but nodded and replied that it sounded like a good idea.
It took some degree of white knuckle maneuvering to reverse the car out of their driveway without bashing into the owner’s cars or the wall of their house. I think I almost succeeded. We had not driven the car after dark and I could not figure out if the headlights were on or off. Certainly most of the streetlights in Avignon were definitely off, making it virtually impossible to see where we were supposed to be going. I pressed my nose on the windscreen while Maggie tried to calm me down and forestall my impending nervous breakdown. It was a Saturday night and we soon found ourselves in a tight jam of cars going somewhere. Where ? We didn’t know. We couldn’t get out of the jam anyway. We followed them to wherever they were taking us.
After a series of more twists and turns we entered a huge tunnel into the Palais des Popes. Since we had read about that, it seemed a good idea. Then up another tight corkscrew ramp. (Damn those tight corkscrews made only for tiny cars and insane drivers). Finally we found a parking spot and, after about 10 minutes of juggling, managed to park the car more or less correctly. I prized my fingernails out of the steering wheel. took a deep breath and announced “Well that was interesting”.
Taking a good look around so that we would have a fair chance of finding the car again, we went in search of dinner. The centre of Avignon was buzzing and we found a likely looking Pizza Restaurant and enjoyed a passable French Italian Pizza together. Judging by the number of paparazzi photographers gathered outside the Opera House, I guess that someone famous must have been inside. I suppose I could have told them that I was part of the famous Ghostriders Cycling Group, but at that time I just wanted to get back to our bed and get some sleep.
The following morning we bade farewell to the house owner and squeezed the car back out of her driveway. Sweaty palms right from the start. Considering the challenging nature of driving in France I was just glad that we did not have to teach our teenage kids how to drive in this place. I don’t think that either us or the kids would have survived the strain.
Our first stop was at the unusual hilltop town of Roussillon. Unlike the myriad of medieval villages scattered all over France, this town stands out because it looks more Mexican or Spanish than French. All the buildings are rendered with a pink coloured ochre that is apparently obtained nearby. We had a delightful hour or so there before the busloads of tourists started arriving. Before we left I was able to observe the antics of the most self absorbed selfie taker I have ever seen. Armed with her large iPHONE and huge selfie stick she worked her way from building to building, carefully posing and photographing herself in front of every one of them. She would take a few steps, throw her head back, smile at the selfie stick and “click”, another one captured. All the time she never took her eyes from the screen ! I knew that it was time for us to leave.
We then had a sizable drive to Cassis on the Mediterranean coast. This is a beautiful town that we had stayed in back in 2013 and we were keen to see it again. The remaining drive was mostly on toll ways and should have been easy. It wasn’t. Each time you pass onto a tollway you must collect a ticket from the machine. When you leave the tollway you insert the ticket and it calculates the amount you have to pay. Since I was busy driving, each time I collected a toll ticket, I passed it straight to Maggie for safekeeping.
This system worked well until we stopped at a roadside rest station. When we got back into the car I asked Maggie if she had the ticket ready. She couldn’t find it. We searched our pockets, we searched the back seat of the car, we searched the glovebox. Just when we were about to give up, Maggie shouts “I see it”. It had fallen down between the seats. We then spent the next 10 minutes trying to reach it, before finally succeeding.
“That was a relief”, I said. “Without the ticket we would have had to pay a special penalty”. We drove to the final turnoff to Cassis and pulled in at the final pay station, retrieved ticket in hand. Just when Maggie was about to pass it to me she had an horrific realisation. “That isn’t the toll ticket, it is the parking ticket from Avignon”, she says.
At that stage I am stuck in the line of cars at the boom gate. OK, what do we do now ? I push the red emergency button. A French voice says something that I do not understand. “Do you speak English ?”, I ask. There is a long pause before the reply “Non”. I try to explain in my best Gibberish “Ticket lost”. I could have added that it was all due to my incompetent partner, but my three words of French would have made this difficult.
I think the operator must have taken pity on the elderly couple from Australia as we were only charged EUR1.4 and we were on our way again. The final few kilometres into Cassis involved some more white knuckle driving down a succession of narrow, hilly, one way streets but somehow we arrived at the correct accommodation. I let out a sigh of relief, turned off the ignition and was ready for a cup of coffee and a rest.
One of the things that Cassis is famous for is the huge sheer cliffs that drop over 400 vertical metres into the Mediterranean. The books say that these are the highest cliffs on the whole Mediterranean and they are certainly impressive. Looking at the cliffs from our window I made the mistake of asking the owner if there was any way to get to the top. He explained that there is a little road that winds its way to the very cliff face. It is called the “Route des Cretes” and it is one of the most spectacular clifftop drives anywhere in the world. Little wonder that access to this road is severely restricted.
Since we had nothing particular planned for the following day I suggested to Maggie that we could try driving the road in question. To my surprise she did not immediately veto the idea. I almost wished she had. We climbed into the car and battled our way out of town and up a tiny street with a gradient over 20%. The Nissan puffed and struggled its way up the hill. I struggled to keep my heart rate under 160. “This is not so bad”, I lied to Maggie. She wasn’t talking to me anymore.
Soon we were winding back and forth along the twisting road. Precipitous drops switched from my side of the car to Maggie’s side. And not an inch of ARMCO in sight. My speed dropped back to about 20 kph. I told Maggie that I was driving slowly for her, but in truth I was terrified. And then the rain started. I tried to turn on the windscreen wipers. Oops, that’s the indicators. I could not see where we were going, not sure if that was a good thing or bad. I have been on some hairy roads in my time. Certainly some of the roads in Nepal, Bhutan and Peru were probably more exposed, but I wasn’t driving then. I could just sit and put my life in someone else’s hands. For some reason it seemed worse when I was in charge of the vehicle.
We managed to stop at a couple of very high vantage points, but the torrential rain unfortunately meant that we could not see a thing. The road continues for about 14 km to the nearby town of La Ciotat. Although we were relieved to finally descend into the town, the torrential rain had sent rivers of water flowing down the steep streets and I was reluctant to stop in case we got swept away. Just a week earlier 20 people had been drowned in Cannes following a huge deluge of rain and I did not want to appear in the next day’s news.
We kept driving and returned to Cassis (this time along the Toll Road). We had another unfortunate incident at the toll station that I would rather not mention at this stage and we greatly relieved to arrive back at our room in one piece. It had been another “interesting” experience.En savoir plus
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- Jour 49
- lundi 12 octobre 2015 à 16:00
- 🌧 20 °C
- Altitude: 14 m
- FrancePointe des Lombards43°12’55” N 5°32’29” E
Quiet in Cassis
12 octobre 2015, France ⋅ 🌧 20 °C
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- Jour 50
- mardi 13 octobre 2015 à 21:26
- ☁️ 17 °C
- Altitude: 6 m
- FrancePort Vieux et Chantiers Navals de La Ciotat43°10’22” N 5°36’28” E
White Knuckle Driving
13 octobre 2015, France ⋅ ☁️ 17 °C
Days 46 to 49 In Which I have to Have my Fingernails Surgically Removed from the Steering Wheel
Our time in Cordes Sur Ciel had been one of the most amazing experiences we have ever shared together. We were expecting something a little different, but we had no idea of just how different this place really is. The four days we spent wandering the narrow streets, gazing at the view, exploring the nearby villages and soaking up the history of this town will never be forgotten. Unfortunately time marches on and the morning arrived for us to pack our bags and bid farewell. Of course that meant once more driving up the tiny cobblestoned alleyway to the front of our hotel. The day that we arrived in this town was the same day that we picked up our rental car and I could still vividly remember the sheer terror that I felt trying to navigate the unfamiliar streets in a totally unfamiliar car.
