Our final ride. And wouldn’t you know it, there’s a Voies Verte between Dinan and St Malo.
We had to walk our bikes out of Dinan as the cobbled lane was so steep and precarious. Especially bad with cleats on. But we made it down to the port. It’s a port town because of the river Rance which goes all the way out to the coast at St Malo. As we started our ride, April somehow got it in her head that she could take a boat down the river, but luckily that thought seemed to float away.
Exquisite morning riding along the river. Not much development right outside of Dinan. Just us and the river. One could easily imagine Robin Hood jumping out of the trees at any moment.
But it didn’t last, after a few miles the VV curved inland to follow the old train tracks. Even for me, a confirmed VV heretic, the route was rich and rewarding. Rolling countryside. Farms and fields. Tiny towns. The abandoned railways stations. The VV was in good shape, a harder surface than the previous VV so we rolled along at a pretty good clip. As we were headed to the coast it was more downhill than uphill.
We were heading for Dinard which was west of St Malo. The two towns are linked by a bridge across the bay created from the river Vance and the ocean. The guidebooks suggested taking the 10 minute ferry ride across rather than crossing the busy bridge. Dinard was supposed to a be sophisticated Brit vacation spot.
Sure enough Dinard was over the top. Those Brit aristocrats sure weren’t afraid of worrying “how the poor people were doing today“. There’s the most amazing collection of stone manors along the coast that we had ever seen. Clearly each owner/structure aimed to outdo its neighbor. Fantastic turrets, domes, arches, tile work, gorgeous slate patterns. Really magnificent. Monster houses, 4-5 stories high, all with huge windows looking out to the sea. Incredibly steep roof lines to give them even more height. This all happened in the late 1800s and Dinard became known as the Nice of the North.
April declared a deep, intimate relationship with the area immediately. She felt she had been there before. It was in her blood. Ahh these anglophiles; good thing there’s some strong Greek peasant blood added to the mix.
We checked out the beach, I suggested a café for lunch, April didn’t like it so we pressed on. Near the main beach April suggested a Brit looking type of place. I rode past it, she stopped, I came back and read the menu and vetoed it cause the food looked terrible and no ambience/view. So now we’re both put out, thinking the other vetoed our personal choices. But since I had vetoed last I was at a slight strategic disadvantage. Her veto seems to have been forgotten, the pressure was now on me to make sure we hit a good café and soon. (Yes unfortunately after 3 weeks on the road 24/7, this behavior seems normal). We ride a few blocks, nothing, I’m starting to sweat a little now, then we turn down the road to the harbor, voila!, a delightful little café, beautiful view out to the harbor, an outside table opens up as we pull in! Turns out the food is superb, April has a nice baked cod dish, I have the special - fried red mullet? Some nice wine, warm sun, we linger over tea. We’re the last ones to leave. Better to be lucky than good!
We catch the ferry after a 10 minute wait. Hit St Malo. And it seems PACKED! There’s an old walled city, We’re wandering around with our bikes. Both uncomfortable as there are too many people. We exit to find the Tourist Info place. We find that our hotel is away from the old city. Hmm. But we end up in a purely local’s beach, great little hotel. Sea view. Clean. 3 fantastic locals seafood restaurants within 2 blocks. We hit the jackpot here. Shower. A late afternoon beer in the smokey café. Then a nice seafood dinner. Then hit the sack. Great day. We’re loving this location in St Malo.
BTW - I got another showing of April’s bug bites at the end of the day.
Thursday, August 5, 2010
Dinan
Today and tomorrow are really short rides (15-20 miles) as we had to arrange our schedule around the available hotels in Dinan and St Malo, two of the most interesting and thus crowded towns we’ll hit.
Dinan is the best preserved medieval town in Brittany. In the 9th century some monks settled on a hill on the banks of the Rance river. The first Breton king, Nominoe, promised them some land and certain priveleges if they founded a monastery there which would include the remains of some saint. Any saint? Who knows. So these enterprising monks snuck over to an island named Sercq, stole the freaking remains of Saint Magloire, showed up with their prize possession and got their land, thus the region first became settled. What a bunch of wanksters. Perhaps the ten commandments hadn’t reached the shores of Breton by that time.
Anyway the town started to grow. In 1065 William the Conqueror had some skirmish here and torched the defensive wooden enclosures; this event is captured on some Bayeux tapestry. History on tapestry!
In the 12th century the Arab geographer, Idrisi, reported the town was an important trading center and it was now enclosed by stone walls.
In 1283, they added ramparts and the town played a more significant military role. The wall continued to get built for the next 300 years, and reached 2650 meters in length.
In 1488 the French troops defeated the Bretons, but not before the Bretons managed to demolish their church so the French couldn’t use it. That’ll show ‘em. The church was later rebuilt inside the Wall.
A whole bunch of inter-royal marriages occurred in the 1500s and thus ensured that Brittany would become part of France. Voila.
Back to present day…..
After an easy morning ride we got to Dinan and rode around until we found our hotel. It looked empty, April pulled on the doors but they seemed locked, so we went for lunch. We ate at an Italian place for lunch (pizza, lasagna) then tried the hotel again, around 2:30. Still locked but it looked like there was a guy in there. Sure he came to the door and just pulled it inwards and it opened. No skills! It was always opened but the doors pushed in, not pulled out. Feeling slightly sheepish, yet thrilled it was opened, we checked in. Great room, especially in comparison to the box from last night. The Tiger was happy - so I was happy. Will nothing ever change?
