Biking Through France

Gien to Saint Benoît sur Loire, June 29 https://photos.app.goo.gl/PbXqZNUfpsgR3H1u7

The breakfast buffet was a little skimpy this morning, but I made it work. Peter had a hard time getting up, and I thought he was actually a little bit sick. He stayed behind me for much of the morning, when normally he's ahead of me, and only occasionally checking to make sure that I'm following him. But then he perked up later on in the day. I think it's just because of the early morning rising. Maybe tomorrow he can sleep in till at least 9:00 or so. Today was honestly a little bit boring, some long straight roads, lots of farmland. Wheat harvesting is ongoing. We stopped at the Chateau de Sully for a picnic, and also took the tour. Quite impressive. The most interesting part of the day was the Abby of Saint Benoit. It's an active Benedictine monastery, fascinatin. We've been to two services so far today, they happen every few hours. There are mostly monks, but there's also some nuns as well. Interesting that the nuns seem to all be dressed in different garb,...

Chilly overnight, good thing we had the heater, but even with that it was a little bit cold. This morning I got up and put quite a bit of effort into tidying the tent, sweeping up the floor, etc because they took a 250 euro deposit and I wanted to get it all back. Turned out to be not a problem. We then biked down the road a little bit to the bakery, got some bread and some pastries (fruit tart) for breakfast since it's Peter's 16th birthday! We stopped at the bottom of the locks and had breakfast. Today's biking started out over to the top of the watershed, and then all the locks went downhill after that. Some very long quiet stretches, with nothing to see, so I ended up spending a lot of time sitting on that bike seat, which gets painful after a while. Breaks are really quite necessary. Briare was very nice, very friendly tourist office, a beautiful church with very interesting mosaics, and also what a miracle, Peter found a piano restoration workshop, and the owner let h...

Breakfast this morning at the Logis hotel was only sweet items (sucre, pas salè) so there wasn't really much I was interested in eating. But overall they were very friendly and I was happy with the hotel. I left them a nice review on Google maps and they immediately responded. The first 15 minutes of biking is always the best, you're moving, you're outside, the scenery is flying by, you're in town so there's a lot of people to say bon jour  to. Peter had to use the toilet in an area where there were no facilities, so we went to a nearby cafe and I ordered a little expresso, and Peter used the toilet. But then about 10 minutes later we had to return, because I had left my day pack on the chair next to me! That was stressful, wondering if it was still going to be there when we got back. Also, when I remembered that I had left it there, we were just about to walk into the Roman amphitheater (closed but you could get over the fence easily). By the time we biked back, pi...

Today was a rest day, we stayed in town and just did a little bit of biking to get around. It would have been more restful if we had been able to stay at the same hotel, but unfortunately they were booked and had no room for another night. We packed up our stuff in the morning, and then headed to the tourist office, where I had a long conversation with a friendly staff, and also got lots of brochures and maps. It's actually helpful to look at a real, paper map, instead of always scrolling on a screen. It gives you a better sense of scale. There's actually a fair number of people begging in town, if I had to guess I would say they're heroin addicts. Very skinny. The hotel we're staying in now is the logis, run by a very friendly couple who let us come at 11:00. The room is quaint, clean, and well decorated.no air conditioning but it's not as hot today, and also there's a fan. Our main excursion this afternoon was going to the E.Leclerc, which is a huge superstore...

Leaving our very first campsite, normally I'd write a bad review but even though the experience wasn't great, they were very friendly, so I just won't leave any review. We biked about 35 km today to Montargis, it doesn't sound like too much but it feels like a lot in the hot sun. We were searching for shade for our breaks, and took extra long breaks when there was really nice shade.  Here's some of the highlights of the ride. A super cute little 3-month-old puppy that we encountered, with owner. It was a Jack Russell terrier, the owner wanted to practice his English with us a bit. Lots of old abandoned factories, it kind of reminded me of Atlas Shrugged. I asked one guy what one of the old factories was, and he said they used to make automobile windshields. A second one was an old chemical factory. Another highlight was on one of the locks, seeing a boat go through, and chatting with one of the crew. It turns out they were Swiss, from the Lake Constance area. I find...

It was a little challenging getting out of Fontainebleau, lots and lots of traffic. We met Pat and Sherry again, Pat guided us to where the bike trail split off - not that we couldn't have found it ourselves, but he was being helpful. It was hot! Got up to 90 degrees Fahrenheit or higher, which is not a big deal when you're in the shade, but biking in the sun was pretty warm. Beautiful terrain as usual along the canal de loing, which connects the Seine and the Loire. We are on the old tow path, which has been converted to a bike / walking trail. Overall very nice. The signage was great, except where it was most necessary - there was one spot where the bike trail was closed and there was zero signage. This was in champagne sur Seine.as soon as it was obvious where the trail was, the signs were everywhere. We stopped and Peter got an ice cream there, and ask the restaurant owner to fill up the water bottles. We had lunch at the beginning of the town of nemours, in a nice park on ...