Now that we had become more familiar with the streets, it did not seem quite as daunting. I safely made it to the front door, collected our bags and said “Au Revoir” to the staff. We bounced and rocked our way back down the hill, ready for the next stage of our trip. Since Maggie had requested that we stay away from the major arterial roads this time, I asked Tom (aka “TOM TOM”) to give us a route that would avoid all the toll roads. We set off.
We had not gone very far before we realised that avoiding the toll roads might have seemed like a romantic notion, but we were then placed with the challenge of driving along diminutive back roads that were barely wider than our car. I guess that is the problem when you take a track that has only been used for walkers for thousands of years and try to convert it to a road. Our progress was painfully slow as we crept around a series of tortuous hillside tracks and squeeezed our way between barns and houses. At that rate we would not have arrived at Avignon till about mid December.
By the same token I did have to admit that the Provence countryside was beautiful. With the rolling hills and the brilliant autumn colours that were now blanketing the countryside, it was not hard to see why many foreigners are seduced by this place and end up living here. We had already met a few Australians who had made the decision to start a new life in France and their obvious enthusiasm was quite contagious.
After three hours of twisting and turning, Tom kept revising our expected arrival time in Avignon and it became evident that we would have to modify our original plan and head to the closest toll road. France has a growing network of these super highways and they do constitute a quick and efficient way to get from major centre to major centre. The only problem is that they tend to be rather boring and you do need a pocketful of coins to keep feeding the regular pay stations along the way. The nominal speed limit is 130 kph, although many drivers seem happy to drive considerably faster than that.
Soon we were flying along the relevant tollway and the kilometres finally started to tick by. I did discover that the Nissan Juke we were driving was a bit of a gutless wonder and had to be prodded and coaxed to get anywhere near the 130 kph limit. Downhills were OK, but on any sort of a climb the speed quickly dropped away.
After about 7 hours of driving my eyelids were getting heavy as we finally arrived at the famous city of Avignon. This place was actually the seat of the Catholic Popes for a period of the 14th century. The centre of the old part of town is surrounded by a huge fortified wall and the city was made a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1995. Since we had only booked one night here we would not have much time to explore, especially as it was after dark when we finally reached the B & B we had booked. The owner said it “was easy” to get back into town and gave some handwaving directions as to where to park the car. We didn’t understand a word of it, but nodded and replied that it sounded like a good idea.
It took some degree of white knuckle maneuvering to reverse the car out of their driveway without bashing into the owner’s cars or the wall of their house. I think I almost succeeded. We had not driven the car after dark and I could not figure out if the headlights were on or off. Certainly most of the streetlights in Avignon were definitely off, making it virtually impossible to see where we were supposed to be going. I pressed my nose on the windscreen while Maggie tried to calm me down and forestall my impending nervous breakdown. It was a Saturday night and we soon found ourselves in a tight jam of cars going somewhere. Where ? We didn’t know. We couldn’t get out of the jam anyway. We followed them to wherever they were taking us.
After a series of more twists and turns we entered a huge tunnel into the Palais des Popes. Since we had read about that, it seemed a good idea. Then up another tight corkscrew ramp. (Damn those tight corkscrews made only for tiny cars and insane drivers). Finally we found a parking spot and, after about 10 minutes of juggling, managed to park the car more or less correctly. I prized my fingernails out of the steering wheel. took a deep breath and announced “Well that was interesting”.
Taking a good look around so that we would have a fair chance of finding the car again, we went in search of dinner. The centre of Avignon was buzzing and we found a likely looking Pizza Restaurant and enjoyed a passable French Italian Pizza together. Judging by the number of paparazzi photographers gathered outside the Opera House, I guess that someone famous must have been inside. I suppose I could have told them that I was part of the famous Ghostriders Cycling Group, but at that time I just wanted to get back to our bed and get some sleep.
The following morning we bade farewell to the house owner and squeezed the car back out of her driveway. Sweaty palms right from the start. Considering the challenging nature of driving in France I was just glad that we did not have to teach our teenage kids how to drive in this place. I don’t think that either us or the kids would have survived the strain.
Our first stop was at the unusual hilltop town of Roussillon. Unlike the myriad of medieval villages scattered all over France, this town stands out because it looks more Mexican or Spanish than French. All the buildings are rendered with a pink coloured ochre that is apparently obtained nearby. We had a delightful hour or so there before the busloads of tourists started arriving. Before we left I was able to observe the antics of the most self absorbed selfie taker I have ever seen. Armed with her large iPHONE and huge selfie stick she worked her way from building to building, carefully posing and photographing herself in front of every one of them. She would take a few steps, throw her head back, smile at the selfie stick and “click”, another one captured. All the time she never took her eyes from the screen ! I knew that it was time for us to leave.
We then had a sizable drive to Cassis on the Mediterranean coast. This is a beautiful town that we had stayed in back in 2013 and we were keen to see it again. The remaining drive was mostly on toll ways and should have been easy. It wasn’t. Each time you pass onto a tollway you must collect a ticket from the machine. When you leave the tollway you insert the ticket and it calculates the amount you have to pay. Since I was busy driving, each time I collected a toll ticket, I passed it straight to Maggie for safekeeping.
This system worked well until we stopped at a roadside rest station. When we got back into the car I asked Maggie if she had the ticket ready. She couldn’t find it. We searched our pockets, we searched the back seat of the car, we searched the glovebox. Just when we were about to give up, Maggie shouts “I see it”. It had fallen down between the seats. We then spent the next 10 minutes trying to reach it, before finally succeeding.
“That was a relief”, I said. “Without the ticket we would have had to pay a special penalty”. We drove to the final turnoff to Cassis and pulled in at the final pay station, retrieved ticket in hand. Just when Maggie was about to pass it to me she had an horrific realisation. “That isn’t the toll ticket, it is the parking ticket from Avignon”, she says.
At that stage I am stuck in the line of cars at the boom gate. OK, what do we do now ? I push the red emergency button. A French voice says something that I do not understand. “Do you speak English ?”, I ask. There is a long pause before the reply “Non”. I try to explain in my best Gibberish “Ticket lost”. I could have added that it was all due to my incompetent partner, but my three words of French would have made this difficult.
I think the operator must have taken pity on the elderly couple from Australia as we were only charged EUR1.4 and we were on our way again. The final few kilometres into Cassis involved some more white knuckle driving down a succession of narrow, hilly, one way streets but somehow we arrived at the correct accommodation. I let out a sigh of relief, turned off the ignition and was ready for a cup of coffee and a rest.
