Bikle Trip - Day 9 to Caen and Home

Because the remnants of storm Miguel were still apparent and it was very windy, we decided that the parachute drop would probably not go off as scheduled, plus with the number of tourists, it would have been difficult to get near the site.  So, we decided to instead visit the renowned WW II and D-Day museum in Caen on Sunday and then try to get back to Lyon at a decent hour.

Sunday after breakfast at the hotel, I drove to Caen and we located the Museum.  Gérard had bought tickets online, which I forgot about when I went in and mistakenly purchased another ticket for myself.

The museum is very well done, and you can get audio guides to assist with the exhibits.  We stayed for only a couple of hours as it would take a very long time to really see everything.  I took few pictures in the Museum as photos really do not do the place justice

British Typhoon Fighter-Bomber in Museum Lobby

We left a bit after noon, trading off driving, and reached Lyon uneventfully about 9PM.  We dropped off Gérard at his place and then me.

Another extremely successful week-long adventure in France.  My responsibility for next year is to develop several ideas for and present them to the rest of the crew so we can decide what we want to do.

Bike Trip - Day 8 to St Lô

Saturday morning, we headed off in the car for a flying visit to Mont-Saint-Michel.  You can no longer take any kind of vehicle anywhere near the island.  The are acres of parking that cost 14 euros per car, which gets a you free shuttle bus to a drop-off point about ¼ mile from the walls.  We rode the packed bus out, hopped off, looked at the town, took a few pictures, hopped back on the bus, and left.  This is one of those places that one needs to spend time walking around.  Apparently it costs more money to actually go inside the town walls.

Approaching Mont-St Michel from the Car

Mont St Michel from Causeway

The Fab Four on a Flying Visit

We then headed for first, Ste-Mere-Eglise where the famous parachute landing occurred during the Normandy landings.  As it was the 75^th anniversary of D-Day, there was going to be all kinds of events, including a smaller parachute drop near the town from C-47s, the type of aircraft used originally.

We stopped for lunch on the way and arrived at Ste-Mere-Eglise.  The town was packed, the town square was full of food booths, there were marching bands, members of the US and French military, a field where there were dozens of restored American military vehicles of the period and lots of French enthusiasts dressed in period uniforms.  Also, the town church had a parachute and dummy representing Pvt Steele, the paratrooper whose chute snagged on the steeple, forcing him to precariously hang by his parachute harness for several hours during the fighting.

As the photos below attest, the church is quite beautiful inside.

Pvt Steele Dummy on Church

Church Interior

Church Interior

We then drove to nearby Utah Beach, one of the American landing beaches on D-Day.  The French have done a great job with signage and memorials, some examples of which are attached.  We all walked around and read the signs and memorials.  I walked out onto the beach and tried to imagine what it might have been like.  Very emotional.

Utah Beach - Flags of the Allied Nations involved on D-Day

Orientation Table Utah Beach

Land-Side Entrance to Utah Beach

Utah Beach to West

Utah Beach to East

Plaque on House Behind Utah Beach

We then headed for St Lô, our stop for the night.  We had a decent dinner at our hotel in St Lô.

Bike Trip - Day 7 - Driving to Mont-St-Michel

Friday -  bike riding done, had breakfast at the hotel, packed the car and headed for the town of Mont- Saint-Michel.   A serious storm came in that morning –‘Miguel’ – that made driving difficult and led to  the four deaths in the town of Les Sables d’Olonne where we had stayed Tuesday.

We stopped for lunch in a small town at L’Authentique.  Great three-course meal for 12 euros.  And the serveuses – two ladies in platform heels serving about 45 people on two levels.  They RAN up and down the stairs carrying plates empty and full.  Never missed a beat.  It was worth it just to watch them operate.

Restaurant L'Authentique through Car Window

We arrived in Mont-Saint-Michel, actually a town called Pontaubault and checked into our hotel, the Treize Assiettes.  It has been in business since 1896, was originally the Hotel de la Gare and it is adjacent to a former railway station, now a home.

Hotel Treize Assiettes

Former Railroad Station Behind the Hotel

Dinner at the Hotel

Behind the main building are a series of modern stone duplex buidings where we stayed.  We ate that night in the hotel – very good.

The next morning as we were getting ready to leave, we noticed a fenced field next to the hotel parking lot.  In the field were a number of small goats who had their very own house on stilts!

Luxury Living for French Goats

Bike Trip - Day 4 to Les Sables-d'Olonne

It rained a bit in the night, but it was already drying by morning, although it was grey and windy. As can be seen from the photo, we had a great French breakfast laid out for us – juice, cheese, meats, homemade breads.  It was difficult to think about getting on the bike again when we had all this great food in front of us. On top of that, Madam wrapped up some of the left-over cheese and meat for us to take along.  This was really a great stop-over place!

