Day 1,727
Mushrooms in caves
Over a bridge, and we were in France. Simple. No passport, no queues, just countries working together as one. Wonderful. Immediately though we knew we were in a different country. We stopped to have a coffee and find somewhere to stay. I knew I needed to speak French, or attempt to, but my brain has Spanish hot wired into it. Fortunately the very lovely cafe owner after listening to me speak a mix of mainly Spanish, some English and the odd word of French, said just speak English. Easier said than done. If I try to speak a foreign language, Spanish is what my brain sends out. She clearly had a sense of humour as she suggested I try a few Catalan words too.
We were in the small border town of Hendaye, our second visit of the trip, having left France for Spain from here in September 2021. Both of us remembered it well, I even spotted my original wrong turn! After a restful night in a small hotel, we were off for a day's ride to Biarritz, for most of the day we were retracing our steps. Tom kept asking me if I remembered this or that, but until we reached Biarritz I really didn't find it familiar at all. Whilst he pointed out every spot we paused at, had a wee in a bush at, ate lunch at, etc.! We decided to push on for a few miles and spend the night in Anglet and we opted to book an Airbnb for a couple of nights as the sun had decided to stay put in Spain.
Two days later, with the sun still lingering in Spain we set off to ride another section we had ridden before. It was soon apparent that the Entente Cordiale was still working, well at least in relation to the weather. This area close to the coast was full of cycle paths weaving through small forests and lakes. The rain that had been a constant in the UK all year so far had clearly been here too. The cycle paths were in excellent condition but either side of us the land was flooded. Camping was not going to be an option, we'd sink!
We pushed on, mile after mile, unfortunately this beautiful coastal area clearly shuts down for winter. The campsites were closed and, as we soon found out, so were all the hotels. The rain had returned and we were getting pretty damp and cold, we were also getting a wee bit worried about where we would sleep. Around 4pm we arrived at a small town, it was busy, with bars and even an ice cream parlour open. We found three hotels listed on Google, result! Two had been open yesterday, but there was no response to our calls and no one answered the door. We hung around for about an hour and then gave up.
On we went, more rain, more flooded land either side of the path. Finally as dark was falling we spotted a campervan car park, it wasn't completely flooded and there was a toilet. It would have to do. We decided to ride into the nearby town, where booking.com was advertising an open hotel. It was closed, but as we headed back to the miserable car park we passed a campsite and we could see that the reception was lit up. On closer inspection we found it was closed, naturally, but the owner was there to try and sort out an issue - despite floods everywhere, they had no running water! She took pity on us, and not only let us stay, free of charge, but even gave us the use of a permanent tent to sleep in. We have a saying, ‘somewhere will turn up, it always does’. Tonight, for the first time in nearly 5 years we thought our luck had run out, but the kindness of strangers saved the day!
The next few days were a mix of sunshine and showers. We were cycling mainly through forests and fortunately each night we were lucky enough to find a hotel or B&B open. After one very long day we made it to the Royan ferry. We thought it would be at least 5pm before we got here, but the promise of two nights in Royan had given us wings and we made the 3pm ferry with about 5 minutes to spare! Tom found us a hotel with great storage for the bikes, 2 minutes from the beach and with a view of the Notre Dame Cathedral that dominates the skyline. We had passed through here at the start of our trip, but it was great to spend a bit longer in this beautiful town.
Dodging showers we then rode along most of our previous route to La Rochelle. We had celebrated our first 100 Days on the road here with a wonderful Warmshowers host and family. We had hoped to at least meet them again, but since our visit they appeared to have stopped hosting, so it was yet another hotel stop for us. The following day was forecast to be biblically bad weather, so we bunkered down again for two nights. Our funds are diminishing rapidly, so we were determined to camp some more and also looked at shortening our planned route to Calais. Onwards we went. We hadn't quite avoided all the bad weather, France even provided hail stones, boy they hurt!
Château de Brézé - deepest dry moat in the world apparently!
After days of heads down and pushing down hard on the pedals grinding out the miles, Tom planned a tourist day. We visited a chateau at Brézé, the present building dates from the 16th century with work continuing until the 19th century. This area of the Loire valley is famous for its stone and most properties have vast cellars and the chateau was no exception. It has two miles of underground cellars and passages, dating from the 12th century. Originally built as a place of safety from foreign raiders, over the centuries their use changed to incorporate a bakery, stables, and storage area. Fortunately we could only access just over half a mile of the troglodyte cellars or I think we'd still be there.
We couldn't linger too long though as we had Saumur village to explore. Yep, literally dozens of troglodyte cellars we could actually cycle through. On the way we made a small diversion to the Dolmen de Bagneux, the largest in France. Unfortunately it is situated behind very high walls in the garden of a cafe, which was shut. Tom stretched his arm up and holding the GoPro managed to get a films and photo, so at least we saw it.
Last treat of the day way a Mushroom Museum, housed naturally in a maze of troglodyte caves, which was way better than I feared.
The weather was yet again turning wet and cold, so we took yet another day off, and planned our new route out of France. We decided to head for Dieppe, nearer than Calais, the ferry would take us to Newhaven, and a new but shorter route through the UK to my family in London, a great plan we decided. Just one big disappointment, Mark and Julie, our awesome Warmshowers hosts from Dover would not be there to greet us with a rendition of ‘We'll meet again’! Sad, but due to the quality of mine and Tom’s singing voices, no bad thing!