Showered, chilled then went for a late afternoon walk. The town was fantastic. Old half-timbered houses everywhere. Great little alleyways. Lots of galleries and restaurants. All cobbled streets. We went to look at the church but had to run out because I had to crap. Ran out and found a public toilet within a minute or so. We’re really getting good at scoping them out, know just where they’ll be. As usual I was much more pleased by being inside of a bathroom rather than a church.
Then we found a perfect café and sat for tea/coffee while watching the world go by. Lots of tourists here. Too many for us. We used to being off the beaten path. This was the most crowded place of the trip so far. It started to drizzle, but we were under an umbrella, the streets cleared and we felt wonderfully isolated, strangely surreal because of the architecture, yet happy and settled.
Stopped at a Moules place for dinner. They had about 20 different moules variations. I had Moules Curry and it was 800gr and served in a cast-iron pot so it stayed hot the entire time. That’s critical. April had an omelette/frites. Then we hit he sack in our nice, clean, quiet room. But not before April told me once again the room the previous day was a rip-off. In fact she showed me her flea bites from the previous night.
Dinan is the best preserved medieval town in Brittany. In the 9th century some monks settled on a hill on the banks of the Rance river. The first Breton king, Nominoe, promised them some land and certain priveleges if they founded a monastery there which would include the remains of some saint. Any saint? Who knows. So these enterprising monks snuck over to an island named Sercq, stole the freaking remains of Saint Magloire, showed up with their prize possession and got their land, thus the region first became settled. What a bunch of wanksters. Perhaps the ten commandments hadn’t reached the shores of Breton by that time.
Anyway the town started to grow. In 1065 William the Conqueror had some skirmish here and torched the defensive wooden enclosures; this event is captured on some Bayeux tapestry. History on tapestry!
In the 12th century the Arab geographer, Idrisi, reported the town was an important trading center and it was now enclosed by stone walls.
In 1283, they added ramparts and the town played a more significant military role. The wall continued to get built for the next 300 years, and reached 2650 meters in length.
In 1488 the French troops defeated the Bretons, but not before the Bretons managed to demolish their church so the French couldn’t use it. That’ll show ‘em. The church was later rebuilt inside the Wall.
A whole bunch of inter-royal marriages occurred in the 1500s and thus ensured that Brittany would become part of France. Voila.
Back to present day…..
After an easy morning ride we got to Dinan and rode around until we found our hotel. It looked empty, April pulled on the doors but they seemed locked, so we went for lunch. We ate at an Italian place for lunch (pizza, lasagna) then tried the hotel again, around 2:30. Still locked but it looked like there was a guy in there. Sure he came to the door and just pulled it inwards and it opened. No skills! It was always opened but the doors pushed in, not pulled out. Feeling slightly sheepish, yet thrilled it was opened, we checked in. Great room, especially in comparison to the box from last night. The Tiger was happy - so I was happy. Will nothing ever change?
Showered, chilled then went for a late afternoon walk. The town was fantastic. Old half-timbered houses everywhere. Great little alleyways. Lots of galleries and restaurants. All cobbled streets. We went to look at the church but had to run out because I had to crap. Ran out and found a public toilet within a minute or so. We’re really getting good at scoping them out, know just where they’ll be. As usual I was much more pleased by being inside of a bathroom rather than a church.
Then we found a perfect café and sat for tea/coffee while watching the world go by. Lots of tourists here. Too many for us. We used to being off the beaten path. This was the most crowded place of the trip so far. It started to drizzle, but we were under an umbrella, the streets cleared and we felt wonderfully isolated, strangely surreal because of the architecture, yet happy and settled.
Stopped at a Moules place for dinner. They had about 20 different moules variations. I had Moules Curry and it was 800gr and served in a cast-iron pot so it stayed hot the entire time. That’s critical. April had an omelette/frites. Then we hit he sack in our nice, clean, quiet room. But not before April told me once again the room the previous day was a rip-off. In fact she showed me her flea bites from the previous night.
Sunday, August 1, 2010
The Tiger and the Shitty Hotel...
Awoke to rain. This was more than our previous mists; real rain. But it stopped as we ate bfast, and just threatened for the rest of the day. We had a very short day planned because we ran into hotel booking troubles. It’s now the beginning of the French Holidays, much of France takes all of August off and goes on vacation. We called a ton of places yesterday via skype but couldn’t find a room in Dinan as it was Saturday night. We did have a room in Dinan for Sunday nite. We finally found a nite in a larger hotel in Plancoet which is about 20Km from Dinan. Dinan is supposed to be one of the best preserved medieval towns in Brittany.
As you can imagine April wasn’t too happy with the prospect of a nondescript larger hotel in some no name town.
Nice country ride again. We’re heading inland, so it was all rolling farmland. Looks a little like the farms/fields of eastern Pennsylvania (Valley Forge et al). As usual huge hedgerows along almost all roads. They love the freaking hedgerows here. I don’t get it. They build up at least a 3 foot hedgerow along the roads. A pretty good one is 5-6 feet, and we’ve seen some monster 10+ footers with all sorts of old tress and roots on them. And some of the roads are even sunken. The field are 3-4 feet above the road. April read something about these sunken roads, but now we can’t find that info.
Btw - We’ve seen all sorts of crops on our ride: corn, wheat, oats, hay, tomatoes, potatoes, onions, cabbages, cauliflower, zucchini, artichokes, peas, peppers. And the farms are very intermingled with the villages. Lots of birds, I think it’s the dove’s that are constantly calling a 6-note song.
Ride was easy, we’re powering up the gradual slopes in a fairly high gear. Two old guys passed us on racing bikes as we were studying the maps, and we almost caught them on the up hill. It’s usually been old guys who are out on the road bikes. A few young guys, but 80% old bucks.