   I just had a huge long post written about our day in Fontainebleau but unfortunately blogger deleted it. I'll try to recreate some of the highlights. We caught the tail end of the breakfast buffet, chatted with some people from Santa Fe who unfortunately got into politics. Then bike to the fountain blue palace grounds, beautiful trees, beautiful paths, not very well maintained though. Unfortunately I lost my phone through having it in a pocket that wasn't well zipped, fortunately we found it again within about 10 minutes, but it was a stressful time. Then went inside the castle for the tour. Very impressive, especially Napoleon's campaign setup, the original glamping. After our tour, we found that Peter's bike tire was flat. We walked the bikes back to the hotel, and spent about 2 hours fiddling with patches and tubes. Got a little bit of help from Pat from Santa Fe, putting the bike tire back on, which was tricky with these bikes. Then we had to leave to get to the ...

Last night was stressful, trying to figure out where we would stay for Thurdsay night. It seems like it's a lot more difficult to arrange overnight stays here in France than it was on our trip to Austria. I hope it'll get easier once we get to a more traveled part of the route.  The signage today was much better than it's ever been, I almost never needed to get out my mapping app (I'm using OMSAmd) because there were signs everywhere.  Left our apartment at 10.30 (their check-out time, I was hoping for later because it was pouring down rain. But we packed everything into plastic bags, and put on some jackets, and started biking. The first stretch had a lot of traffic, it was a very busy route. Then we got to a quieter road, in an area where there were a lot of beautiful houses on the side of the river. Unfortunately since it was raining so hard, I didn't take it very many photos. Got to Fontainebleau, and were able to get immediately into the hotel room (Ibis budget...

So far, the biking is by far the most enjoyable part of this trip. Actually staying in town and in the hotels/apartments has been a hassle. Booking places to stay is far more difficult than it was on our previous trip, in Austria. Hopefully it'll get better, as we get to the more popular part of this trip, along the Loire.  The route to Melun was mixed, some very nicely paved and marked sections, and then some sections that weren't so nice. We also took a detour (staying on the river, but on a path that was just a walking path) to avoid going on the main road. That was a bit of an adventure. Lots of beautiful, interesting looking houses and chateaus on the riverfront, some of them very nice and private on these little roads along the Seine.  Arriving in town, we weren't able to get in to the apartment until 4 (we were originally told, we ended up getting in at 2.30). So we hung about in town, had a second lunch of chicken quarters (from an interesting storefront restaurant ...

I'm thankful, again, that I decided to ditch the folding bikes, and rent bikes here. These bikes are smooth and efficient, and make riding easy. Our first day involved me getting used to the navigation app again. I'm using OMSAnd, which is very full-featured, but not necessarily easy to use. Also, since the bike path is not marked (pretty much at all), I have to take out my phone all the time, to figure out where to go. In general, though, the GPX file that I'm following is pretty good, and routes us well, with just a few execptions. The first part of the ride, through the southern edge of Paris, was pretty isolated and industrial. Lots of graffiti, lots of litter. Not very prosperous looking area.  Then we got to some nicer looking spots. We had lunch in a park called Ile de Loisirs du Port aux Cerises.  Beautiful spot. There was also an amusement park in the park that we biked past, which had a group of Hasidic school kids. I only reall...

Today we got the bikes that we're going to be using on this trip. I'm glad that we got some regular bikes, instead of using the folding bikes. The bikes we got are much more efficient than the folding bikes, I pedal with a lot less effort. After we got them, we biked towards the center of town. The bike trail is very well developed, well set apart from the road, and overall very nice. Lots of very fast bikers on it though. Biking around the touristy areas downtown was not all that much fun, because streets were so crowded.  But in the less crowded areas, like around the sports store where I went to get a bike lock, it was more fun. The most interesting area, where I've never been before, was the Park de Bercy. Very interesting, tons of people milling about, beautiful though  neglected looking. Lots and lots of people who didn't look like they had anywhere else to go.  By the way, there's plenty of homeless tents in Par...

 Peter found a public piano at the airport in Montreal. These leaning buildings remind me of one of my favorite movies, Idiocracy. Peter and I flew to Paris through Montreal. The lady that sat next to us on the flight to Montreal was a few years younger than me, and we chatted a bit. She's "english" in the sense that she speaks french, but feels more comfortable speaking English in Montreal, which makes her a second-class citizen, according to her. She'd like to leave except that her kids and parents are in Montreal. She said that she begs her now adult kids to leave Quebec, says there's no opportunities there, few jobs, lots of regulations and paperwork.  Arrived in Paris (was not able to sleep on the plane, we arrived just before 7 am), and took a pre-arranged taxi to the hotel. I had planned to pay extra to get into our room ahead of time, but unfortunately everything was completely occupied, so we had to wait till 1 pm. Ugh, that was tou...

It's the day before our flight, and I'm pretty well packed up, still working on getting Peter set up. Here's a picture of what I'll be bringing with. Everything was chosen with an eye towards light weight, and being easy to wash (for the clothing).