Sunday August 17, 2014

We were awake at 7:00 am this seems to be our new time of waking up.  It is getting dark earlier and light later.  We said our goodbyes to Francesca and Mathieu. Francesca was the last one to emerge from her tent but the first one to be packed and ready to go.  She was going to get breakfast at the supermarket. Mathieu was still packing up as we left.  We no doubt will see them later in the day as we are all heading for La Rochelle.

We stopped to take photos of Ile de Re at the same time as another couple of French touring cyclists were taking photos of the Ile.  We chatted to them for a while, they too are going to La Rochelle.

Today\’s route was very rural, fields and fields of sunflowers and corn. When we lived in Germany there was fields of sunflowers and we never seemed to photograph at the right time.  These are past their prime for photographs, but we always seem to see one late bloomer.

It was very flat, probably one of our flattest days yet on the Tour, along canals and dykes.

The route was quite well signed and we have now gone into a new Department (municipality).  We stopped in the Town of Marrens hoping to get some lunch, but the boulangerie did not make sandwiches and we really couldn’t be bothered to buy ham from the small market stall and a baguette and make our own.  We really have become accustomed to having butter on our bread again.  The Town looked rather run-down, but there were thousands if not millions of dollars worth of yachts moored up.

We passed another family of four who were also going to La Rochelle.  I was beginning to worry we wouldn’t be able to find a campsite.

We made good time today, although it was a little windy for the last 10 kms or so. We are lucky because we can take it in turns to be at the front.  When we spoke to Mathieu and Francesca at the campsite, later on, they both complained about the wind. We stopped on the outskirts of La Rochelle for a sandwich and carried on into La Rochelle.  We noticed Francesca heading into Town so we caught up with her and I took the lead for a while.  We headed for the Tourisme Office, I knew there were two municipal campsites in Town and one more campsite about another 10 kms out of Town.  Fortunately, one of the municipal campsites had spaces available so the three of us headed out to it, as fast as we could to make sure they still had sites when we got there.

There are some awesome buildings in this Town, we will check them out in the morning.

Francesca’s site is not near us tonight but Mathieu has the site next to ours.  Mathieu is staying an extra night here.  We will probably see Francesca tomorrow on the road.

Saturday August 16, 2014

A great day.  A lie in this morning until 7:45!! We had a nice relaxing breakfast and were entertained by our neighours trying to take their tent down. They had a simple spring-up tent, really easy to set up.  But, to take down,  not so easy – it was very funny.  Remember me writing about my “kitchen sink” you have to wrap it into a figure eight to put it back in its little pouch.  The same thing applies to this tent.  They obviously had not practiced taking the tent down before leaving home.

The other entertainment was watching the young girls in the other tents try and persuade the boys to take their tent down for them.  Eventually one of instructors came over sent the boys away and made the girls do it themselves.  They became very pouty after that.

Ralf had decided to build a moat around our tent, to keep out any water if it rained.  There is no rain in the forecast for the next 3 days.

I cleaned the bikes, they were getting rather gritty again.  Ralf went into the Town to get lunch. We were expecting a small village, however, It is quite a touristy area but very pretty.  Ralf came back with lunch and told me that there was a market set up in Town and it would be there until 3:00.

I had just finished cleaning my bike and so we ate our lunch and walked back into Town.  We had a lovely afternoon, being “tourists” we felt as if we were on holiday.

At 3:00 the market is cleared , cleaned and empty.

We even decided to get our hair cut. The poor stylist struggled with what to do with my fringe (bangs).  Straight across or at an angle?  We decided on straight across, although it is a bit short, not quite Mia Farrow, but close, it grows so quickly it will be fine in a few days.  Ralf had his hair washed, cut and \”styled\” and a cup of coffee.  He has never spent $30.00 on a hair cut before and probably won\’t again, although he did enjoy having his hair washed by the stylist.

We walked back to the camp site along the beach, it was shorter than going by the road.

She saw sea shells on the sea shore. – 3 x times fast.

As we came back into the camp site we met Francesca who we had met in Nantes, she couldn’t find her pitch, so we showed her where to go.  She decided to take one of the pitches in our area as the young kids have gone.  When we arrived at our pitch the guy we met at Mont Ste. Michel was here as well (Mathieu).  We are all heading south, so we might meet up again.