We get to Plancoet and find our hotel and April freaks. It looks shitty, the guy shows us our room, it’s even shittier. Truth is it’s a square, simple room with no character, but large, almost clean and quiet. I give April a lecture on craving and aversions. She goes to look around and I unpack and shower knowing that if I don’t she’ll try to change the room and maybe even the hotel. She comes back pissed that I had moved in. Ha-ha. Ah the games people play.
We walked around town, hit a great Brasserie for lunch. Nothing fancy but the best moules of the trip so far. Not much in this town. Visited a very large antique/junk shop. Then went back to the room to nap. Unfortunately we napped almost to dinner. On these biking trips the body does get tired and worn down so we can usually nap anytime/anywhere.
We had dinner in our hotel because the demi-pension was a good price. But dinner sucked, I had to eat both plates (fish and chicken). Then we hit the sack again. Read and then because we had napped so long and late April couldn’t sleep. And she tossed and turned so much she kept waking me up. Then she read with the headlamp, awfully bright. Then she complained about the window arrangement. Then in the mroning she claimed she got bug bites. Then she complained about bfast price for what we got. Then she declared this wasn’t a three star hotel. I knew I was bad when I complained about the Voies Verte but this was truly world class sniping.
Morale of the story. Let the Tiger pick the hotel and the room!
Now here’s the kicker. We’re staying in this shitbox because it was all we could find at a reasonable price. Then we get a mail from Ethan who blew a wad of cash to fly over from London to Amsterdam for the weekend with his cousin POC.
In his own words, making a guest appearance in this Blog, Ethan....
“ i got upgraded to business class for the flight and then we got upgraded at the hotel from a deluxe room to "the super deluxe sweet". this place is insane, the ceilings are about 25 feet high and everything is designed for rest&relaxation, we are in heaven. they have these huge windows (15-20 feet high) that have a remote control curtain. we just both rolled out of our plush beds and hit the remote to bring in the sun, classic, couple of wangstas livin it up. yesterday we walked around a bunch and hit the spa, we were pretty tired but feel alot better today and are ready to crush out sights. the spa was pretty awesome, nice pool with a "starry sky" over it, 3 different saunas, steam room, hot tub, lounge chairs and a nice rain shower - talk about the ultimate leisure trip. we ate at a decent spanish tapas place and didnt stay out too late, tonight we'll probably go to some bars. having a blast, and free wireless at the hotel!”
As you can imagine April wasn’t too happy with the prospect of a nondescript larger hotel in some no name town.
Nice country ride again. We’re heading inland, so it was all rolling farmland. Looks a little like the farms/fields of eastern Pennsylvania (Valley Forge et al). As usual huge hedgerows along almost all roads. They love the freaking hedgerows here. I don’t get it. They build up at least a 3 foot hedgerow along the roads. A pretty good one is 5-6 feet, and we’ve seen some monster 10+ footers with all sorts of old tress and roots on them. And some of the roads are even sunken. The field are 3-4 feet above the road. April read something about these sunken roads, but now we can’t find that info.
Btw - We’ve seen all sorts of crops on our ride: corn, wheat, oats, hay, tomatoes, potatoes, onions, cabbages, cauliflower, zucchini, artichokes, peas, peppers. And the farms are very intermingled with the villages. Lots of birds, I think it’s the dove’s that are constantly calling a 6-note song.
Ride was easy, we’re powering up the gradual slopes in a fairly high gear. Two old guys passed us on racing bikes as we were studying the maps, and we almost caught them on the up hill. It’s usually been old guys who are out on the road bikes. A few young guys, but 80% old bucks.
We get to Plancoet and find our hotel and April freaks. It looks shitty, the guy shows us our room, it’s even shittier. Truth is it’s a square, simple room with no character, but large, almost clean and quiet. I give April a lecture on craving and aversions. She goes to look around and I unpack and shower knowing that if I don’t she’ll try to change the room and maybe even the hotel. She comes back pissed that I had moved in. Ha-ha. Ah the games people play.
We walked around town, hit a great Brasserie for lunch. Nothing fancy but the best moules of the trip so far. Not much in this town. Visited a very large antique/junk shop. Then went back to the room to nap. Unfortunately we napped almost to dinner. On these biking trips the body does get tired and worn down so we can usually nap anytime/anywhere.
We had dinner in our hotel because the demi-pension was a good price. But dinner sucked, I had to eat both plates (fish and chicken). Then we hit the sack again. Read and then because we had napped so long and late April couldn’t sleep. And she tossed and turned so much she kept waking me up. Then she read with the headlamp, awfully bright. Then she complained about the window arrangement. Then in the mroning she claimed she got bug bites. Then she complained about bfast price for what we got. Then she declared this wasn’t a three star hotel. I knew I was bad when I complained about the Voies Verte but this was truly world class sniping.
Morale of the story. Let the Tiger pick the hotel and the room!
Now here’s the kicker. We’re staying in this shitbox because it was all we could find at a reasonable price. Then we get a mail from Ethan who blew a wad of cash to fly over from London to Amsterdam for the weekend with his cousin POC.
In his own words, making a guest appearance in this Blog, Ethan....
“ i got upgraded to business class for the flight and then we got upgraded at the hotel from a deluxe room to "the super deluxe sweet". this place is insane, the ceilings are about 25 feet high and everything is designed for rest&relaxation, we are in heaven. they have these huge windows (15-20 feet high) that have a remote control curtain. we just both rolled out of our plush beds and hit the remote to bring in the sun, classic, couple of wangstas livin it up. yesterday we walked around a bunch and hit the spa, we were pretty tired but feel alot better today and are ready to crush out sights. the spa was pretty awesome, nice pool with a "starry sky" over it, 3 different saunas, steam room, hot tub, lounge chairs and a nice rain shower - talk about the ultimate leisure trip. we ate at a decent spanish tapas place and didnt stay out too late, tonight we'll probably go to some bars. having a blast, and free wireless at the hotel!”
