Friday 26th September

Friday we woke at a decent time, got up, and, as you do, went to get breakfast from the local patisserie.  More cheese, bread, pastrys, oh no!

It did take us a while to get all sorted and out the door, as it was our first proper morning, but we weren’t in a particular hurry, and the whole day was kind of like that, just pootling around, looking at whatever we felt like, going wherever.  The weather was beautiful, sunny and warm, with just enough of a breeze to keep you cool.   I imagine summer would be quite hot.

We headed back over to Avenue Vert, which turned, very suddenly, from wide, paved, smooth, to rough grass with a bit of a dirt track in the middle.  It was certainly interesting, but you wouldn’t want to follow that forever.  Quite bumpy.  Lovely and peaceful though, heading through the farmland and trees, with no city noises or car noises.

We got back onto normal roads, then kinda lost the trail a bit, headed down a few little side roads and had a bit of a map consulting session, before we headed off down some more back roads.   We saw a tiny town up on a hill, and off-roaded it up a steep hill to have a look.  La Ferte-Saint-Samson, a tiny little village on a hill, with very cute buildings (tudor style, and Henri reckoned with Germanic influence), probably 15th-16th? Century.  It was quiet and lovely, and we biked around for a bit.

Headed to the top of the hill to check out the cute little church, where the bells rung for midday.  Whoever was ringing them, seemed to enjoy it, and they went on for quite a bit.   Found a little orientation statue thing, and a very old tree, which I climbed.  Carefully.  It was so lovely and peaceful and sunny.

Someone at some point during the morning had mentioned that we hadn’t had any flat tyres or problems yet, so heading out of town, Henri got the first flat tyre of the trip. We went back to the pretty village square to fix it, so not a bad view to have to endure.

Finally managed to leave town, looking forward to doing some decent biking, and Dale got the second flat tyre of the hour, just down the road.  There was a french horse, whom I greeted in French, although he was quite uncommunicative.  He didn’t mind that I brushed all the flies away from his face though, and we had some pats, before parting, and we continued on our way.

One thing I noticed, and kept noticing throughout the trip, was that even in the peaceful quiet of the countryside, there always seemed to be some passenger plane or other going overhead.  Just the sheer amount of plane traffic in the sky above Europe is amazing.  So. Many. Planes.  So many people going places.  It is honestly a bit ridiculous.

More lovely countryside, green rolling hills, farmland, and the occasional bit of wooded forest.  We had a vague destination of a local castle, though google maps couldn’t pinpoint it, and we ended up biking around in a big circle, before stopping to ask directs from a local French lady.  She spoke lots of fast french words, until Henri asked her to slow it down a little, and we ascertained that we had to go down the road, left at the corner, then a few kms along, then you couldn’t miss it.   I think we were a bit excited about asking and getting directions in French!

 

We eventually found the castle, Chateau Bremontier-Merval, which was a massive four storey thing, very pretty, which is now a school.  It was on a hilltop, surrounded by lots of huge, old trees, all leafy green and knobbly.

 

 

After the castle, we headed towards our destination, somewhere to the South and West.  We stopped for lunch in a little town, I think was called La Feuillie.   There was one patisserie, where the lady didn’t speak much English at all, but we managed to get all we needed.  We met a Brit, who had lived in France for a while.    There was no supermarket, but we managed to find a couple of dairy/4 square type places (I’m not sure what you call them in England.. Newsagents maybe?)  where we bought enough food for dinner and breakfast.

We had to follow some main roads, which really wasn’t as fun, but not much choice.  We had a lot of trouble finding our destination – gmaps doesn’t always like French places.   Eventually, our lovely Airbnb hosts came to pick us up, which honestly made me happy, as the lived at the top of a massive hill.  They were very happy, as we were the first bike tour people they had had stay with them, and also the first New Zealanders.

Our accomodation was an adorable little cabin, with all the amenities, a pull out couch, and an adorable little loft bed up top.  We had a quick dip in the pool, met the local ponies, goats, geese and chickens, and then got clean and dry for dinner.  Henri made us a lovely, lovely dish, of layers of potato and raclette (we had this in Bordeaux, it is the cheese that is for melting, it is so, so delishuz).   For the sake of feeling better about ourselves, we also had some stirfry veg.  And baguette.  I put the raclette/potato mix on the baguette.  It was amazing.   Lovely pastries and tarts for dessert, and I think we also had some macaroons.

 

I guess I should have felt bad for the sheer amount of food I was eating, but I really didn’t, because, hey, so very delishuz.  Also, we were biking like 50km a day.

We lay out on the deck chairs, surrounded by the gathering dark, and watched the stars start to twinkle, and the bats flitter about through the trees.  Bliss.

We must have seen half a  dozen planes go by while we were lying there (plus one shooting star).  Do they ever stop?

Another decent nights sleep, however this time, we intended to be up and gone early the next day, so we could get to the next town with plenty of time to look around.