France and some mountains chapter 1

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Finally,finally on the road again

So this blasted virus has not been very good for anyone to put it mildly.

A lot of people have suffered more hardship than me and will continue to, i was lucky to be born where I was born and two shots of Astra’s crappy vaccine have entered my immune system and hopefully will keep me from croaking before the due date.

Anyway I managed to get two weeks off, ok I know that I could retire but with our climate I can’t be on the road the whole time.

Somehow the French Atlantic coast beckoned to me so off I went, 3 gruelling days on the bike with up to 33C made me rather tired and thirsty at that, black gear made me into human solar panel.

The motorway down to Bremen In Germany and then it’s supposed to be secondary roads as much as possible, motorways are quick but mind numbing.

My plans are as flexible as Trump’s adherence to truth and good moral standing, so at a whim i might go somewhere else.

From Verden I went to Trier, the oldest town in Germany, been there last year due to a fuck up on my part with the sat nav.

Nothing really to say about Trier that no has been said before.

On the way there I got behind a lorry that just have been transporting bee hives, every time he stopped clouds of bees escaped ,I had to pull my visor down, I did not want to look as if I had won first prize in a botox raffle.

Germany is as always nice and orderly, the cows stand at attention when you drive by and the hay and straw bales are in nice orderly lines, not so much in France many farms are quite decrepit and the cows don’t even look up when I zip by.

Not to mention the bales which are all over the fields.

I went through Reims, the champagne capital with the intention of a small sip of the stuff in homage to all I know who swear by the stuff, but no fucking way, France on a Sunday is a big no no, everything is closed, shops, bars, restaurants and so on.

I’ll buy some MREs for the next weekend or make sure that there’ll be something open wherever I’ll be staying.

I’m now in Dreux and the only thing that I could get was a pizza, I don’t particularly care about pizza but when there’s nothing else to be had…

Forever is not a word one uses lightly but travelling on backroads in rural Germany and France it’s ok house it.

Riding takes from point A to point takes almost forever, a string of villages some not even half a click in between makes going slow, but at least no lorries, they’ll most probably be out in force on Monday.

My phone didn’t charge last night so I saved to battery for emergencies instead o taking pics of bovine creatures and the flat country side.

AsI got closer to Paris there was no way that I was going to go through the center on a Sunday so after a million red lights I got onto the Peripherique, of course some frog was playing with it’s phone stow lanes blocked and three lanes free and every driver was trying to change lanes all the time as if that would make a difference, wankers.

Patiently I sweated out my turn, no way that I would try lane sharing i Paris in rush hour, with the panniers the bike is as wide as a cruise ship.

The French dudes zipped by on their bikes in between the lanes at quite a high speed, dressed in shorts a t-shirts, they’ll make mighty fine organ donors.

I stayed on the motorway until Dreux, tomorrow first stop will be Le Mans and then I’ll see.

I went past Verdun yesterday, whence I could have stopped for some grave spotting but after having been to Auschwitz i’ve had enough of human suffering for the rest of my days, thinking about the tens of thousands of young boys who died for absolutely nothing was enough for a detour away from Verdun.

I HATE french breakfasts, absolute crap nutritionally en par with american breakfasts, pure crap.

The krauts have got it right, lots of of food down the gullet will keep you, well some Vietnamese noodle soup would have been nice as well.

Cool in the morning, 16C and some rain as well and some very crude back route farm roads.

I arrived one week early for the big 24 hour race, they were preparing gigantic carparks in the fields adjacent to the circuit.

Anyway the sun was and is shining in Nantesa nice city to stroll around in, they’ve painted a thin green line so that you don’t miss any of the important stuff, I missed most of it but had a great afternoon all the same, impressive how a couple of beers can put a golden shimmer on most things.

Tomorrow the Atlantic and La Rochelle

La Rochelle is probably quite nice when not jam packed with tourists, couldn’t get out quickly enough which turned out to be a bit of a chore as Mssrs Garmin are not updated enough , so many one way streets and a couple turned into pedestrian only.

So after having been led by the nose to the same inaccessible bridge twice I decided to just drive towards the east away from the sea and then I got on the motorway for a while but that was a cheap price to pay,

Most of the cities that I’ve been through have turned very pedestrian and bicycle friendly, rightly so but it fucks upturning to get around big time, not to forget about the bus lanes but at least you can use these the zip past the queues and get in front at the traffic lights.

I hit the motorway for the last few km to get into Bordeaux, some km of motorway in and out of cities are free and the quickest way to get to wherever.The Frogs are very good about unsynchronised traffic lights as well and roundabouts.

I found myself a hotel downtown and stripped the bike and schlepped my panniers and into the hotel and left the bike on the pavement.

Then a walkabout, it lacked the charm on Nantes, had a glass of some allegedly good Bordeaux and was unimpressed.

I have a slow puncture on my rear wheel and with the help of the hotel, they booked me with the local BMW dealer, I had 30 minutes to go a bout 4km, no problem with a sat nav but with all these tall houses and narrow streets the sat nav takes quite a while to find enough satellites so I got there in the nick of time, 53 Euros and a coffee later I was on my way south and my sat nav or it’s incompetent owner did not heed it’s own smart ideas I went though and seemingly endless urban sprawl endless traffic lights and roundabouts and sleeping policemen.

Between Bordeaux and Bayonne I’ve must have gone through a hundred roundabouts and getting closer to the Atlantic zillions of holiday makers.

The whole trip from The north east corner of France to the southwest has ben a severe study in flatness well on par with the Pampa or the American midwest.

Finally I glimpsed some bumps at the horizon, the Pyrenees at last, time to take a left and go home.

All signs went bilingual, Basque and French and of course most hotels are booked out but with the help of a lovely and very charming woman at some hotel somewhere who had some friend at another hotel she got me a room, 35 km away, unfortunately in the wrong direction, but the ride there was nice rolling country with a good road and many curves.

The woman at the reception was and most probably is very helpful and sorted out my route the mountains, La route des cols 900 km of small villages and curvy roads.

Some duck for dinner and some plonk and then i retired to my chamber, the wifi is crap so I couldn’t hit Pornhub for company.

Low clouds and high passes is not the ideal combination also having gotten chicken by old age and the Indian debacle makes

me into less of a daredevil than I would like to be.

Still it was a nice day, cool and overcast but the Route des cols is nice and long.

Finally enough was enough, low on petrol and hydro carbons i decide to call it a day, petrol was easy and the hotel had room, quite dingy and decrepit and as most hotels that are not built for the modern world it had only one 220 V outlet and basically no internet.

Both in Germany and In France they give you the password as if was their first born.

Some fish for dinner and lo and behold the dingy place was basically full, me being the only foreigner, most of the French that I learned 45 years ago is gone but enough remains somewhere where there are dark corners and cob webs to make life easy.

Wearing face mask is a must and having a vaccine pass will get you into a hotel and get served in a bar, but and this is a big butt you can’t read lips and this makes interaction more difficult.

10 Euros will get you half a glass of OJ, two pieces of bread, a croissant and coffee and they look miffed you ask for some more.

Anyway the clouds of yesterday were gone, clear blue skies and top notch landscape, endless going up and down and curves galore, the Pyrenees are definitely a hidden gem, more people on bicycles than motorbikes which probably is because parts of Tour the France does the same ups and downs that I did.

Loads of people sweating uphill and coasting downhill.

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Photos

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The thin green line in Nantes

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The mirror fountain Bordeaux