Sunshine and French Keyboards

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Who would have thought that French keyboards would be so ridiculously hard to use?

In reality they only have about six keys in the wrong place, compared to the QWERTY keyboard, but when the 'a' and 'q' and 'm' and 'n' and a few other keys in between switch places, suddenly emails start rwedimg lioe thqs, hence no blogs for quite a while.

So here's the last few weeks in summary. I think we left in Carlisle in the rain heading south searching for some sunshine. We got to London around 11pm that night, but pretty much as we left the front door of Euston railway station, I dropped over a curb and my back tyre blew.

We're not talking a puncture here, we're talking about the back tyre shredding (a long standing problem with the stupid bontraeger tyres since I bought them just before the trip) and the inner tube exploding like a gunshot. 3 hours later (around 2am) we finally stumbled through Kim's front door, very wet and tired. We weren't able to take our bikes on the tube, and as it was raining no taxi companies would take us, so I had to push and jog my bike the 13kms to Kim's place with Christie cycling patiently along beside me and poor Kim kept awake waiting for us to arrive.

The next few days vanished just lazing around London recharging the batteries, lounging around in coffee shops, fixing bike tyres, and seeing some of the sites, however the need to carry on pulled me (if not Christie) and so on the following Tuesday morning we found ourselves all packed up and ready to go ... somewhere. We just still weren't sure where. With too many options to choose from, I finally picked up the phone and booked us tickets (that night) on the Portsmouth to St Malo ferry which suddenly set in motion a whole lot of other decisions, not the smallest of which was that we had to get down to Portsmouth in about 7 hours. So we quickly booked four nights accomodation in Paris for the final weekend of the Tour De France and cycled off towards Waterloo Station to try and get a train down to Portsmouth.

As it turned out, it was pretty easy getting a train down to Portsmouth (though the tickets cost more than our Carlisle to London tickets) and the ride into Central London was also really nice as we came in through Kensington Gardens, Hyde and Green Parks. We even got to see the changing fo the guard as we cycled past Buckingham Palace. It was a big difference from the industrial back streets we headed through when we headed out to Kim's place.

We arrived in St Malo the next morning, and headed off the ferry expecting to see the Mont De St Michel which all of the guide books had promised were "near St Malo". This was one of the four reasons I'd picked up the phone and booked us on the ferry to St Malo. The other reasons were to cycle through Brittany and up the Loire river valley which when combined with visiting the nearby Mont De St Michel constitued 3 of the 6 must do things that the Rough Guide to France listed anyone should do in France. The fourth thing of course was to see a stage of the Tour De France.

I'd picked this rough guide up in a bookshop in London, and having flicked through their top 20 things to do and with a quick look at the tiny map of France inside the front cover to see that we could quite conveniently get a ferry to St Malo, cycle down through Brittany and then up the Loire valley to Paris, I put the book back on the shelf fully confident that I'd sorted out our next two weeks and went off to have another cup of coffee at Costa's which was conveniently located in the same bookshop.

There were about a dozen other cyclists on the ferry travelling in small groups, and as we all headed off the ferry in procession, it was a bit disconcerting at the first roundabout when we headed out towards the right and everyone else headed off to the left. After a quick consultation we turned around (I headed off on the wrong side of the road) and went into St Malo for a coffee and to find out which way to go to get to Mont De St Michel.

Appears 'close to' is a contextual term. As in "if you own a car or other motorised transport, the Mont is close to St Malo". If not, then it's 60km's away. Anyway, after a good look around St Malo, we set off around a beautiful coastline, lovely towns and some nice quiet (but confusing) backroads. The Mont is amazing, We first saw it 35kms away as a blue hazy hill in the far distance on an otherwise perfectly flat horizon, then as you get closer and closer more detail emerges. The Mont De St Michel is this amazing cathedral situated out in the middle of this bay. It's crawling with tourists as you'd expect, but still just wonderful all the same. We camped at a nearby town that night, and so got to see the sun set and rise around it (but didn't get to eat anything as the only shop in time charged for their food in gold ingots or their equivalent in Euros).