Friday, July 30, 2010
St Brieuc
Stand French bfast at 8:30, then headed out only to be greeted by a flat tire on my bike. It was in the exact same spot of my previous flat so we knew something was in there. We looked really carefully, couldn’t feel anything, but as we were flexing the tire a tiny piece of glass came out of the tire. We couldn’t feel it on the outside or the inside, and it had been there for a few days. But I pumped my tire up to 100 lbs pressure yesterday, and as April has been unloading stuff to me (shits weak), and perhaps I‘ve been gaining weight (!), it finally caused the leak again. So I used April’s spare tube, fixed it and away we went.
Had a great ride in the morning. Sun was finally out, puffy clouds, warm but not hot, we were high on a plateau and had great views all around, nice roads with no traffic. Perfect riding. We’re starting to like the roads just slightly inland as we avoid the up+down of the coast, and still have great views and no cars. And we can always see where we are by measuring ourselves against the freaking churches. They’re so tall and one in every village, we can almost track our route from church to church.
Had s slightly longer day today, 50+ miles, but we stayed on larger roads so it went pretty fast. On the larger roads we’re going 15+ mph. We hadn’t bought one of the detailed maps for today, our old one from yesterday covered about 1/3 of the route today and we thought we could manage. Well right after our good map ended we made a wrong turn and ended up on the wrong road. But it proved fortuitous as it gave us a shorter route towards our lunch town.
We passed thru the town of Paimpol, which is known to the rest of Brittany as the Village of the Icelanders. The fishing boats around here (the morutiers) used to leave for 6 months at a time and fish off Iceland and Newfoundland. The Paimpol region alone lost over 100 ships and 2000 men in just 80 years! The cod fishing declined in the 1930s, but a few ships still operate out of St Quay, which is the only deep water port between Brest and Cherbourg (in Normandy?).
Had a nice lunch in Plouha, pizza and omelette/frites, then made our way over to the coast. Had some killer hills that we actually rode up for a change. Getting stronger?
Then got lost again as we headed into St Brieuc the largest town we’re going to hit. We decided to stay here because we need to buy train tickets from St Malo back to paris and we needed to reserve spots on the TGV (train de grand vitesse, train of great speed).
Had a huge hill just filled with glass getting into St Brieuc. Had flakes all over our tired but no flats.
We had reserved in an Manor house in St Brieuc, and it was really old. April got scared just walking in. But the madame was great, very friendly, we had a ton of fun chatting with her. She let us use her computer since she didn’t know the wifi security key (her son had set it up). Her grandfather built the house after the French Revolution, late 1700s? She told us her husband’s family had come to Breton from Scotland in the year 1050! Old aristocrats.
Had a rare crappy dinner at a Best Western Brasserie (Madame had recommended it). Got back to the house, it was all dark and eerie. April thought we were in the Bates Motel (Hitchcock, psycho). But the night was uneventful and we had a great sleep. In the morning we also talked with Madam’s daughter and son-in-law, and they had their 4 kids in tow. The son-in-law was in the French Military, loved the States, had been in Leavenworth, Orlando, and Kentucky (all for military training stuff). He even admitted the house was strange. He said it was like the Adams Family. Ha-ha.
We thoroughly enjoyed our stay here because we spent so much time chatting with the family. We talked about our kids, where we lived, the geography of the States, Berkeley (where her daughter had been for 4 months), how the Greeks influenced everything (none of that new shit from the year 1050), etc, etc. A great stay. Madame was going to give us a ride to the bike store to get some more patches, but we made our way there the following morning. As always the friendliness of the owners had a great influence on how much we enjoy a place. You can tell which owner really like doing it, and which find it a headache.
Had a great ride in the morning. Sun was finally out, puffy clouds, warm but not hot, we were high on a plateau and had great views all around, nice roads with no traffic. Perfect riding. We’re starting to like the roads just slightly inland as we avoid the up+down of the coast, and still have great views and no cars. And we can always see where we are by measuring ourselves against the freaking churches. They’re so tall and one in every village, we can almost track our route from church to church.
Had s slightly longer day today, 50+ miles, but we stayed on larger roads so it went pretty fast. On the larger roads we’re going 15+ mph. We hadn’t bought one of the detailed maps for today, our old one from yesterday covered about 1/3 of the route today and we thought we could manage. Well right after our good map ended we made a wrong turn and ended up on the wrong road. But it proved fortuitous as it gave us a shorter route towards our lunch town.
We passed thru the town of Paimpol, which is known to the rest of Brittany as the Village of the Icelanders. The fishing boats around here (the morutiers) used to leave for 6 months at a time and fish off Iceland and Newfoundland. The Paimpol region alone lost over 100 ships and 2000 men in just 80 years! The cod fishing declined in the 1930s, but a few ships still operate out of St Quay, which is the only deep water port between Brest and Cherbourg (in Normandy?).
Had a nice lunch in Plouha, pizza and omelette/frites, then made our way over to the coast. Had some killer hills that we actually rode up for a change. Getting stronger?
Then got lost again as we headed into St Brieuc the largest town we’re going to hit. We decided to stay here because we need to buy train tickets from St Malo back to paris and we needed to reserve spots on the TGV (train de grand vitesse, train of great speed).
