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Published: June 23rd 2011
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Bernie volunteered to be the sweeper today. It may have been because he has a slight cold and wanted to be able to take things a little easier??
We set off from our mooring in Compeigne heading for the chateau at Pierrefonds. First we rode past the front of the Imperial Palace so that our wheels could touch the start of the famous Paris-Roubaix bike race. I have to say that the cobblestones are a killer!! I absolutely hate riding on cobblestones. Once we had negotiated the cobblestones and found our way out of the town to the start of the forest track the ride was beautiful - the best riding that we have done yet. We enjoyed an absolutely glorious ride to Pierrefonds along well-paved path through the forest.
It really doesn't get any better than that ... except when you arrive in Pierrefonds to be confronted with a chateau that is straight out of a fairytale. Bea-ut-iful!! The chateau was restored by Viollet le Duc at the request of Napoleon III. It is like a mediaeval fortress because everyone in the 19th century (including Napoleon III) had a taste for the middle ages 'revisited'. With time at
the chateau short we didn't go inside, just admired and photographed its impressive silhouette before grabbing a quick morning tea (and toilette opportunity) before our ride back to Compiegne.
There are so many paths through the forest that we were able to cycle back on a different path from the one that we rode this morning. On our way back to Compiegne we rode through Saint-Jean-Aux-Bois - another picture postcard village that has been built around a monastery.
Back in Compiegne we ate our lunch quickly on the bank of the L'Oise before heading off to Creil through the park regions Pay de France. This park belongs to a series of 45 parks all over France. The parks are a mixture of natural and cultural sites combined with local community life. The parks are not really conspicuously delineated in the way of national parks in Australia - it is more that you enter a "green", but inhabited region that is very beautiful and pleasant to cycle through with the sun filtering through the beech trees and the birds calling!!
Arriving in Creil, the unanimous opinion was that today has been our best day yet - fairytale castles
and cycling through enchanting, if not enchanted, forests - what more could you want?!!
Another delicious three-course meal - thank goodness we are earning all of the kilojoules!! After dinner I went for a walk into Creil with some of the boys. When they spotted a police cordon they had to go and have a sticky beak!! I felt very uncomfortable, but would have felt even more uncomfortable if I had stayed on my own while they went into the cordoned off area!! In the end, even they felt uncomfortable and we returned to the other side of the river without discovering what was going on.
Back at the Elodie, all of the boys adjourned over the road to the pub to drink beer while the girls sat on the deck drinking wine until Nina played her video on Vincent Van Gogh. We will be staying in Auvers sur L'Oise where he spent the last couple of months of his life tomorrow night. The video dealt specifically with this period of his life and work so it was particularly relevant.
Today I started to feel the cumulative effect of nine days bike riding in the last 10
days. My knees are holding up really well, but my derriere is hurting!! The bike pants that I have been wearing every second day since the start of the tour really started to feel uncomfortable today. Even though it was a nice easy ride, I finished the day feeling a bit the worse for wear because the seam in one side of the padding in my bike pants really started to dig in!!
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