One of the things that Cassis is famous for is the huge sheer cliffs that drop over 400 vertical metres into the Mediterranean. The books say that these are the highest cliffs on the whole Mediterranean and they are certainly impressive. Looking at the cliffs from our window I made the mistake of asking the owner if there was any way to get to the top. He explained that there is a little road that winds its way to the very cliff face. It is called the “Route des Cretes” and it is one of the most spectacular clifftop drives anywhere in the world. Little wonder that access to this road is severely restricted.
Since we had nothing particular planned for the following day I suggested to Maggie that we could try driving the road in question. To my surprise she did not immediately veto the idea. I almost wished she had. We climbed into the car and battled our way out of town and up a tiny street with a gradient over 20%. The Nissan puffed and struggled its way up the hill. I struggled to keep my heart rate under 160. “This is not so bad”, I lied to Maggie. She wasn’t talking to me anymore.
Soon we were winding back and forth along the twisting road. Precipitous drops switched from my side of the car to Maggie’s side. And not an inch of ARMCO in sight. My speed dropped back to about 20 kph. I told Maggie that I was driving slowly for her, but in truth I was terrified. And then the rain started. I tried to turn on the windscreen wipers. Oops, that’s the indicators. I could not see where we were going, not sure if that was a good thing or bad. I have been on some hairy roads in my time. Certainly some of the roads in Nepal, Bhutan and Peru were probably more exposed, but I wasn’t driving then. I could just sit and put my life in someone else’s hands. For some reason it seemed worse when I was in charge of the vehicle.
We managed to stop at a couple of very high vantage points, but the torrential rain unfortunately meant that we could not see a thing. The road continues for about 14 km to the nearby town of La Ciotat. Although we were relieved to finally descend into the town, the torrential rain had sent rivers of water flowing down the steep streets and I was reluctant to stop in case we got swept away. Just a week earlier 20 people had been drowned in Cannes following a huge deluge of rain and I did not want to appear in the next day’s news.
We kept driving and returned to Cassis (this time along the Toll Road). We had another unfortunate incident at the toll station that I would rather not mention at this stage and we greatly relieved to arrive back at our room in one piece. It had been another “interesting” experience.En savoir plus
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- Jour 52
- jeudi 15 octobre 2015 à 21:32
- ☁️ 5 °C
- Altitude: 191 m
- FranceNiederau48°4’37” N 7°21’57” E
On to Alsace
15 octobre 2015, France ⋅ ☁️ 5 °C
Days 50 to 53 In Which we Switch from Sea to Snow
Our four nights in Cassis passed by all too quickly. Although we lost the bright sunshine after the first couple of days, the temperature was still mild enough for swimmers to bathe in the blue Mediterranean waters. One of the natural features that this region is most well known for is the succession of Calanques along the coastline. These are a bit like a French version of a fjord, with sheltered inlets surrounded by towering rocky cliffs. Many of these calanques have been utilised to make safe, sheltered marinas for pleasure craft.
Maggie and I thought it would be a good idea to walk from our accommodation in the centre of town to the Calanques. We should have remembered that nothing can be achieved in Cassis without walking up and down an endless succession of steep hills. After staggering up the first few climbs we were already hot and tired – and we hadn’t even left the town. I reminded Maggie that we could have driven to the parking section and just walked to the Calanques themselves, but she had thought it would be good for us to walk the entire way. It was a dumb idea.
After walking around the first calanque and taking a few pictures we deduced that, if you have seen one calanque, you have probably seen them all. It seemed like a fine idea to head back to the town, unfortunately somewhere on the way back we took a wrong turn and ended up executing a complete (and completely unnecessary) loop around the town. I was reminded of the Grand Old Duke of York as we noticed the same houses pass on by the second time around. Finally we found our way back to familiar territory and sat down at the water’s edge to watch the boats gently rocking back and forth in their moorings.
The following morning it was time to pack our car and find our way out of Cassis. When we visited this town for the first time in 2013, we never thought it would be possible for us to return, however two years later we had been able to enjoy it all over again. As we drove out along the nearby tollway we both knew that, this time, it would be most unlikely for us to be able to return for a third visit.
The weather had undergone a distinct change and the clear sunny skies had been replaced with low dark clouds and very limited visibility. We settled down for another long and fast drive on a succession of tollways. Although the payment systems on these roads is always a little hit and miss, we had learnt that it is safest to always carry a huge stockpile of coins. Although they are supposed to accept credit cards, for some obscure reason, the machines often reject the cards you insert. When you have a line of impatient waiting cars behind you, it is NOT the best time to try to work out what is going on.
As we left the Mediterranean coast and headed north toward the Alps, the temperature steadily dropped. I reminded Maggie that I had advised her to bring some cold weather clothes on this trip. Although she had ridiculed me about this virtually every day up to now, I knew that sooner or later they would prove welcome.
The first section of the drive took us back over the same section of road we had driven a few days earlier, but fortunately this time we were able to skirt by Avignon and continue on the tollway. Our destination for the day was the famous small town of Pont En Royans. The main feature of this town is that it is perched precariously on sheer cliffsides above the Bourne and Vernaison Rivers. The so called suspended buildings really are quite mesmerising, although I couldn’t help but feel a little vertigo as I stood precariously close to the raging waters in the river. The water was so clear that the bottom was clearly visible. Certainly anyone who had the misfortune to slip into the water would have little chance at survival.
Since we were still dressed for the much warmer climes of Cassis, it didn’t take long for us to feel frozen. As we walked along the narrow walking track along the river we came across a very welcoming sight. It was the local library and one step inside its warm interior convinced us that this would be a lovely way to spend the next 30 minutes or so. We both picked a book and sat down to read. For me this meant utilising my rusty high school language skills, and mostly looking at the pictures. It was a thoroughly relaxing and very enjoyable way to pass the afternoon.
A short time later we were at our accommodation at the Mas Du Servant B & B. The room was lovely, the surroundings were as peaceful and quiet as you could find anywhere and the proprietors were fantastic hosts. The only problem was that they did not speak a single word of English between them. The entire conversation had to be conducted in French. Somehow we did manage to communicate, and I was even able to show them our web site and tell them about our recent bike ride to Le Croisic. In the morning we were fed a lovely breakfast and we each bade a fond Au Revoir to our hosts.
The next day was to be the longest driving distance of our entire trip and a large section of the drive would take us through Switzerland. Along the way we would also pass through a succession of long and impressive tunnels cut through the towering mountains. The names of the places certainly were familiar, and I am sure that the views would have been amazing – if we could have seen anything. Unfortunately the visibility was still almost non existent as we climbed higher and higher into the mountains. It felt like we were standing in the middle of the smoking room at Singapore Airport.
We stopped for lunch at the beautiful town of Annecy, famous for its canals running through the centre of town. It certainly was a photographer’s dream and the lovely Plat du Jour (Plate of the day) that we enjoyed in one of the small cafes was delicious. The only somewhat sour note to this place was a miserable looking homeless woman who was busy eating scraps from the cast off piles of rubbish. I could not but help but wonder at what sequence of events could bring anyone to such a dreadful state.