Over the next two days we followed backroads and canal paths pretty much straight down to Nantes. They were both longs days, with the first day being around 100kms, and the second day being around 130kms, but the cycling was mainly flat and easy (especially along the canals), the sceneray was fantastic with lovely little french villages and beautiful rural landscapes and even the old remnant forests to cycle through. We had a few problems with tent sites, we tried to stay just south of Rennes (in a place called Bruz) the first night, but the campsite was full, so ended up staying in the only hotel in town, and then in Nantes, after being assured that there were no campsites by the tourist information office, we stayed in a budget hotel chain called B&B (a godsend in the end) only to find a huge campsite 2 kms down the road the next day where we could have stayed. I should say that this Info. Centre also gave us the most woeful directions to the B&B, resulting in us cycling 7 kms around town trying to find it, and in the end we only got there due to the extreme kindness of a lady who after seeing just how lost we were jumped in her car and drove the 2kms or so to where it was at 20km an hour with us cycling around behind her.

But that's not the main point, the main thing was the beauty if this region - the canal paths in particular were fantastic as they were so small and quiet. It was just beautiful, and of course the sun was shining BIG TIME!!! Incidentally I found out when up in Paris that the Tour De France riders had done the Mont De St Michel to Nantes ride in a single day.

In Nantes, we picked up a bicycle guidebook (in french) that covered the route from Nantes all the way up along the Loire River to Orleans where we planned to cut off to London. We had 8 or 9 days to get to Paris, which meant we had a week to cover the 400kms to Orleans. This was the first time we had any idea how far it actually was to Paris.

So for the next week we had a very lazy lifestyle, we got up late, cycled 40-60kms to the next major town visiting the sites and stopping for lazy coffee's along the way. We'd usually get to a campsite around 2 or 3 in the afternoon, and after a swim in the pool (and some of these campsites had amazing waterparks with 3 or 4 swimming pools, water slides and the lot), I'd settle down in the bar and watch the Tour De France stage on TV with a nice cold beer, and we'd just spend the evening lying around our tent eating dinner and drinking beer or wine. Of course it all depended on where we were. In Angers, the campsite was part of a big park so we wandered around the walkways instead, at Samurs there was a running course nearby so we went out for a run after our swim ... it was just really easy travelling, and of course the Chateas for which the region is famous were just fabulous. The Chateau de Chombard was the highlight for me. Sitting on the lawns eating our fresh baguettes with chicken, fresh beetroot, tomatoes and avocado all bought at a local little shop just down the road ... that was what life is about.

Orleans, was a turning in the road. We stayed at a public campsite which was cheap but stinky (some of the private campsites we'd been staying at were 25 to 35 euros a night) and the next day we were cycling without a map again and expecting quite a hard day. It turned out to be a long hot day, but fortunately we got off by 7am and so by lunch time we'd reached Etampes which had broken the back of the day (about 80kms) assisted by a lovely tailwind. Etampes was the start of the final stage of the Tour into Paris, but after spending an hour searching for the Information Officer we gave up trying to find it and headed out of town towards Bretigny De Sur another 30kms towards Paris. I mentioned the B&B Hotel chain we came across in Nantes. Well these places are fantastic. They're a little budget hotel chain across France and Germany. They are cheap as chips - around 40 Euros a night for a room (we paid up to 35 Euros for campsites in France). The rooms are clean and modern, and they're located on the outskirts of towns near the highways for business travellers. They even have these cool check in machines at the front door (they keep costs down by having the hotels unstaffed most of the day) where you just select what you want (all in enlish) insert your credit card and it prints off your room number and an access code and you're in. Sweat. Our B&B in Bretigny was just being renovated so our room which had just been finished was new as new and even had a plasma TV I could watch the Tour De France on. Simple pleasures.

Our final days ride into Paris turned out to be fairly short (just under 40kms). After an hour or so of navigating back roads from Bretigny to Massy, with one little navigational error leading us onto a major highway for a short while, we found our way onto the Coulais Verde ... A green route following the route of the fast trains into Paris and hence avoiding all of the busy roads.

After a brief stop at the Eiffel Tower, and thanks to a great Velo(bike) Map I'd managed to find when surreptiously photographing pages of a street directory in a shop out in Massy when trying to try and find the start of the Colouis Verde, we had a very easy trip into our four star hotel (The Amarante) which was only 10 minutes walk from the Champs De Leesee and the Arc De Triumphe. This palce was normally 250 Euros a night, but we got a pretty good deal through Wotif. so got all the comforts without the costs ... our four days of comfort in Paris had begun.

