Week 5 Home again

MONDAY, 28 May 2018
After a week of looking around La Rochelle and St Malo in Brittany, it was time to head back to Richelieu.  A 300 km trip with a few stops along the way took around 6 hours.  A lot of this was spent travelling on divided, two lane highways with a speed limit of 110 kph.  The French road system is superb when you have a GPS to guide you and the endless number of roundabouts with roads leading off in 3, 4 or 5 directions at each one never ceases to amaze.

Way of the future: 1

Near our apartment in St Malo was this re-cycling/rubbish collection system.  Two of the receptacles were for all sorts of glass (but not between 10p.m and 7.00a.m., thank you), one for plastic,paper/cardboard and tins while the last was for food waste etc.  Drop the rubbish down the chutes  and you can hear the machinery below grinding away.  Not sure if the food waste gets burnt and the energy used in the power grid as happens in some places.  All the residents in the area bring their rubbish here.  No black, plastic rubbish bags left outside doors to be ignored by the local collecters. No rubbish trucks, no landfill.  Way to go!

Way of the future 2:
In desperate need of coffee after 200 kms driving and one failed attempt to divert off the motorway to a small town in search of it, we succumbed to the lure of a MacDonalds sign to end up having almost the worst coffee we've had in France, but unbeknown to us the sign led us into the centre of this place.

(nb: photo courtesy of Google)  Called L'Atoll, it is a HUGE shopping complex.  The whiter than white circular section around the outside comprises 50 or so retail outlets selling mainly clothing,  household goods, furniture, and leisure equipment. Never saw one bike shop, though.  Each shop is about 100 metres in length and approx 20 metres across.  Clustered in the middle are 14 food outlets while the rest of the space is for parking.  There are also huge parking areas underneath.  We walked all around and thought it must have been about a kilometre in circumference. It has been very attractively landscaped and the sheer scale of it is enormous.  There are even little motorised trains running to ferry shoppers around the area.  On a Monday afternoon there seemed to be hardly any people about, though a Google search claims 5 - 6 million customers a year.

Security in the complex is handled by a number of these ferocious looking creatures.

Shoppers are warned of the consequences of shoplifting as each item is tagged and must be de-tagged on purchase.  The lions have a special collar which activates when a tagged item crosses outside a shop entrance and have been trained to attack and eat the would-be-thief.  Despite knowing this, an average of six shoppers are eaten each week.  The occasional mistake happens when an item doesn't de-tag correctly and the innocent shopper is eaten. This is passed off as 'collateral damage' and justified by the low level of shoplifting that occurs and the savings on store security guards.  The few security guards the centre does employ do their rounds on these cool looking machines.

And, as with every place in France we've been to, the inevitable cows were present,

 these ones from a specially bred albino herd chosen to match the stark, futuristic white of the centre itself..

TUESDAY, 29 MAY 2018
One month into our three month stay. Time hurries on.  Today was a leisure day to recover from a week of travelling.  Faye starts to get twitchy if she has to go 2 days without being able to load up a washing machine but was able to run half a dozen loads today and is now feeling quite settled.  And now sitting watching the French Open and learning lots of new French words such as le deuce, le raquette de tennis, le let and un ace.

'Bestie' Tran knocked on the window mid-morning and gave us a bag containing these.

From what I understood, he has a little plot just out of town and these came from there.  We'll be struggling to get through all of them. He arranged to to take us on walk to his little garden but the rain set in so it has been postponed.

We were only away from here for a week and disaster struck.  First, this.

The roof of one of the buildings facing the main square has suffered some serious damage.  We're not sure if it was a meteorite, a terrorist bomb, vandals or a big storm that passed through here last week.  Then the storm brought about the closure of Le Parc Richelieu as we found out when we went for a walk there to see if the beautiful white swan had produced any fluffy little babies yet, and found the gate locked.  Open tomorrow, so we've been informed.

Taking a stroll around the back streets, it's still a bit surreal to see signs like this one posted alongside the entrance to buildings.

WEDNESDAY, 30 May 2018

It’s the unexpected things that make a good day even better.  Such as today when we were on a 40km ‘Park ‘n’ Ride’ loop starting from a village called Villandry with a beautiful castle ‘Chateau Le Rivau’ which we’ve already visited, on our way to the village of Azay which has an even more magnificent castle, ‘Azay-le-Rideau, which we’re planning to visit in a few weeks time when around a bend out in the middle of the woods we came across this magnificent place,

‘Chateau de Gerfaut’.  The gates were open, a sign advertised it as a hotel, and a further sign invited travellers in for a drink in the Salon de The´. A lady came out to greet us as we went up the steps and into the entrance hall and we couldn’t help but exclaim at the beauty of the interior, all polished wood and parquet floor and elaborate sweeping staircase. 