In the final hour or so of the long drive we climbed relentlessly higher and higher into the mountains. I stopped to check my GPS at it told me that our elevation was already well over 1000 metres. The temperature gauge on the dashboard was also flashing a warning that we were in danger of ice on the roads. I suppose we did not need any reminder that it was really cold, the steady fall of snow drifting down from above was enough to remind us that Cassis was now just a distant memory.
We briefly stopped at a market to buy some food for the night and, when we got back to the car, we both had a layer of snowflakes on our shoulders. Across the road some council workers were already erecting the Christmas decorations in the main street. Christmas decorations ? Where had summer and autumn gone ? A lot can certainly change in a couple of days.
Befitting the alpine nature of the area, our accommodation was in a lovely mountain chalet, complete with roaring log fire and natural pine walls and ceilings. Judging by the numbers of doonas and blankets they had loaded onto the bed, they must have been expecting another ice age. There was no way that I could ever had slept under all that weight and immediately throw the vast majority onto the floor, and then opened the large window. Living in the Dandenong Ranges for the past 30 years had obviously prepared us for all conditions.
The next morning we began by following the beautiful La Doubs River for around 30 km. This river skirts along the border between France and Switzerland and we were so glad that we had listened to our host’s advice to take this route. Although it was not our original plan, it rewarded us with some of the prettiest scenery we had seen so far. Although the weather was still overcast, at least the rain had stopped and we even had a few patches of blue sky overhead.
The colours of the autumn trees now ranged from yellow all the way through to dark red. We had seen a progression in these shades in the past couple of weeks and we also noticed that many of the trees were now well along in the process of shedding their leaves for the coming winter.
The road steadily dropped altitude, at times quite quickly. I could not help but think how hard it would be to ride a bike up these roads. The drop in altitude also raised the outside temperature to a relative balmy 5C !
We have now entered the Alsace Region of Eastern France. This region has been hotly contested for centuries and has, at various times, been part of France and Germany. The names on the towns all bear clear evidence of the divided character of this region. The capital of this region is the nearby town of Strasbourg. It is this town that has been a favourite subject for trivia quizzes for many years. When asked the question “In which country is Strasbourg, it is not surprising that most would answer (incorrectly) that it is in Germany. The correct answer is France.
Our home for the next three nights is another B & B in Colmar. When we pulled into the final street Maggie saw an obscure sign and insisted that it was the place we were booked into. We spent some time trying to break into the place, before I noticed that the house number was NOT the same as the place we were looking for. In fact the correct place was several hundred metres further along the road.
We are now looking forward to spending a couple of quieter days enjoying the local region.En savoir plus
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- Jour 54
- samedi 17 octobre 2015 à 17:03
- ☁️ 7 °C
- Altitude: 190 m
- FranceNiederau48°4’36” N 7°21’52” E
Beautiful Colmar
17 octobre 2015, France ⋅ ☁️ 7 °C
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- Jour 56
- lundi 19 octobre 2015 à 17:09
- 12 °C
- Altitude: 260 m
- FrancePlace Pasteur47°14’15” N 6°1’27” E
Besancon
19 octobre 2015, France ⋅ 12 °C
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- Jour 57
- mardi 20 octobre 2015 à 21:34
- ☁️ 9 °C
- Altitude: 247 m
- FranceChâteau de Dijon47°19’24” N 5°2’20” E
Dijon Days
20 octobre 2015, France ⋅ ☁️ 9 °C
Days 54 to 57 In Which It’s Beginning to Look a Bit like Christmas
In putting together our itinerary for this trip Colmar was always going to be a bit of an unknown quantity. Neither of us had been to this part of France before and so our knowledge was entirely gained from Dr Google and Prof Wikipedia. We had heard that the region of Alsace was unlike any other region of France because of its unique Germanic character. Over the centuries it had alternated ownership between France and Germany so many times that maybe it was unsure as to which country it really belonged.
On our first full day in this area we drove to the centre of Colmar and spent a couple of hours wandering the old city. The buildings were certainly completely unlike any we had seen anywhere else in France. Rather than the stone buildings that are so common everywhere else in this country, here we found a kaleidoscopic assortment of topsy turvy structures, all huddled closely together at odd angles. It seems that it is a requirement that each building must be painted a different colour of the rainbow. The overall effect is to make a magical wonderland of narrow streets and fairytale houses.
Just about every building is adorned with brilliant floral displays hanging from every window and a strange assortment of odds and sods on every available space. Obviously storks are considered to bring good luck and so many of the homes have model storks on chimney pots, doorways, fences, etc. Many homeowners actually build nests on their homes, hoping for a real stork to make its home there.
We also noticed that the council had been at work putting up Christmas lights above the main streets in the centre of the old town. Many of the businesses had already decorated their windows with Christmas wreaths and other Christmas trappings. With the temperatures plummeting around to around 4C it really felt that Christmas was rapidly approaching. We were both glad that we had brought our thermal underwear with us from Australia, although I was not so glad that my winter beanie had not survived the packing cull and had been left behind in Melbourne.
During the day I received an email update from Dave and Carol Yates. It made for such entertaining reading that I decided to include it in this account.
“Hi Dennis
I have just finished reading your latest blog in which you describe some of the hair raising driving experiences you have had since collecting you hire car. I completely understand and can relate to your angst as I have been reduced to a quivering ball of jelly on quite a few occassions driving in both France and the UK. Like you we have had this romantic notion that driving on the back roads we allow us to see more of the real France and England. Unfortunately some of these secondary roads quite quickly detiorate in to little more than goat tracks with barely enough room to negotiate your car through without the shear terror of another vehicle approachng from the opposite direction. In the UK we have hired a Ford Mondeo station wagon which is black with dark tinted windows.When driving it I feel that I should be wearing dark glasses, a black hat and suit and have a revolver in my shoulder holster. I have always thought of a Mondeo as being at best a medium size car however when driving over here it seems absolutely enormous! If anything driving around Cornwall is even more terrifying than in France. Many of the roads here must be centuries old as they have worn down to at least a metre below the surrounding land. In addition tbey are exremely narrow,wind around n a ridiculous fashion and have two metre hedgerows growing so close to you that you feel like you are driving in a green tunnel from which heavily laden farmers tractors suddenly appeararound very tight bends. Anyway I have learnt two important lessons about driving in Europe which I feel I should pass on to you before you make the same mistakes as I have. They are:
NEVER GIVE A FRENCHMAN THE FINGER
After we left Le Croisic we had quite a long drive to Normanby to visit our friends. We chose to drive on the aforesaid minor roads which made it much longer and nerve wracking. Towards tbe end of the drive I became trapped behind a very large French tractor hauling a large trailer loaded with hay. The road was very narrow and winding and I was stuck behind him for a considerable time during which a queue of cars collected behind me. Eventually an opportunity to pass came along and I dropped the car in to second gear pulled out and planted my foot expe ting to quickly sail pass him. Well the accelaration I anticipated did not occur and I had apparantly selected fourth or even sixth and tbe car took off like a very tired snail who hadtaken to many valium pills. This aggravated the driver behind me who had also pulled out to pass and he started tooting his horn aggresively.Well I was feeling tiredand emotional and also trying to find tbe correct gear so I reacted instinctively and gave him the finger.It seems tbat he took offense at this and pulled alongside me and made a very angry face at me and was mouthing what Iam sure were very rude French words. This is where common sense should have caused me to wave apologetically and hopefully that would have settled him down. Well I didn,t did I i nstead I gave him the finger again which was not a smart thing todo. He pulled infront of me and slammed on his brakes coming to a rapid halt amost causing me to rear end him. He then jumped from his car and came towards me and tbis was when I realised how foolish I had been.He was probably about25 to 30 built like a weightlifter with full sleeve tattoos on both arms a black t shirt and an angry look on his face. Seeing my life race before my eyes I did what any sensible person would do in similar circumstances and threw the car in to reverse and tried to retreat. Imagine my chagrin when after travelling no more than a metre I realised that a car had pulled up behind me and I had nearly reversed into him. As it happend tbe upset Frenchman changed his mind and after much finger pointing and again saying very rude things in French got back in to his car and much to my relief drove off.
