Tuesday August 12, 2014

It rained again in the night, and the forecast is for rain later today.  Why did it rain in the morning?  It had cleared by the time we were packing up the tent. The tent was almost dry, not quite, but almost.  As we left Chateubriant it started to drizzle again.  I noticed the D35 to Issy, we were heading for Issy, so we took it and it was a lovely rural route.  We felt today as if we were the only people left in France.  We saw about 20 cars all day, until we came to the outskirts of Nantes.

About 10 kilometres outside of Nantes we were to join the D69, it was a very busy route, but as usual France provided us with an off-road cycle route all the way into the downtown area.

Today was a showery day, not soaking wet kind of rain, but damp enough to keep our windbreakers on for most of the day.  The sun came out at lunchtime in Nort sur Erdre.  We found a supermarket and as usual ate our baguette outside.  People would pass us and wish us Bon Appetite, it is so nice.

We noticed this Penny Farthing behind the supermarket. Ralf had to try and sit on it.

We also noticed the church had lovely stained glass windows.  The doors were open so we peered inside.  OMG absolutely stunning.

A little town with a church with stunning architecture and beautiful stained glassed windows.

An older woman noticed Ralf’s Canadian Flag and asked if we were from English or French Canada.  We told her English, but she merrily carried on in French, as I merrily carried on in English.  Her children live in Montreal and she has visited them and enjoyed Quebec.  She assumed we were bilingual, but we managed once again to have a conversation with her.

We found the YHA and checked in.  Ralf wanted to stay indoors tonight as the forecast is for rain.  The YHA is in an old tobacco factory – all the rooms are non-smoking and so is the hostel.

Ralf cycled to the two stores where we thought we might be able to find camping gas, – success he bought 4 canisters – just in case we have a problem elsewhere in Europe. I went to the grocery store, we had a lovely chicken stir fry for dinner.  It is nice to have a bigger kitchen to work in and be able to cook something a little more exciting than pasta.

This evening we had a lovely conversation with Chantal and her two children.  Sebastien, her son commented we must be great athletes after we had told them what we had cycled to date and where we were cycling in the future.  Chantal warned us that this week-end is a busy long week-end and we may struggle to find campsites.  This is the busiest week-end for holiday travel.

Ralf has suggested we stay off the road on Saturday and have a rest day.  We have noticed France is on holiday.