The lady spoke far better English than we did French so we got talking.  She was a Marquess,  thank you very much, the 5^th generation wife of the owner of this impressive structure, which is quite new (in French terms) as it was only built in 1909.  In 2011 It suffered major damage when a fire started in the roof but has been restored and re-opened as a hotel/ B&B. 

We ordered a cappuccino, which as all you European travellers know is not made properly here, and we quizzed her about French coffee, being very respectful and deferential, of course, and asked how could we order a coffee made just with milk, as in Oz, and the short answer was we couldn’t.  Unfortunately, the long answer was also the same. And even though we had our own lunch of crusty baguette with us, we opted for La Planchette

as we felt we really wanted to help out the struggling French nobility reduced to catering for the peasantry passing along the way and we couldn’t pass up the chance to have a Marquessate taking our order and bringing us our meal, which she did most graciously.

We continued our ride after this very pleasant interlude and found ourselves back on the Loire River cycle path heading back to Villandry.   We were riding along the bank of the Loire at first until we came to the confluence with the Cher River which we then followed.  We paused along the edge of  this and Pierre climbed up onto the wall,

gazing wistfully into the waters of the River Cher and saying how it reminded him of his great, great granma’ Cher LaPierre, of Sonny and Cher fame, and whom he claims he is named after.  I told him that sounded like a load of bunkum.

Back to our car by 5.00pm for a 50 km drive home, and just in time as 10 minutes later it fairly bucketed down for about 20 minutes. 

We’re very concerned about the swans.  We stopped at the park on the way home and walked to the pond and the swan was still sitting in the same spot.

We didn't think it would still be hatching its eggs after almost a month but as we were watching it stood up and changed position, and the eggs, which were clearly visible before, were nowhere to be seen.  A mystery, the answer to which we'll try to solve.  We may have to get the WWF on to the case.

THURSDAY, 31 May 2018
A  day for staying home and relaxing.  Weather very overcast and threatening to rain.  Which it did at 3.00 in the afternoon as we were out on a walk around town, but it gave me a chance to try out the cheap, 3 euro ($5) umbrella I bought at the supermarket and I think it was overpriced.

We were pleased to note that progress was being made on repairing the hole in the roof of the hotel.

The chute on the right is how they get all the discarded material from the top to the bottom.

We also took more photos of the magnificent market hall, dating from the origins of the town in the 1600s and which has recently been restored at a cost of around $2.5 m.

 

The more we walk around the town and look at the buildings and notices on them the more we realise this is a dying and decaying old town. The population has fallen every year since 1975 from 2,444 to 1,787 in 2015. There are lots of places uninhabited or for sale, lots of shops empty or for lease, and lots of signs on businesses saying they have re-located to another town.
Such a shame as it is just a delightful place.

But when you look at some of the buildings and the state of disrepair and neglect they are in

 you can imagine how much money it would cost to repair and modernise them.  Still, there are numerous examples of places that have been beautifully done up on the outside.

 We were told that a lot of the places that are done up have been bought by English or Australians who only spend part of the year here.

FRIDAY, 1 June 2018
Just the sort of day where we wish you could all be riding along as well to enjoy it.  It's too hard to describe the pleasure of the rolling countryside, the panoramic views, the tiny hamlets and the big town square, all hustle and bustle.

Friday, so the first thing is to head to the market in the town square where, as usual, we can't resist the lure of the butcher selling his cooked pork ribs.  Even at $26 / kilo, it's worth every juicy centime.

Car packed, it's off to Montsoreau to begin the ride.  This is the route for today.

From Montsoreau, we headed down to and back from Fontevraud-l'Abbaye.  The abbey the town is named for dates from the 11th century and we're sure is well worth a visit but as we didn't have the 2-3 hours to spare that any such visit requires for the 11euro / head entry fee, we checked to see if we could sneak in for a quick peek without being sprung, but no chance so we paid our respects and headed off.  What made the trip worthwhile, though, was riding down the main street and seeing all the houses looking like this,

 with climbing roses everywhere.


Heading back we turned towards Turquant, which we thought was this little town we spotted down in a valley

but wasn't as at that stage it seems we had missed a turn sign and were off track. With superb navigation skills we eventually located it, another of the troglydyte towns quite common in this region. One part is devoted to a number of different craft shops nestled in the rocks

 At the entrance to the town is a big block of the tufa stone into which these dwellings are cut, and an explanation of how it is done.

 Continuing our journey, we headed to Saumur, a major town in this area and a major wine producing region.  Indeed, on our ride today, we passed through vineyards for the first time.

We also noted that even the beautiful countryside of France can be despoiled by ugly power pylons.

Saumur is a beautiful city with many buildings made of the tufa stone, giving them a soft and light appearance.  Like every other town, it seems, big and small, it has its castle

and churches

and olde worlde buildings

A lot of our return was along the banks of the Loire River but we came off it at one stage and rode through another amazing little troglydyte town with tiny roads cut through stone tunnels.