DONT ALWAYS TRUST YOUR GPS
I have generally found the lady in my GPS to be very reliable and in fact I have become quite fond of her however on one occassion she let me down badly. I set the GPS to take us to St Ives in Cornwall which she duly did. Unfortunately we ended up on a very narrow one way road on the foreshore of the oldest part of the town. That in itself was ok however when directing us out she tooks us up a very very narrow road, or at least at that time I tbought it was a road. After about 200 metre we came to a corner that was impossible to get around without scraping the side out of the car.While I was contemplating how to get out of tnis dilemma several aggreived poms advised me that tnis was not a road and was infact a footpath and that even if I did get around tbe corner it was a dead end. There was nothing to do other than to reverse back down the footpath with what seemed like no more than a few millimetres to spare on each side. We retracted tbe mirrors and with Carol letting me know how close we were on her side we slowly, very slowly inched backwards. To add to my humiliation an art shop owner whose window I had come close to breaking as I tried to negotiate that corner startrd to photograph or video my slow retreate. Probably to show to his friends to remind them how stupid tourists can be.
So I hope you can learn from my experiences and not make tbe same mistakes.
Regards
David”
It certainly sounded like they had been having a wonderful time and were enjoying their car driving experiences as much as Carol had enjoyed the hotel shower in Angers. Maggie and I spent some time chuckling at their adventures before looking for a place for dinner. Just outside of Colmar there are a couple of smaller medieval towns – Eguisheim and Riquewihr. We had read about a little restaurant in Eguisheim and thought that it sounded like a good option for dinner. We programmed the address into the GPS and headed off into the dark.
If driving in France is a challenge in broad daylight, it is an even greater challenge on a dark night, especially when your headlights don’t seem to penetrate the inky darkness at all. Maybe it was because I still did not know how to turn them on properly, but all I knew was that I could barley make out the road ahead. We crawled along at about 30 kph, glad that there were no other cars on the road at this time. Apparently all the locals know that only mad dogs and Englishmen drive at night.
Somehow the GPS managed to get us to the village without a major accident and we parked the car anywhere that looked suitable and staggered out. My palms were sweaty and my heart was thumping. I didn’t feel hungry, but we had come this far and it would seem stupid not to find the place we had driven all this way for.
We had not walked for long before my mouth gaped open in wonder. In the dim lights from the windows this place really did look like a magical world. I had to admit that we had never seen anything like it and it even made the streets of old Colmar look plain by comparison. We did eventually find the restaurant and enjoyed a wonderful meal there with the locals. In this region many of the locals speak a special dialect called Alsation. It is related to German but is actually quite distinct. Sitting in this tiny restaurant gave us a chance to hear it spoken. We were the only English speakers in the place and we got the impression that very few visitors would come here after dark. It was a lovely night that we will never forget.
Finding where we had left the car presented some challenges but we did eventually find it in the dark and I was so grateful for the GPS to help me get back to our B & B for the night.
The following day was a Sunday and, since we had enjoyed the dinner in Eguisheim the previous night, we thought it would be good to drive back and see it during the daytime. In the bright light of day it still looked wonderful, but perhaps not quite as magical as it had in the darkness. The streets are narrow and cobblestoned and the houses are built so that each floor is cantilevered out above the floor below. It would not have seemed entirely out of place if Bilbo Baggins came out of one of the front doors, it was just that sort of place.
Like Eguisheim, Riquewihr is also a tiny medieval village on the outskirts of Colmar. In many respects it is like Eguisheim, however it has been much more commercialized. Although it was undeniably beautiful, it did start to feel a little like Disneyland, especially when the buses started to disgorge large throngs of tourists into the narrow streets.
There was one shop that really did impress us both as it contained the largest collection of quality Christmas decorations and novelties that we had ever seen. A narrow walking path led us through a myriad of levels, surrounded on all sides by enough tinsel and toys to keep any child mesmorised for a month. It was obvious that Christmas really is big here. A pity that we could not take any photographs.
Although we were glad we had visited this area, it really was not the France we had come to know and love. In fact we were not really sure what it was. There was no doubt that it was impressive, but somehow it did not seem real. After a couple of hours we were ready to escape the throngs and seek some peace and quiet again.
After three nights in Colmar it was time for us to resume our travels. The next few days were to start our journey back towards Paris and that meant that our trip was starting to move towards its final stages. Our plan was to first drive from Colmar to Besancon, a distance of around 250 km or so. We wanted to avoid all the toll roads and seek out only the quiet rural roads instead. Although this would take us a lot longer, we both felt that we wanted to return to the tranquility of the rural farmlands again.
After the past week of overcast and rainy conditions, it was great to see the return of the sunshine again. After leaving Colmar we soon found ourselves in beautiful rolling green hills that reminded me of Southern Gippsland. The autumn trees were all now well into the advanced stages of preparing for the winter and we often found ourselves driving through flurries of russet coloured leaves that had fallen to the road in front of us. We could see that winter would quickly follow in this region of the country.
As we drove further east we also noticed the return of the lovely old stone buildings that are so typical all over the country. Gone were the brightly coloured and rendered buildings we had seen in Alsace.
Our destination for the day was the mid sized city of Besancon. We did not know anything about this city other than that its location would make it a convenient place for an overnight stay. As we drove into the town we were surprised to find a thoroughly modern city with a fantastic infrastructure. The roads were new, the traffic flowed easily, the buildings were clean and modern and we even discovered a great tramway system that had only been built in the past twelve months. The old city has a long history and was even mentioned in the writings of Julius Caesar. One of its more recent residents was the writer Victor Hugo who was born here in 1802. Besancon was long a centre of the watch making industry, but its recent prosperity is due to a growing micro technology industry. It also houses a huge university and I was surprised to read that almost 20% of the current population are university students. In the short period of time we were here it certainly impressed us a city that was well managed and was rapidly forging a confident future for itself. We didn’t even see any graffiti anywhere !