We have decided to eat out tonight, Ralf found a small cafeteria that we can pick and mix our dinner and eat by the ocean. Francesca joined us and we had a nice evening chatting to her about her Masters degree and ideas for her thesis. We tried not to influence her but cycle tourism should be high on the list.

A nice beer to end a lovely day.

Friday August 15, 2014

Today we decided to follow the Velodyssey route all day.  Of course that always adds the kilometres as it takes you the scenic route.  It was a lovely route.  We started of finding our way through Bretignolles and followed the atlantic coast line through up-market seaside resorts and some not so up market areas.

We went through a forested area and a marshland area.  The route was very varied and for the most part flat.

The Town\’s varied from big modern to old traditional.

We had a traffic jam today – horses.  We were on one of the forest routes and came to an intersection where there were 48 horses plodding along.  We had to wait almost 5 minutes until they had all passed us.

We arrived in Tranche sur Mer at about 4:30 and went to the municipal campsite.  On the notice board it stated that the site was full.  Today is a stat holiday and a busy week-end.  The next municipal site was another 12 kms away.  We asked the warden if she had space for a small tent.  She looked in the computer and then offered us a small site it has 15 children camping there she told us, but they are leaving tomorrow.  We said yes and asked to stay two nights.  We pay when we leave.  It was a bit complicated to find the site, as our site was down a small track or up a set of stairs.  We took the track, it is a sandy site.

It is a nice quite site and the children are teenagers and surprisingly very quiet and polite.  At 10:30 tonight we were woken up by fireworks.  We could see them from the tent, very pretty.

Thursday August 14, 2014

It had rained in the night, but it was a windy morning, so for the first time in a long time the tent was put away completely dry.

A lovely ride to Bretignolles sur mer.  We cycled through St. Urbain and Perrier before joining the Velodysee route in Perrier.  Ralf loves the signs on the velo routes.  So easy to follow.

The route took us along the Atlantic coast for the first time.  There are some big seaside towns that are very busy and a little chaotic to get through.

This coastline was France’s version of the Great Ocean Road, Australia has nothing to worry about.

Bretignolles is quite a large seaside Town.

When we arrived we headed straight for the tourist office, she gave us the names of 3 private campsites.  We headed to the cheapest of the 3 (€28.00) That is €28.00 with no electricity and you had to provide your own toilet paper.  The showers were only open from 5:00 pm to 10:30 pm and then again in the morning from 7:30am to 1:30pm. It was a clean campsite, but really no loo roll!!

We settled in to our site and an older gentleman came over and asked if there was anything we needed, as he knew we couldn’t carry very much on our bikes. A very nice man, we should have asked him for a roll of toilet paper!

We didn’t pay for power tonight, so the garmins were powered from the computer.

The most important thing for me to do today was getting laundry done.  €10.00 for washing and drying in the Town!

Ralf couldn’t find anything in Town, no bank, no grocery store, no restaurant.  Everything was closed between 12:30 and 2:30.  He was not a happy camper.  Ralf got quite a face on him today, objecting to the price of the campsite and not getting good value for his money. It all boils down to a picnic table for him.  If we could carry something to sit on he would be much happier, but we really are at our weight limits.

Today was our 29^th wedding anniversary, so we broke the budget and went out for a lovely meal, we also treated ourselves to a small bottle rum for a night cap.  Ralf had foie gras for his appetizer and duck breast for his main, a lovely cheesecake for dessert.

Wednesday August 13, 2014

Free breakfast at the Y, not a filling breakfast, but free.  Good coffee.  We left the Y at 9:15 after chatting to a lovely young French woman (Francesca) who had decided to take two months to cycle to Spain.  She is taking a Masters degree in Tourism, what a great way to learn about tourism than being a cycle tourist.  You really get to feel the country from the back of a bike.  She had the same philosophy as us, it has to be fun.  There is no point putting in a lot of miles and not enjoying what you are doing.  You do not see anything as you are cycling and at the end of the day you are too exhausted to enjoy where you are staying.