Had a huge hill just filled with glass getting into St Brieuc. Had flakes all over our tired but no flats.
We had reserved in an Manor house in St Brieuc, and it was really old. April got scared just walking in. But the madame was great, very friendly, we had a ton of fun chatting with her. She let us use her computer since she didn’t know the wifi security key (her son had set it up). Her grandfather built the house after the French Revolution, late 1700s? She told us her husband’s family had come to Breton from Scotland in the year 1050! Old aristocrats.
Had a rare crappy dinner at a Best Western Brasserie (Madame had recommended it). Got back to the house, it was all dark and eerie. April thought we were in the Bates Motel (Hitchcock, psycho). But the night was uneventful and we had a great sleep. In the morning we also talked with Madam’s daughter and son-in-law, and they had their 4 kids in tow. The son-in-law was in the French Military, loved the States, had been in Leavenworth, Orlando, and Kentucky (all for military training stuff). He even admitted the house was strange. He said it was like the Adams Family. Ha-ha.
We thoroughly enjoyed our stay here because we spent so much time chatting with the family. We talked about our kids, where we lived, the geography of the States, Berkeley (where her daughter had been for 4 months), how the Greeks influenced everything (none of that new shit from the year 1050), etc, etc. A great stay. Madame was going to give us a ride to the bike store to get some more patches, but we made our way there the following morning. As always the friendliness of the owners had a great influence on how much we enjoy a place. You can tell which owner really like doing it, and which find it a headache.
Saved by the flipflops and Brehat
Planned a short day today as we wanted to get to our B+B quickly and also visit Isle Brehat, the romantic island! We shall see!
As you’ll remember we were in somewhat of a fancy B+B. A large old manor house built in the 1600s. Somewhat of an upscale clientele. So you can imagine my dismay as we sat for breakfast and out comes a little puffer. No one noticed but clearly I had to head for the toilet immediatement. Readers of last year’s blog might remember how we taught Jayne and Danny the cough+fart trick, for which Danny never seemed to master (and it seemed like Jayne had a bad case of whopping cough). Anyway I knew as I walked out of the very large dining room that something was called for; this was going to be a fart-for-every-step type of deal.
So how good is this: I had flip-flops on, I took a few tentative steps pinching tightly, and I noticed the flip-flops smacked loudly on every step. Saved! Took the 8-9 steps out of the room, slapping those flips-flops as loud as I could while maintaining a perfect harmony of fart plus sandal smack right off the stage. I had a huge grin on my face as I sprinted up the stairs tooting away and barely made it to our bathroom. Ah, once again the simple pleasures in life.
Morning ride was on a large road so we made good time. Decided to buy sandwiches at a Boulangerie (bakery) to save time, ate them at a church, then headed down to cross an other inlet, another pleasant hike up to the plateau, then a beautiful ride to the northern tip where the ferry left for Isle de Brehat. Our B+B was right near the ferry. No cars on Brehat, in fact bikes had to be brought over before 10:00 AM, so we left our bikes/gear at the B+B, changed clothes in the yard (Madame was out for a few hours) then took the ferry across.
The pier went out a few hundred yards as there were three different docking spots depending on the tide. And on Brehat it was even further, it took 10 minutes to walk from the low water pickup to the high water pickup. These are 30-40 foot tides and very shallow dropoffs to the tide goes out forever.
Brehat was postcard pretty but too crowded for us. 4000 people/day visit in the summer. So we walked around for awhile, but it looked much like what we’ve been seeing for the past two weeks so we said screw it (perhaps the extent of the romantic influence?) and headed back to our nice B+B for a shower and a bed. When you’re out riding 6 hours a day you really like to hit the room and just chill.
Had a home cooked meal, soup de poisson, think French onion soup but thicker and with a seafood taste, and scallops, which have been uniformly excellent btw. Plus we finished a whole bottle of white wine, which knocked us (April?) out and clearly put an end to any thoughts of a romantic evening.
As you’ll remember we were in somewhat of a fancy B+B. A large old manor house built in the 1600s. Somewhat of an upscale clientele. So you can imagine my dismay as we sat for breakfast and out comes a little puffer. No one noticed but clearly I had to head for the toilet immediatement. Readers of last year’s blog might remember how we taught Jayne and Danny the cough+fart trick, for which Danny never seemed to master (and it seemed like Jayne had a bad case of whopping cough). Anyway I knew as I walked out of the very large dining room that something was called for; this was going to be a fart-for-every-step type of deal.
So how good is this: I had flip-flops on, I took a few tentative steps pinching tightly, and I noticed the flip-flops smacked loudly on every step. Saved! Took the 8-9 steps out of the room, slapping those flips-flops as loud as I could while maintaining a perfect harmony of fart plus sandal smack right off the stage. I had a huge grin on my face as I sprinted up the stairs tooting away and barely made it to our bathroom. Ah, once again the simple pleasures in life.
Morning ride was on a large road so we made good time. Decided to buy sandwiches at a Boulangerie (bakery) to save time, ate them at a church, then headed down to cross an other inlet, another pleasant hike up to the plateau, then a beautiful ride to the northern tip where the ferry left for Isle de Brehat. Our B+B was right near the ferry. No cars on Brehat, in fact bikes had to be brought over before 10:00 AM, so we left our bikes/gear at the B+B, changed clothes in the yard (Madame was out for a few hours) then took the ferry across.
The pier went out a few hundred yards as there were three different docking spots depending on the tide. And on Brehat it was even further, it took 10 minutes to walk from the low water pickup to the high water pickup. These are 30-40 foot tides and very shallow dropoffs to the tide goes out forever.