In the afternoon we caught the tram to the city centre and sat on the banks of the lovely River Doub in the late afternoon sunshine eating a delicious kebab dinner.
The hotel we had booked for the night was the brand new Zenitude Aparthotel complex. It was an impressive brand new building situated high on a hill near the medical school of the university. It was unfortunate that the first room they allocated us had such a dreadful smell inside that we had to go back to the reception to ask for another one. The second room was immaculately clean and came without the stink, but it did come with another unwelcome feature. Whenever we entered the bathroom we were met by a strange musical sound. At first I thought it was music coming from somewhere, but we came to the conclusion that it must have been some paranormal manifestation taking place in the water pipes. It really was a little unnerving and we were glad we were not staying there for a more than a single night.
The next morning we only had a relatively short drive to Dijon. The sun stayed out all day and made our final day of driving a real treat. The Bourgogne Region truly is a lovely part of France and it would have been easy to settle into one of the many villages we drove through along the way. Tomorrow morning we return our rental car and we will be reverting to travel by train and foot for the remainder of our trip. Although the Nissan Juke really was lacking in power, it had proven to be reliable and surprisingly economical (around 7.7 litres/100 km). After driving it all over France, all that remained was the simple task of getting it the final kilometre to the Europcar Rental Office. Nothing could go wrong with that simple task – or could it ?En savoir plus
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- Jour 58
- mercredi 21 octobre 2015 à 08:58
- ☁️ 8 °C
- Altitude: 240 m
- FranceFaubourg Saint-Pierre47°19’0” N 5°2’34” E
We Become Unraveled
21 octobre 2015, France ⋅ ☁️ 8 °C
Day 58 In Which Everything Becomes Unravelled
When you have 25 people travelling across the globe to complete a complex trip such as our rides across Italy and France, there are hundreds of details which have to be planned flawlessly in order for the whole trip to succeed. Although I had put in countless hours of preparation in covering all the preliminary arrangements, in the back of my mind there is always a fear that something might go wrong. Perhaps there could be a mix up with the hotels, maybe planes and trains could be delayed, maybe there will be a nationwide strike and so on.
Now after two months, and with the end almost in sight, I could almost relax. Up will now everything had gone exactly according to the script. Well almost everything. There were the two women who somehow managed to independently break their legs during the trip, but that had nothing to do with my planning. After all there was no way I could be responsible for Carol falling over in the shower or Fran tumbling down the staircase. As far as I was concerned, I felt that not only had the group arrangements all worked perfectly, but our own personal arrangements had also gone smoothly as well. Maggie and I could take pride in the fact that we had not even left anything behind in any of the 30 hotels we had stayed in over the past two months.
They say that pride always goes before a fall, and maybe I should not have ignored the nagging feeling that, at some stage during the trip, there would be something that would inevitably go awry. Today was that day.
After a good first night’s sleep at the Adagio Access Apartments in Dijon, we woke up and spent the first hour catching up on our backlog of laundry. The hotel had its own laundromat – how easy was that ? While the washing machine was battling away on our dirty clothes, we sat down to lovely crunchy baguettes for breakfast. Our main task for the morning was to return our hire car to the nearby Europcar rental office. I had already checked on Google Maps and it promised me that the trip would only take about 12 minutes. After all the thousands of kilometres we had traveled all over France, it was a mere bagatelle. We even programmed the address into our trusty Tom Tom GPS, just to make sure.
After a final check of the car, we drove out of the hotel car park and straight into a narrow one way street. But why was a car coming the other way straight towards me ? I reversed back and pulled aside to let the elderly driver squeeze past (he looked almost as mystified as me). We resumed our progress and executed another couple of turns. So far so good.
“I think you are in the bus lane”, Maggie advised.
“That’s a funny place to put a bus lane”, I replied. At the same time it probably explained why I had received some strange looks from other drivers. Not a big problem I decided, as I calmly veered across to the correct lane. Only about 500 metres to go. Why was my heart thumping so much ?
The last time we hired a car in France we drove it for weeks without incident, and then came close to driving it into a concrete wall in the rental car parking lot when we were returning it. On that occasion I managed to avoid catastrophe (and great embarrassment) by about 3 cm. It did succeed in reminding me that the show is never truly over till the proverbial “fat lady” has finished her solo. With only a few hundred metres to go, I was sure that I could hear the fat lady already warming up her vocal chords.
It was at that point that things took an unexpected turn for the worse. The wonderful TOM TOM that had guided us all over the entire country decided that the satellites were no longer there. The screen proclaimed “NO SIGNAL”. We were on our own with no idea which turn to make. In the area near the central Dijon Train Station there are numerous one way streets and it is essential that you approach in the correct sequence. I did the only thing I could think to do and that was continue straight ahead. Within seconds we were almost T-boned by two fast cars coming up from my left. The drivers were more forgiving than I would have been under the circumstances as neither of them got out of their vehicles to attack with a tyre lever. I tried to do my best impersonation of a foreign elderly dimwit and they seemed to take pity on me. It had been a close call and my sweaty palms made it hard to grip the wheel.
Somehow I managed to fluke a space that could have been a parking space, but probably wasn’t. I tried turning on my pocket GPS. It couldn’t find the signal either. This was ridiculous. Had some sort of global cataclysm shut down the whole system? I crept forward again, hoping that the signal would resume before I had a nervous breakdown. Fortunately it did. After a couple more turns we were at the right car depot and managed to squeeze the car (almost) into the one remaining car spot. At that point I didn’t care anymore. It was not my problem. We had returned their blessed car in one piece and I was ready to hand over the keys. The remainder of our trip will be conducted either by train or on foot. The car had been great but we were both quite relieved to hand it back.
We slowly made our way to the city centre and did some research about possible bike rides in this region. A couple of hours later we returned to our hotel room. It was then that we discovered the second major catastrophe of the day. Over the past couple of weeks we had accumulated a stash of food and nibbles. This included chocolates, biscuits, a jar of jam, fruit, muesli bars, a packet of tea bags and a few other odds and sods. This bag had circumnavigated the entire country with us and served as a backup source of nourishment if we could not find any shops handy. The bag of goodies had been left in our room on the bench in the small kitchenette. To our horror the precious bag was no longer there. We searched and we searched but all our goodies were gone. It might have only amounted to several Euros worth of mostly junk food, but we could not help but feel violated. How could the cleaner possibly have mistaken such a collection of wonderful items for junk ? I almost felt like reporting it to the local Gendarmes, but thought better of it. I also thought that it would probably not be worth lodging a claim with my travel insurer for a couple of packets of lost biscuits. By the same token I could not help but wonder what else could possibly go wrong.
In spite of our huge loss, we decided to explore the city anyway. On our previous trip here we had discovered that Dijon has a great way of taking visitors on a walk of the major places of interest in the city. The so called “Chouette Walk” is made up of hundreds of brass owl plaques on the footpath. These take the visitor to 22 major sites around the centre of Dijon. It is a fantastic way for families to have fun and discover the sights at the same time.