We worked our way through the cycle routes of Nantes to D\’Ile. We needed to follow the cycle route (Velodyssey) out of Nantes for a while and then we were going to veer off towards the south-west instead of going west and then south.  We had also decided to stop at the Tourisme Information to pick up better maps.  We missed the first Tourisme Centre but found the second one on the Ile with a little bit of help from a French man, who stopped to help when he saw us looking at our maps.  I never thought I would say that the French are helpful, but they have been amazing and very friendly and this is in a big city.

Before we left the d’Ile we found the big elephant.  The old ship yards have been converted into an art and cultural area.  The works of Jean Luc Courcoult artistic director of Royal De Luxe who created massive animatrons are in this area.  Google Royal De Luxe to see what this guy has created.  This fella was influenced by Jules Verne, he created this elephant and the company have created all sorts of different animatronics and it is all created in this area.

We found our way out of the city relatively easily following the velo route and then headed towards our minor routes. It was a relatively flat ride today, although very windy.

One of the things we like about France is the provisions for bicycles.  Even at a supermarket they have covered parking for bikes.

Many years ago Ralf and I went on holiday to Holland, we played a game – spot the windmill, these were usually the very large working windmills in Holland.  Who ever spotted a windmill got a drink bought them.  We have continued this throughout the years and included small garden ornament type windmills.  We often scare people when we shout \”windmill\” as we spot a windmill in someones garden.  We have changed the rules slightly on this ride, as we no longer have our own money to buy the other person a drink,  whoever spots the most windmills get to choose what we drink with dinner that evening.

After the first 25 kms of me being at the front.  I asked Ralf to take the lead, I had two massive head spikes – translate that to a migraine coming on and I really didn’t want to fight the wind and the migraine.  I tucked in behind Ralf’s back wheel and had quite an enjoyable ride.

When we arrived at the campsite in St. Gervais we weren’t sure if we should set up our tent or not.  We asked a couple of municipal workers if we could set up and when the office would open.  They said we could set up, and the office should be open at 5:00 (perhaps) We picked a site and set up the tent but didn’t set up the beds until we knew we were o.k. to stay where we were.  The office opened at 5:30pm the warden said we were fine where we were.  We had a late dinner (7:00), and while we were eating, the warden told us about the Mayor’s soiree.  The Mayor was coming to the campsite and offering drinks and brioche, their would be traditional music and dancing.

We finished our dinner and went over, everyone was very nice to us.  The music sounded a little like Acadian accordion music, it was a very nice evening.

I really liked the traditional dress and the intricate lacework in their bonnets.

We chatted to one of the performers about our cycling and France (we did it all in French).  We are getting much better at holding conversations – still very simple ones but we are managing.  Of course there are other times when we don’t understand a word they say.

St. Gervais is the last of the cheap municipal campsites.  Tomorrow we will be along the Atlantic coastline and more touristy area.  I have already checked on some prices and the private campsites are around €28 to €35, the municipal sites range from €18 to 20.

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.

Monday August 11, 2014

We have noticed that major cities are the only place in France that have graffiti.

Left Rennes heading down the D163, it was supposed to be a D road which means it is supposed to be a quieter road – it was a dual carriageway and fairly busy.  We were tooted at a few times even though we were on the shoulder and not causing any hazard.  We weren’t sure if we were being tooted at because we were touring cyclists or because we were on a motorway!!

As we came of this road to take another D road we noticed the road sign that usually indicates you are leaving a motorway and should slow down to normal speeds!

Once we had left the D163 we followed the rural routes through small towns and villages. We had noticed a couple of these hay bale \”sculptures\’ yesterday.  They are advertising an agricultural fair in the area at the end of the month.

The French have great pride in their villages with lots of flowers. We noticed every village or town we went through had their own Boulangerie (bakery).  One of the habits most French men have is when they come out of the bakery with their French stick, they break of the end and start eating it straight away.

Also the small towns in France have very large churches.

As we were coming into one town we noticed a small grocery store, they sold sandwiches so we stopped and picked up a couple of sandwiches and some fruit for lunch.  As we came out of the store the heavens opened and it poured with rain for about 15 minutes, then it stopped, the sun came out and we were able to get on our way again, without getting wet.  The bikes got soaked.