Brehat was postcard pretty but too crowded for us. 4000 people/day visit in the summer. So we walked around for awhile, but it looked much like what we’ve been seeing for the past two weeks so we said screw it (perhaps the extent of the romantic influence?) and headed back to our nice B+B for a shower and a bed. When you’re out riding 6 hours a day you really like to hit the room and just chill.
Had a home cooked meal, soup de poisson, think French onion soup but thicker and with a seafood taste, and scallops, which have been uniformly excellent btw. Plus we finished a whole bottle of white wine, which knocked us (April?) out and clearly put an end to any thoughts of a romantic evening.
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Life in the Manor house.
Ok, the freaking bread-only bfast is starting to get really old. And it’s always those puffy baguettes, nothing hearty. And one croissant each. So it’s nice but not enough fuel.
It was even mistier today, almost like rain. As we made our way in the morning, it was the type of day where all the hair on your forearms collected moisture. We had some nice backroads, had a pleasant walk up a steep hill, then had to get on the highway for a bit. The highways are a mixed blessing. We find we can really pick up the speed to about 18-20 MPH, but then there’s the noise and traffic. Then the rain started and the wind started blowing. We came to an intersection of two highways and ducked behind the house in the middle of the two roads. Spirits were low. Trucks whizzing by. I had to pee but we were in someone’s driveway.
Both roads lead roughly to where we needed to be. Our map indicated the highway on the left was the smaller road, but I thought I had seen a sign that said trucks to the left. But you can never be quite sure of what you thought you saw, especially on these signs which are in French and Breton. So we watched for awhile and then decided to take the right-hand road even though it was the larger highway on the map. Huge winner! The best stretch of the trip. It was a about a 5 mile down hill. Maybe 1-2 cars passed us. And it stopped drizzling and we dried out as we coasted. It was perfect. The proverbial “road less traveled”!
We’re now riding along the Tregor region in the Cote de Granit Rose. Red/pink granite rocks/cliff all along the coast. Very rocky. Being Monday lots of things were closed. But we found a Creperie open. April had a salad and I had a gallette (the buckwheat crepe) with hams, almost raw egg, cheese. Not bad but hardly filling.
Then we made our way along a few beaches and hills. One beach the tide went out for at least a mile. Seriously the tides are huge here and the beaches are flat so the low tide is always at least a few hundred yards out sometime .5-1 mile out. Bizarre.
Then we got to our town, Plougrescant, and we had reserved a room at this old Manor house, the Manoir de Kergrec’h. Fabulous. Built in the 1700s. We got a corner room. Huge room and bathroom. Sits on 10 hectares., so it’s quiet. Probably the best room of the trip. Of course April was thrilled, and proclaimed she needed a rest day the next day, so we’re staying two nights. But I was thinking of dinner. No restaurants in this tiny town. Only a creperie was open. Now last night April convinced me to have moules/frites at the town event thing, instead of a real dinner. Then a gallette for lunch. Now what a crepe for dinner? Instead I had a salad and April had the gallette. Crepes for dessert. Still not full.
Our rest day:
We read late, slept until about 9:00.
We go down for bfast and it turns out the manor has an older clientele, a little more formal than we’re used to. All the men have the ‘sweater wrapped over their shoulder’ thing going on. I’m in a white t-shirt and shorts. I’m starved after too many galettes and crepes, so I start pounding the croissants. Then as we’re eating, April notices I have croissant crumbs not only covering my little plate but on the placemat and a few on my lap and the floor. As you might expect everyone else’s plate looked clean. Not sure how they manage that as the croissants start to flake just when you touch them. Whatever.
We buy some sandwiches and go for a hike from the Manor, hit the coast and see all the oyster beds. They have these 2x3 foot metal cage kind of thing that sits on a stand and have all the oysters in the cage. There were rows and rows of then in the tidelands. There’s so much tideland at low tide so the area is great for oysters, mussels, clams. We nap, read and wash clothes in the afternoon. The sun finally comes out. But we’re in weather so much each day, we’re loving just being in the room. We find a restaurant about 3KMs away for dinner, and we have to ride to it as we’re starving. Three walking hill along the way. No skills. But the place is great. It’s a tiny place, 5 tables inside, beach and port across the street. We eat twice as much as the French folks in the restaurant. The have maybe 12 oysters and some wine. Or a bowl of Moules with Frites. They don’t eat much of the bread offered. I have 6 oysters as an app, then we each have a meal (salmon wrapped in bacon with beurre blanc for me and April has mussels and spinach casserole), and we order a side of frites, and we got thru two baskets of bread, a carafe of wine, and two desserts. April finally realizes what that chocolate thing we got early on in the trip is and gets it here. It’s called Fondant du Chocolate. Nice!!!! Finally full again. Plus no one drinks much water and we drink two carafes. We’re like the barbarian hordes marauding (or at least eating) thru Brittany. We walk/ride back to the Manor and hit the sack. Life’s good.
Oh yes a few more notes: this town was founded in the 6th century by Crescant, a Breton immigrant leader. The village used to live off agriculture and fishing. Now it’s oysters and tourism, plus they still farm.
And as we headed for the restaurant and were lost, we talked with an old buck who gave us directions, then as we chatted him up he told us to make sure we visited the Isle de Brehat, as it was beautiful and great for romance. Ha-ha.
Which reminds me, and I can’t remember if I mentioned this earlier: at one of our B+Bs, as were chatting up an older biking couple and the owner, she asked why we bring our bikes instead of renting, and I said your bike is maybe more important than your wife as you’re riding on it many hours each day! The old guy agreed with me and we had a good laugh. The wives didn’t seem to find it that amusing though.