Since the start of our adventure, Maggie had brought along with her a small extra friend that she had christened Pierre. Pierre was a tiny little Lego man with a striped blue and white shirt. He had been photographed in dozens of fascinating locations all around France. The images had been sent back to our grandchildren so that they could see what a great adventure little Pierre was having. Now that Pierre had traveled so far with us, we both regarded him as a very important part of the trip.
Maggie decided that little Pierre should be photographed in front of all 22 of the tourist locations. Each location is marked with a large brass plate and so we began putting him down on the plate on the ground, and taking his picture. It was only when we got to number 6 that a terrible thing happened. Maggie cried out in despair that she had left him on the road at the previous location. We both immediately felt sick. It was only a small Lego man, but it really would have been a disaster for him to get lost at this late stage.
We both started running back through the city crowds, hoping that no one would have noticed the little lost man on the ground. It was only about 500 metres, but it seemed like an eternity before we got close to the plate in question. I don’t know (and I didn’t care) what the locals would have thought about a red faced elderly couple charging through their peak hour crowds. In spite of hundreds of people walking back and forth (and not to mention the numbers of family groups doing the same walk), by some miracle little Pierre was still lying exactly where we had left him. He looked like a frightened little lost soul, all alone in such a big foreign city. By that time Maggie was in tears at the thought that he would be lost. We both never let him out of our sights for the rest of the day.
In spite of the mishaps (and near mishaps) that had occurred, it did not alter our opinion of this city. We still think Dijon is a lovely place. We love the mixture of old and new, the fact that it is not over crowded, the lovely gardens and the feeling that it is little like a miniature version of Paris. If anyone is looking for a place to spend some time in France then the Borgogne Region and Dijon in particular should be carefully considered.En savoir plus
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- Jour 59
- jeudi 22 octobre 2015 à 08:59
- ☁️ 6 °C
- Altitude: 248 m
- FranceClemenceau47°19’53” N 5°2’37” E
Ronald the Wrongfoot
22 octobre 2015, France ⋅ ☁️ 6 °C
Day 59 In Which we Meet Tiny Ronald the Wrongfoot
When I was preparing for our 2015 European Renaissance rides I did some research into the history of Italy and France. One of the most influential characters in the French Monarchy of the Middle Ages was King Francoise I. During our trip we came across his extensive legacy right throughout the Loire Valley. I also learned that King Francoise was well known for the extreme size of one of his body parts, so much so in fact that one his alternative names was “Francoise the Grand Nez”. I thought it was a little unfortunate that someone should be remembered throughout history because of his huge honker, but that was the way it went in those early days. I guess it was regarded as being a little inadequate to just give a simple name such as Louis, Georges, Pierre or Gabriel. In order to make sure who you were referring to, it was also required to add an extra descriptive to the name.
I could imagine the roll call in a medieval school classroom might have sounded something like this – “Henry the Horrible, Freddy the Fat, Sally the Silly, Gary the Grumpy, Harry the Hairy, Philip the Flatulent” and so on. I wondered what my name might have been if I had been born about 600 years ago – maybe Dennis the Dimwit ?
Today we decided to visit the Musee de Beaux Arts (Museum of Fine Arts) in the centre of Dijon. This museum is actually one of the oldest in France and has an interesting and varied collection of antiquities from Ancient Egypt through to the 19th century. Since we had a free day and since it was wet and rainy outside, we considered that it might be an interesting way to spend a couple of hours.
We grabbed our umbrellas and walked the now familiar short distance to the old town. It was easy enough to find the building, but much more challenging to find the entrance. We wandered around and around the exterior before eventually discovering the unmarked door which accessed the inside of the building. We were also surprised to find that the entrance was Gratuit (free). The lady at the door handed us a plastic bag to hold our dripping umbrellas and we started exploring the fascinating rooms inside the museum.
It did not take us long to meet several other past members of the French royal family – Phillipe the Bold, John the Fearless (not to be confused with John the Scaredy Cat) and also Phillipe the Good. I didn’t know much about what they did to receive these accolades, but their death memorials were certainly impressive.
In the adjoining room we discovered a row of suits of armor. While most were approximately the same size, the one on the end was severely vertically challenged. Although it was an impressive collection of armor, the tiny size gave evidence to the fact that the owner must have only been about 150 cm tall. I wondered what his name might have been – perhaps Michael the Midget ?
As we looked more closely at the metal suits, Maggie made a startling discovery. “Look at his feet”, she said. I did. “They are back to front”, she added. I looked more closely and had to agree with her. It certainly looked as if the left and right feet had been mounted on the wrong legs. Surely the curators could not have made such a terrible mistake, and why had no one else ever noticed such a basic error ???? It was then that the real truth dawned on me. Obviously the owner was not only extremely short, but he also had the rare handicap of having his feet on the wrong legs. I could only assume that this was the famous “Ronald the Wrong Foot”. Well that WAS interesting.
Just before we left the suits of armor, I had another thought. Considering the unfortunate sequence of events which had resulted in both Carol and Fran breaking their legs during the trip, perhaps they should both consider getting fitted for full body armor before setting on our 2016 European rides. It certainly couldn’t hurt.
As we proceeded to the higher floors of the building we came across a series of huge carved 3D dioramas of assorted religious themes. Since these must each have taken thousands of hours of painstaking effort to produce, they could only have been gifts for the royalty. Since the descriptions were all in French, I had to make up my own explanations for what they were used for. I guess in the days before TV, such dioramas provided an entertaining evening diversion for the members of the royal household. On a dull, dark winter’s night in the King’s palace the conversation could have gone something like this….
“What are we going to do tonight Papa ?”, the little princes asked the king.
“I think we should have a look at the new diorama”, the king replied.
“But we saw that diorama last week, don’t you have a new one for us to look at ?”
“But the royal artisans took 17 years to make the last one”, the king added. “And it does show at least 30 different gory ways to die”.
“But dioramas are so boring, I wish one of your subjects would invent social media”.
Life really was tough in those days. Maggie also commented that all the dioramas, paintings and sculptures depicted people who were either being massacred, or who looked as if they were about to be massacred. Didn’t anyone actually smile in the Middle Ages ?
When we exited the museum we noticed that they were setting up some sort of outdoor musical event in the open space. Unfortunately due to the cold and wet conditions, the performance was put on for the benefit of about 7 rather wet looking onlookers. I hate to think how much it must have cost to set up all the sound equipment.
Since we felt that we had eaten in far too many restaurants, that evening we bought food from the nearest supermarket and had our own little party in our apartment. We both enjoyed it immensely. Tomorrow we catch the fast train to Paris and begin the next chapter of our odyssey.En savoir plus
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- Jour 60
- vendredi 23 octobre 2015 à 09:01
- ☁️ 11 °C
- Altitude: 48 m
- FranceEglise Sainte-Marie-du-Temple48°51’51” N 2°21’36” E
My Luggage Gets Eaten
23 octobre 2015, France ⋅ ☁️ 11 °C
Day 60 In Which the Evil Paris Metro Eats my Luggage
After three nights in Dijon in beautiful Burgundy, it was time for us to make the next transition back to Paris. Now that we had handed back our rental car, all our future travel had to be conducted either on foot or public transport. Before leaving Australia we had already purchased two tickets from Dijon to Paris on the French TGV train system. At this point I should point out that there are several train systems in France, all run by different companies with different ticketing and staff. The TGV is supposed to be the most sophisticated with the fastest trains (TGV – “Train Grand Vitesse”).