We cycled past a very large LaFarge processing plant.  It was huge – can\’t get away from you Brian!

We cycled in to Chateaubriant at about 1:30, we now know why it is called Chateaubriant – it has a very large Chateau in the centre of Town.  We found the tourist office, unfortunately it was closed on Mondays.

We have noticed that in France a lot of the stores are closed on Mondays as well as Sundays.  They only have to work 5 days a week, so the stores close on Sundays and Mondays.

Never mind we had the address for the municipal campsite and headed out to it.  It was in the same area as the Big Box stores.  Maybe we would be able to find some gas.  After we had set up the tent we cycled to Intermarche, Intersport and a couple of other stores, but no one has the gas.  Maybe we will be lucky in Nantes tomorrow.

We went to the supermarket to get a quiche, but wasn’t sure if we needed to cook it.  We asked the lady at the deli, she said it could be eaten cold, better hot though.  We had to eat it cold, as we have very little gas left.  We ate dinner in the tent, as there is nowhere to sit in this municipal campsite.

I have planned a very rural route for tomorrows route.

Sunday August 10, 2014

A wet start to the day, it was raining again when we woke up and continued to rain on and off while we had breakfast.  We finally decided to pack up the tent in the rain.  Something good came out of this, we now know how to pack the tent while the fly is still up which means we can keep the body of the tent dry.  The fly however, was soaked and so was the ground sheet, but when you are packing a tent in pouring rain, keeping the body of the tent dry is important.

We left Mont St Michel in the rain at 10:15.  We were hoping to get a response from the warmshowers hosts we had emailed, but we didn’t.  We are not having much luck with warmshowers in France.  We thought we would be camping tonight or if the rain kept up maybe we would get a chambre d’hote or a hotel in Rennes.

It rained for the first 2.5 hours.  It was windy, a full-on head-wind.  What more could we ask for – oops forgot – hills.  Yes we got the “perfect” cycling day – rain, headwinds and hills.  It was miserable.  Add to this we had decided to take the main road to Rennes – it shortened the distance but it was a boring road. Today we were taking it in turns to be at the front even though we were on a main road, it wasn’t very busy, and we really needed to share the front because of the wind.  Today, for the first time in a long time Ralf didn’t have the legs.  At one point, I had taken the lead and was a good 50 metres ahead of him when I realized he wasn’t on my wheel.  I slowed down for him to catch up. This rarely happens, I think I was better on the hills than Ralf today, which again is very rare.

About an hour outside of Rennes it stopped raining and the sun came out.  It was still windy which dried us completely.  As we negotiated the roads coming into the City of Rennes I spotted the campsite. We followed the signs and here we are again camping in a municipal campsite.  This one is quite large and has excellent facilities.

You may have noticed that most of our photos are of sunny days.  This is not because it is always sunny, but on rainy days you do not get the camera out to take photos.

One slight problem with today, it is Sunday, most of the shops and restaurants are closed.  We find ourselves in a slight predicament we have emergency rations but very little gas left. We should have stopped at a big supermarket when we passed it earlier in the day, but it was raining and we would have got cold. What do we do? – we noticed a McDonalds as we cycled in.  We could eat the emergency rations, buy ravioli in a can and eat it cold or go to McDonalds.  We went to McDonald’s blugh. Ralf says beggars can\’t be choosers and it wasn\’t that bad!

Saturday August 9, 2014

We woke up this morning to a piercing sound.  Ralf’s new bicycle “bell” the hornet had shorted out because of the rain and was sounding like a car alarm.  It is a really good “bell” – cars can hear it and dogs stay away when he sounds it.  But, at 6:50 am the campsite did not need to be woken up by Ralf’s bicycle bell.  When we realized that it was the “bell” and not a car alarm, Ralf scrambled out of bed to pull the plug on it.

We couldn’t go back to sleep after that and as it wasn’t raining we got up and had a leisurely breakfast before heading out to the Island and Mont St Michel Abbey.

We caught the free bus from the campsite/hotel and spent about 2.5 hours wandering around the village and the Abbey.