It was even mistier today, almost like rain. As we made our way in the morning, it was the type of day where all the hair on your forearms collected moisture. We had some nice backroads, had a pleasant walk up a steep hill, then had to get on the highway for a bit. The highways are a mixed blessing. We find we can really pick up the speed to about 18-20 MPH, but then there’s the noise and traffic. Then the rain started and the wind started blowing. We came to an intersection of two highways and ducked behind the house in the middle of the two roads. Spirits were low. Trucks whizzing by. I had to pee but we were in someone’s driveway.
Both roads lead roughly to where we needed to be. Our map indicated the highway on the left was the smaller road, but I thought I had seen a sign that said trucks to the left. But you can never be quite sure of what you thought you saw, especially on these signs which are in French and Breton. So we watched for awhile and then decided to take the right-hand road even though it was the larger highway on the map. Huge winner! The best stretch of the trip. It was a about a 5 mile down hill. Maybe 1-2 cars passed us. And it stopped drizzling and we dried out as we coasted. It was perfect. The proverbial “road less traveled”!
We’re now riding along the Tregor region in the Cote de Granit Rose. Red/pink granite rocks/cliff all along the coast. Very rocky. Being Monday lots of things were closed. But we found a Creperie open. April had a salad and I had a gallette (the buckwheat crepe) with hams, almost raw egg, cheese. Not bad but hardly filling.
Then we made our way along a few beaches and hills. One beach the tide went out for at least a mile. Seriously the tides are huge here and the beaches are flat so the low tide is always at least a few hundred yards out sometime .5-1 mile out. Bizarre.
Then we got to our town, Plougrescant, and we had reserved a room at this old Manor house, the Manoir de Kergrec’h. Fabulous. Built in the 1700s. We got a corner room. Huge room and bathroom. Sits on 10 hectares., so it’s quiet. Probably the best room of the trip. Of course April was thrilled, and proclaimed she needed a rest day the next day, so we’re staying two nights. But I was thinking of dinner. No restaurants in this tiny town. Only a creperie was open. Now last night April convinced me to have moules/frites at the town event thing, instead of a real dinner. Then a gallette for lunch. Now what a crepe for dinner? Instead I had a salad and April had the gallette. Crepes for dessert. Still not full.
Our rest day:
We read late, slept until about 9:00.
We go down for bfast and it turns out the manor has an older clientele, a little more formal than we’re used to. All the men have the ‘sweater wrapped over their shoulder’ thing going on. I’m in a white t-shirt and shorts. I’m starved after too many galettes and crepes, so I start pounding the croissants. Then as we’re eating, April notices I have croissant crumbs not only covering my little plate but on the placemat and a few on my lap and the floor. As you might expect everyone else’s plate looked clean. Not sure how they manage that as the croissants start to flake just when you touch them. Whatever.
We buy some sandwiches and go for a hike from the Manor, hit the coast and see all the oyster beds. They have these 2x3 foot metal cage kind of thing that sits on a stand and have all the oysters in the cage. There were rows and rows of then in the tidelands. There’s so much tideland at low tide so the area is great for oysters, mussels, clams. We nap, read and wash clothes in the afternoon. The sun finally comes out. But we’re in weather so much each day, we’re loving just being in the room. We find a restaurant about 3KMs away for dinner, and we have to ride to it as we’re starving. Three walking hill along the way. No skills. But the place is great. It’s a tiny place, 5 tables inside, beach and port across the street. We eat twice as much as the French folks in the restaurant. The have maybe 12 oysters and some wine. Or a bowl of Moules with Frites. They don’t eat much of the bread offered. I have 6 oysters as an app, then we each have a meal (salmon wrapped in bacon with beurre blanc for me and April has mussels and spinach casserole), and we order a side of frites, and we got thru two baskets of bread, a carafe of wine, and two desserts. April finally realizes what that chocolate thing we got early on in the trip is and gets it here. It’s called Fondant du Chocolate. Nice!!!! Finally full again. Plus no one drinks much water and we drink two carafes. We’re like the barbarian hordes marauding (or at least eating) thru Brittany. We walk/ride back to the Manor and hit the sack. Life’s good.
Oh yes a few more notes: this town was founded in the 6th century by Crescant, a Breton immigrant leader. The village used to live off agriculture and fishing. Now it’s oysters and tourism, plus they still farm.
And as we headed for the restaurant and were lost, we talked with an old buck who gave us directions, then as we chatted him up he told us to make sure we visited the Isle de Brehat, as it was beautiful and great for romance. Ha-ha.
Which reminds me, and I can’t remember if I mentioned this earlier: at one of our B+Bs, as were chatting up an older biking couple and the owner, she asked why we bring our bikes instead of renting, and I said your bike is maybe more important than your wife as you’re riding on it many hours each day! The old guy agreed with me and we had a good laugh. The wives didn’t seem to find it that amusing though.
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Got the walking-hills blues
Woke earlier today, bfast at 8:00, we wanted to hit the road by 9:00. We’ve usually been starting around 10-10:30. Sure enough out by 9:00.
It was a cloudy, drizzly, overcast, gray day. Not too cold, in the 60s. We coasted along a beach right outside of Locquirec, then went along a peninsula to avoid the main rode, the D786. But we had to join the 786 for a couple of miles and kicked ass down a huge hill and along the beach, but then as usual we had to climb again away from the beach. Whenever we hit a big downhill we know we’re going to pay with a matching uphill. Sure enough we had a super-steep hill out of St Michel-en-Greve. Alas, we had the walk of shame. Yes, we had to walk our bikes. Sigh. It sort of matches our current state of hotel-only tourers. This was about a 15% grade. How do I know? Because later we hit another “walker” and it was labeled 15%. These are freakin steep, especially with panniers.