I spent the afternoon in the hotel watching the final time trial stage on TV. I was really torn as I so wanted Cadel to win just because he was an Australian, but the sportsman in me so didn't want him to win because let's face it he is such an uninspiring rider. I saw one journalist describe him as an 'attritional' rider. He just waits for everyone else to make a mistake, he hangs on, he survives, he doesn't make any daring attacks, he doesn't win stages he doesn't dominate. Sastra on the other hand was magical, so I was both devasted and happy with the end result ... maybe if I wasn't to be standing on the side of the road the next day I would have reveled in Sastra's victory a little more.

Well Sunday was all about the Stage. We went for an early morning run down the Champes De'Lysee (Yes, I don't know how to spell it) and then set ourselves up next to an Australian contingent about 9am right near the top of the course where the cyclists turned around. Then we waited. It was almost 3pm before the convoy of vehicles came through, and 5pm before the cyclist actually came into view so it was quite a wait in the sun. That said, in between churning out "Aussie Aussie Aussie Oy Oy Oy" and trying to get a Mexican Wave going we were having plenty of fun. There was a good group around us, and we were right up the front with a brilliant view down the road. Even the Gendarme near us was pretty cool with all of our goings on. One of the Canadian's nearby had a blackberry so he was able to give us updates of where the riders were on the road, and it was just interesting watching everyone jostling for position to watch the stage.

Of course when the cyclists finally came through, a mad crush ensued, people pushing and shoving to get a view. The cyclists just flew by, you had to be really careful trying to take photos as you'd be trying to set up your camera and suddenly they bloody cyclists would almost knock you over they were going so fast. It was almost imposible to pick out individual cyclists, but to watch the Peleton rushing towards you as you half hang out over the fence was just thrilling. Fortunately, they came around 8 times, so I was able to let an American couple and the Canadian blackberry couple who we'd been talking to all day swap places with us so they could see the riders up close. In some ways it was all over very quickly and we had no idea who had won the sprint until we got back to our Hotel, but it was a great day. Something I've always wanted to do and so worth it.

The next day was a bit more sedate. After buying some train tickets to Calais for Wednesday, we spent most of the day in the Louvre enjoying the magnificent artworks and sculptures and laughing at the huge crowds fighting their way forward to take a photo of the Mona Lisa. Tuesday we went out to Disneyland Paris and had a great day on all the rides. We spent an awful lot of time standing in line, even after we had worked out how to use and abuse the fast track ticket system (rather than standing in the long long lines you can go and get a fast track ticket which puts you in a shorter line at a set time, so you only spend 15 minutes in line rather than an hour or more for each ride). For me the highlights were the buzz lightyear ride where you are in this 2 person cart, which you could rotate with a joystick and you each have guns which you used to shoot all these things flying around you as you passed along through the ride. It's like being inside a giant computer game. I also loved the Space Mountain Oddesy 2 roller coaster ride which was all in pitch blackness so really gut churning. We were exhausted and broke by the time we left but had the big grins on our face to show we'd had a good day.

Our train out of Paris on the Wednesday didn't leave until 5.30pm, so we checked out of our hotel in the morning and wandered down to the Park across the river from the Eiffel Tower and just spent the day lounging around reading and watching the rappers, skateboarders and general tourist traffic flow around us.

We were lucky heading out to the train station that night with Christie getting a flat tyre just as we pulled into the Station. Fortunately we had time to fix it before we got onto the train and enjoyed the high speed trip up to Calais. One thing we did learn was there are two Calais train stations. We just asked to go to Calais, but the girl had booked us tickets to Calais Feuchern rather than Calais Ville (for some reason). Calais Fenchern is where you get the Eurotunnel from, and is unfortunately about 10kms out of Calais and probably 15kms from the Ferry Terminal. We cycled into Calais along the A12 highway and lots of motorists beeped at us. We didn't know whether they were being abusive or friendly, but we didn't see any signs saying no cyclists so we assume friendly. We spent the night in another B&B which had an Australian Bar & Bistro themed restaurant directly across the road from it. I couldn't resist so our last meal in France was an Australian Beef Burger and a Foster's Beer. So wrong in so many ways!

Tomorrow England ... assuming we can get a ferry.

Photos of France

Photos of England

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