What a difference a day makes.

As we entered the village we spotted this little kitten hiding.

2.5 million visitors visit Mont St Michel every year.  It is best to get there early before all the tour buses arrive.

The Abbey cost E9.00 each but it was well worth it.  It was originally built in 708 when the Bishop of Avaranches had a sanctuary built on Mont Tombe.

In the 10^th century the Benedictines settled in the abbey while a village grew below its walls.

The pillars of the cloister were off-set to provide ever changing views.

The walk through the abbey was well signed and directed you through in one direction, eventually leading you to a very large gift shop!  There are a myriad of stairs and corridors throughout the abbey, most of them with access denied, because it is still a \’working\’ Abbey.

In 1874 Mont St Michel was classified as an historic monument and underwent major restoration.  The restoration is ongoing.  Mont Saint Michel has been listed as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO since 1979.

We arrived back at the campsite at about 12:30 and had some lunch.  We quickly did some checking on campsites within about 20 kms of Mont St Michel.  All of the campsites were 2 to 3 times more expensive than the one we were at.  We decided to stay here another night and then do the longer ride to Rennes tomorrow morning.

We made a quick pasta dinner and ran out of gas just as we were heating the sauce through.  We have not seen any of the screw-on butane gas containers in France and have heard it can be a struggle finding them.  Fortunately we do have a multi-burning fuel stove, so we may have to switch to white gas.  The JetBoil we won’t be able to use until we get the screw-on canisters, but we still have enough gas to make coffee in the morning.

An early night and hopefully good weather tomorrow.

This is the end of the La Manche Route.  It was a really good veloroute.  If you were new to cycle touring this route would be a great route to start with.  It was really well signed all the way from Cherbourg to Mont Ste Michel with lots of interesting things to see and visit.

Friday August 8, 2014

We woke up to rain on the tent (again).  We had already decided last night that we would cycle today regardless of the weather.  We got up, had breakfast and broke the down in a drizzly rain.  We were cycling to Ducey today in the hopes of finding a laundromat.  The drizzle eased a little and the weather was very humid.  We arrived in Ducey at around 11:00 after cycling only 23 kms.

There was no laundromat, so I decided we should carry on to Mont St Michel visit the UNESCO Heritage Site and carry on to Pontorson for the campsite.  It had started to drizzle again as we left Ducey but, because of the busy road we decided to take the rail trail it was only a little further than by the road.

We arrived in Mont St Michel at about 1:30 and cycled towards the Island.  However, we could only get so far, before it was prohibited to ride the bicycles.

We cycled back to a café and had lunch. When you have all your belongings on your bike you really do not want to lock it to a fence and leave it for a couple of hours. An English family who were also touring this area were trying to decide what to do as well.  They told us about the campsite at Mont St Michel which was just around the corner from the café.  We decided to stay the night expecting it to be expensive but it was only E12.00.  We decided we would get up early in the morning and visit the Abbey and then cycle a short distance to Pontorson and the next camp site.  We set up the tent and discovered that this campsite had a washing machine and dryer, I finally got some laundry done.

After the laundry was done we went out to eat – again a Prix Fixe Menu which was very good.  However, as we were eating it started to pour with rain and pour and pour.  By the time we had finished dinner it had stopped raining.  When we got back to the campsite, many of the sites were flooded.  Fortunately for us our site wasn’t too bad.  Although we did move the tent to slightly higher ground.  Unfortunately the tent hadn’t completely dried from the morning and the problem leak soaked Ralf’s duvet and bedding.  We went back to the laundry and put everything in the dryer.  It continued to rain and as we updated both the garmin’s in the laundry.  I checked the weather forecast, it turns out we are getting hit by the tail-end of Hurricane Bertha.  High winds and rain all night, it is going to be a very wet night for us. All the hotels in the area are booked.  No escape from the rain. The joys of travelling on a bike and in a tent.  Ralf managed to rig up the spare fly inside the tent, it looked like Aladdin’s cave but it kept the rain off us and we had a dry night.

They had a lot of cows in the Village.  I wanted to take a marker and draw our route on this one, but Ralf didn\’t think it was a good idea.