It was a day over undulating terrain with lots of short, steep climbs of 8, 10, 12%.  Faye's granny gears were running hot as she spun like mad and kept right on my hammer.   One nasty pasty of a climb was about 300 metres at 15% but luckily we were descending that one and as we were on a circuit, never saw it again.  We did about 450 metres of climbing in our 45 km and experienced all types of surface from gravel to muddy river tracks to cobbles to smooth, barely used country lanes.  What a lovely day!

A couple of things that we found a bit strange today were this unusual apple tree, which didn't look like any apple tree we remember seeing before,

and what looked like a bike tree, again something we're not all that familiar with.

SATURDAY, 2 June 2018
Another section of the Loire cycle path ticked off today with a 35km round trip from Saumur to Gennes and return.  It started with a 50 km drive to Saumur, finding a parking spot and hoping we're not going to get pinged for illegal parking.  So far we've been ok but we're not always sure when we park whether we're allowed to leave our car in the spot for 4 - 5 hours.  If I think of driving 50km in Perth before starting a ride it would be a hack down the Freeway to Mandurah, perhaps, or out to Byford along Tonkin Highway, neither of which are very appealing options.  Such  a drive here, though, is a pleasureable part of the journey as the way is always through farmland and small towns, stretches of woods and stretches of forest.  Oh!  And did I mention roundabouts.  I counted 18 on our way out this morning.

Most of our ride today was very close to the banks of the Loire.  At a tiny place called St Jean we saw this shrine to St Jean,

placed along the banks of the Loire by the sailors of the area.  You can see on the right the year 1844, which is the height the flooded river reached that year.

Continuing along and out of nowhere, it seems, in a little town called Treves, this tower pops up almost in front of us.

with an accompanying 11th century church.

One gets a sense of permanence riding through these towns.

As we rode into and out of Gennes, we stopped to pick up a few more tips from the boules masters.

We noted the boules pitches delineated by lines on either side and in this space and behind it there must have been around 100 or more pitches.  Serious stuff.  And true boulers play on a dirt surface rather than a poncy grassed pitch (GT please note).

We stopped for lunch in a delightful little bar

where we had a very tasty slice of quiche, and as it was quite warm, a refreshing glass of rosé, something I don't think we'd do in Oz but it seems to be the practice here.  This bar was also a treasure trove of delightful spices and chocolates and little jars of all sorts of condiments and pretty soon Faye was inside

negotiating with the owners to have the whole lot shipped back home.  To close the deal, they offered to throw the lunch in as well.











While eating the quiche I couldn't help but notice these holes under the entrances of the houses opposite.

The bar owner explained they had a problem in the area with sewer rats as the sewerage system of the town ran below the streets, and no matter how many times they blocked up the holes or laid down traps, the rats always came back and burrowed down into the ground.  We were pleased we'd gone for the vegetarian option for lunch.

We cycled back to Saumur on the opposite side of the Loire, so close to the actual river we were almost in it.  In fact, at one stage, we were in it as the path came to this.

I urged Faye to go ahead to see how deep it was and as I was getting ready to push her in, another cyclist came along and warned us to be careful of the dreaded Loire crocodiles as two other cyclists had been taken recently.  Reluctantly we backtracked to this set of stairs nearby

and hauled our bikes up to the road.  This was a hard task given the weight of the bikes and the steepness of the steps and half way up I decided it would be smart to take off my heavy pannier from the bike, which then went tumbling all the way down to the bottom.  Pierre, who was sleeping inside, was shattered by this experience, the sudden awakening and the jolting, but apart from that remains quite intact apart from a little bruising.

SUNDAY, 3 June 2018

274 km, 47 roundabouts, 1 speed camera flash (come on, give me a break, I mean, about the 20th change of speed limit from 90 kph to 70 kph and back again and on a downhill section just before changing back to 90, and on a stretch where the 70 kph lasted all of 300 metres, is this a revenue raising exercise, or what?  Have you guys been taking lessons from the Oz fuzz, with all due respects, Your Honour) as we headed for Paris to a little village on the outskirts called Saint Cyr-l'École.  Air BnB have once again found us an elegant apartment, a little up in the clouds, though,

as I soon discovered hauling the luggage up the stairs.   Next time we're going for ground floor, or no higher than first floor, ok!

One window looks down onto a boules court and if I'd remembered to bring my set of boules along I could be down there now, at 10.00 p.m., as it's still light, practising all the new tricks I have seen being used.

(nb: click on photos to enlarge)

This is our apartment block, not the most charming around, but there are a number very similar in the neighbourhood.

Another window looks down onto a little matchbox house with a dinky toy parked in front.

Pierre has settled in nicely and stationed himself in the modish dining room, waiting for a glass of 2016 Val de Loire Saumur Champigny red to finish the day.