So we cruised along on a high plateau, pulled into Locquemeau, dropped and climbed, then found a bakery open on Sunday. Nice reward! Bought a loaf of dark bread and a wonderful flan with apricot top and coconut crumbs to top it off. It was killer. We’re stopping about twice/day for bakery snacks. Hard to lose weight on that program.
From Locquemeau we had to ride 15 KMs inland to reach Lannion before heading only to turn around and head 15KM back out towards the sea. And we can see the other side the whole time. Sucks.
In Lannion we stopped for lunch, almost everything was closed but we found a café that had salds and their menu du jour. Most places offer a menu du jour. It’s an entre (appetizer), and plat (main meal) and a dessert. And you get two out of three also. There’s usually 1-3 choices for each course. April had a great salad (lettuce, beets, corn, bacon, sausage, eggs, potatoes, tomatoes). And I had the menu, but just with the plat and dessert; had a steak/frites and a killer chocolate brownie-cake thing with a cream/custard sauce. The thing is even at low-end café’s here in France you get very good food.
Lannion had some cool old buildings, some really leaning/quite tilted, There was a 13th century church built by the Templar Knights. Killers. In fact there’s a freaking church in every little town we hit. And it’s always the biggest and tallest building. We always aim for them to get to the center of all the town. So much money and so much death! Shits weak.
It was hell getting out of Lannion. This was the first time we had road problems. The direct route was on the busy highways so we had to go way out of our way to get just a few KMs west. Made our way back to the coast on some sweet backroads. Finally hit Trebeurden. Knocked at a Chambre d’Hote but the one room was taken, so we found a hotel that had a sea view room. Plus they had wifi. BTW - It’s pronounced wee-fee, here in France, which explains why when I asked that one women in French if they had wifi- she said I don’t speak English. April loves that story.
We had a nice bath. I sat in the tub and washed clothes while bathing. And since my back hadn’t been scrubbed for awhile, I had April come in and use the wool sock I was washing to scrub my back! She said it was like washing a dog. That’s love?
The beach was right across the road, sun had finally come out but we were cold from riding in the drizzle all day, so we just walked the beach/port and came to another market type of thing. Here they had some local bands, and of course moules-frites and sausages/frites. We had one of each with beers instead of dinner. Great local scene with the music/food. The second band was some Breton chanters. Very nice. Danny O’C would have cried.
It was a cloudy, drizzly, overcast, gray day. Not too cold, in the 60s. We coasted along a beach right outside of Locquirec, then went along a peninsula to avoid the main rode, the D786. But we had to join the 786 for a couple of miles and kicked ass down a huge hill and along the beach, but then as usual we had to climb again away from the beach. Whenever we hit a big downhill we know we’re going to pay with a matching uphill. Sure enough we had a super-steep hill out of St Michel-en-Greve. Alas, we had the walk of shame. Yes, we had to walk our bikes. Sigh. It sort of matches our current state of hotel-only tourers. This was about a 15% grade. How do I know? Because later we hit another “walker” and it was labeled 15%. These are freakin steep, especially with panniers.
So we cruised along on a high plateau, pulled into Locquemeau, dropped and climbed, then found a bakery open on Sunday. Nice reward! Bought a loaf of dark bread and a wonderful flan with apricot top and coconut crumbs to top it off. It was killer. We’re stopping about twice/day for bakery snacks. Hard to lose weight on that program.
From Locquemeau we had to ride 15 KMs inland to reach Lannion before heading only to turn around and head 15KM back out towards the sea. And we can see the other side the whole time. Sucks.
In Lannion we stopped for lunch, almost everything was closed but we found a café that had salds and their menu du jour. Most places offer a menu du jour. It’s an entre (appetizer), and plat (main meal) and a dessert. And you get two out of three also. There’s usually 1-3 choices for each course. April had a great salad (lettuce, beets, corn, bacon, sausage, eggs, potatoes, tomatoes). And I had the menu, but just with the plat and dessert; had a steak/frites and a killer chocolate brownie-cake thing with a cream/custard sauce. The thing is even at low-end café’s here in France you get very good food.
Lannion had some cool old buildings, some really leaning/quite tilted, There was a 13th century church built by the Templar Knights. Killers. In fact there’s a freaking church in every little town we hit. And it’s always the biggest and tallest building. We always aim for them to get to the center of all the town. So much money and so much death! Shits weak.
It was hell getting out of Lannion. This was the first time we had road problems. The direct route was on the busy highways so we had to go way out of our way to get just a few KMs west. Made our way back to the coast on some sweet backroads. Finally hit Trebeurden. Knocked at a Chambre d’Hote but the one room was taken, so we found a hotel that had a sea view room. Plus they had wifi. BTW - It’s pronounced wee-fee, here in France, which explains why when I asked that one women in French if they had wifi- she said I don’t speak English. April loves that story.
We had a nice bath. I sat in the tub and washed clothes while bathing. And since my back hadn’t been scrubbed for awhile, I had April come in and use the wool sock I was washing to scrub my back! She said it was like washing a dog. That’s love?
The beach was right across the road, sun had finally come out but we were cold from riding in the drizzle all day, so we just walked the beach/port and came to another market type of thing. Here they had some local bands, and of course moules-frites and sausages/frites. We had one of each with beers instead of dinner. Great local scene with the music/food. The second band was some Breton chanters. Very nice. Danny O’C would have cried.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)