In previous trips we had traveled on TGV trains and I had photos of my GPS showing speeds over 300 kph. Even at these extreme speeds, inside the carriages the ride is smooth and quiet. The trip to Paris was just over 300 km and scheduled to take around 90 minutes. We bundled up our luggage in our Dijon apartment and prepared for the trip. Maggie obviously thought my case had some surplus space inside and packed it with gifts for the grandkids and about 5 kg of magazines that she decided would make good reading back home in Australia.
By the time I strapped on my backpack and started dragging the case, I figured that I had about 35 kg of luggage to navigate safely to our apartment in Paris. At the same time Maggie appeared to have conveniently lightened her load and kept wondering why I was struggling to keep up with her.
We walked the first few hundred metres to the tram stop. We had researched the tram system the previous day so I knew how much the tickets would cost and carefully sorted out the correct change in advance. While I looked after the mountain of luggage, I sent Maggie across to the ticket machine to buy our tickets. She came back with only one ticket and a story that “the price had gone up to 1.60 Euros”. Now I know that prices can increase due to inflation, but that did seem a bit steep. I gave her a handful of extra coins and send her back to buy my ticket. This time she came back and announced that the price was “only 1.50 Euros”. I have no idea what she had been doing on the ticket machine, but it seems like she had managed to select the poker machine mode whereby it generates a random price for each ticket. At least we had two tickets, even though I felt like we had been fleeced.
When the next tram came along we piled our luggage on board and narrowly avoided injuring any of the other passengers in the process. The tram took us straight to the DijonVille Train Station where we were to catch our train. The first ominous signs that the trip was not going to go smoothly was the sign that announced that our train “was delayed”. We sat and waited. And waited.
When the train finally appeared the platform was jammed with other paasengers, mostly also with huge amounts of luggage. We found our carriage and pulled our luggage on board, only to find that every possible storage space for luggage was already crammed to overflowing. I dragged my confounded case from one end of the carriage to the other (damn those heavy magazines) without success. People were starting to look at us with smirks on their faces. I partially got even by making sure I bumped into their shoulders each time I passed by.
Eventually we came to the unhappy conclusion that there was NOWHERE for our luggage. We would have to just cram it into our seat and squash in next to it. So that’s what we did. Maggie got in first and I heaved the case in next. By the time it was my turn, there was only room for my left buttock on the seat. Maggie started to complain that the wheels were cutting off her circulation. I replied that my problem was much worse. I was sitting half in the aisle, looking like the world’s biggest imbecile. At least it provided free entertainment for the rest of the carriage.
“Don’t worry, it’s only 90 minutes”, I told her. It wasn’t. The so called TGV train struggled to muster anything above 100 kph. No wonder it had been delayed. At one point it stopped completely without a station anywhere in sight. Maggie’s right leg went to sleep, but she didn’t. I felt like murdering someone, but I couldn’t. We had no alternative other than to just sit there as if it was the most normal thing in the world. Of course, at that stage, we had no idea that our day was going to get worse. Much worse.
The train had originally been due at Gare de Lyon in Paris at around 1.30 pm. It eventually arrived at around 2.30 pm. It was only in the final 30 minutes of the trip that the driver finally managed to find the throttle and get it flying along at 305 kph. By then it was already too late. Maggie was worried that she was going to lose her leg and join Carol and Fran in the sad French leg injury tally.
It did finally pull into the station. We stumbled out onto the platform and into the biggest jam of people I had ever seen on a railway station. We could hardly move. We both just wanted somewhere to sit comfortably, but Maggie had an even more pressing need. She needed a toilet and fast. I sat with the pile of luggage while she set off in search of that elusive Holy Grail – a clean toilet. About 30 minutes later she returned.
We then went in search of the right Metro line to take us close to our apartment. We found it without too much trouble, but what was trouble was the multitude of flights of stairs that we had to ascend and descend in order to get to the right platform. I pity any disabled person who has to survive this system.
At least we were relieved to find that the Metro was not too crowded and we were soon headed in the right direction. “Not long to go now”, I tried to calm Maggie’s anxiety. She looked up at the list of stations on the carriage wall.
“Which station do we get off at ?”, she asked.
“The Louvre”, I replied.
“But that sign says it’s closed”. I looked up and saw that she was right. Apparently there was work being done and it was “ferme”, for the next few weeks. Well that’s how our day had been going. And it was still going to get worse.
We had no alternative other than to go to the next station and walk back. That was not such a big problem, except that we could not find the “Sortie” (exit) anywhere. We walked back and forth until we eventually located the exit doors. I had been through these types of doors many times and knew that it was possible to wheel my bag through, however for some reason, this time my brain was not working properly. We saw a special line that had a luggage symbol so I thought maybe I should put the bag through there. I lined up the bag and then walked through the neighbouring exit. The problem was the luggage door did not open. I was on one side and Maggie was still on the other with both bags and a very worried look on her face. Well what do we do now ? I wondered.
“Pass your bag over the top”, I called to her. She did that and that was one problem partially solved.
“OK, now come through with my bag”. She started through, only to find that the barrier snapped back like a giant alligator, securely grabbing my bag in their huge jaws. I tried to force them open without success. I tried to just pull my bag through. At least that achieved something – I almost managed to rip the entire top of the bag from one end to the other. Not exactly what I had planned.
At that moment a helpful French lady noticed our predicament and used her ticket to reopen the doors for us. I retrieved the ruins of my case and the two of us stood seething at the damage. What an absolutely stupid system, I thought. Just like the French to design a gate that would be capable of cutting a small child (or slow senior) completely in two.
I would liked to have punched someone right on the nose at that point, but there would have been no point. We should have known that is what France is like. It can be frustrating, it can be irritating, but it is never boring.
I managed to roll the remains of my bag to the apartment we had booked on the Internet. It was situated on the left bank of the Seine, not far from the Musee D’Orsay and the location and the description, looked too good to miss. We were met at the door by a young spiff and his “cousin”. Young Guillaume certainly spoke good English but he was just too much of a smart Alec for our liking. He insisted on making every question we asked into some sort of joke and really managed to really get under our skin. I suspect he would have been happy to sell us the Eiffel Tower if we had shown any interest.
The apartment itself was not exactly as it appeared in the advertisement. It was a collection of rooms and corridors with ceilings low enough to crack the head of the shortest midget. At least it had a bed and a toilet and we had to agree that the location was perfect. It is probably typical of what to expect in Paris when you are traveling on a budget. There was no doubt it did have character and we would probably look back on this day in the years ahead and laugh about it.
That evening we went out and brought some supplies and some beautiful fresh baguettes and had a feast in our room. It was fun. Already the hassles of the previous few hours started to fade and we looked forward to what we would do it in the next four days in this amazing city.En savoir plus