Breakfast at the B'n'B

David Enjoying Breakfast

Gérard, David, Tom, and our Genial Hostess

We headed down through the town to the seashore and picked up the marked trail.  It was a short-mileage day, so we stopped a lot to look at the scenery and take pictures. Mostly we were on a dedicated path by the shore or through the woods.  My tire was still holding but bumpy on smooth pavement.

Coastline on the Way to Les Sables

Lighthouse on Rock in Distance

Tom and Roger on Trail

Tide's Out - as It Always Seemed to Be

Wildflowers Near the Shore

We spent the night in a hotel in Les-Sables d’Olonne called Hotel Angleterre, or Hotel England.  Shows the influence of English tourism on the area.

As the town is fairly substantial, I decided to see if I could get my tire fixed properly.  I found a bike shop with a repair facility [fairly common in French towns of any size] and talked to the folks there.  It was late afternoon and they said if I could get the bike in very soon, they could get it fixed that day.  So I hurried back to the hotel and quickly rode the bike to the shop.  It was about 4PM and they said they could get it done by 5:30PM.  Promptly at 5:30PM I presented myself at the shop, and, sure enough, it was done.  All for 20 euros!  I gave the man a 5-euro tip and said he had saved my life, as I now had a bike that I could confidently ride, without ‘bumps’.

Substantial Ship Entering Harbor - Les Sables

Le Chateau de la Chaume dit la Tour D'Arundel

The tower above near the harbor entrance, was built at the end of the 15th century, and spared by Cardinal Richlieu when he was having fortifications torn down that could be used for revolts against the King.  It was dismantled in 1689 on the orders of Louvois who also had the town walls and chateau destroyed.  At the end of the 18th century the tower was only lighthouse in the Vendee.  From 1855-57 the tower was restored.

Tom has developed the practice of checking on local restaurants online before we made a decision as to where to eat dinner.  The Moulin à Poivre [Pepper Mill] had a good rating and we were not disappointed.  Another nice, beautifully presented meal at a great price - just look at the pictures below!

Local Dish Similar to Boeuf Bouguignon - Delicious!

Beautifully Presented and Tasty

Roger's Plat, or Main Dish

Another Work of Art in a Small French Town

As a side note, the town sustained a tragedy a few days after we left.  A strong storm hit the region and a fisherman decided to take his boat out anyway.  He got into trouble and the local boat-rescue folks, who seem to be similar to volunteer firefighters in the US, went out to try to rescue him.  Their boat overturned, three men died, plus the fisherman disappeared, his body not found until 10 days or so later. 

The community was in mourning, the would-be rescuers were hailed as national heroes, the President of the Republic, Emmanuel Macron, appeared in town for the memorial ceremonies, and France paid homage to the men's dedication.

42km for the day.

Bike Trip - Day 5 to La Tranche sur-Mer

We had an interesting route to travel  - not very long – lots of dedicated bike paths, again through the woods and by the seashore.  Unfortunately Tom’s battery died with about two miles to go.  [My bike and Tom’s were very different – my battery seemed to last a lot longer, my controls for the power assist were much more accessible when riding and also gave more detailed information as to settings and power remaining.]  

Bike Path Through the Seaside Woods

We set off in the morning and stopped for coffee after an hour or so.  Roger forgot his water bottle and the girl at the café came running after me to return it.  At the café we saw four Brits on bikes who we had seen and chatted with a day or two earlier.

Seaside Sign Explaining the Presence of a Huge Dune Made of Cobbles

We're on the Right Road to La Tranche

On The Road to La Tranche

Part of the ride was through a drained swamp area with ponds that are evidently used for raising fish and/or frogs.  Very scenic with dedicated paved paths.  As we had relatively few kilometers to cover, we again took a lot of pictures. 

La Dive - explaining the old Shoreline and Recent Storm Flooding

We passed the site of an old monastery called La Dive on a hill. The sign showed the old shoreline before the area was reclaimed.  It also showed how a big storm a few years ago flooded the area, killing a number of people and turning the hill back into an island temporarily, as shown in the lower right photo on the sign.

Electric bikes showed what they could do – when on straight, level areas, we were easily doing 22-25km/hr.  We had lots of stops for intersections, picture taking, etc., so our average speed was not so high.    Again passed a lot of ‘camping’ areas, with cabins, trailers, tent sites, etc.  

Roger Photographing Tom and David

Tom with David Photographing Roger Above

We arrived at La Tranche sur-Mer at about 2:30PM, so had lots of time to wander around, look at the small town and tourist shops, the beach, check out restaurants, etc.  I bought a couple of bottles of a local red wine made with Negrette grapes that came from vines that were supposed to have survived the phyloxerra plague in the 1870s.

Tom again checked out restaurants online and we wound up at a place where we found the same Brits that we had seen that morning at our coffee stop.

Did about 48km for the day.

Bike Trip - Day 6 to La Rochelle

The first part of the next day was along the coast, but after a while we followed the route inland along trails and roads through reclaimed areas separated from the sea by dikes.  Very flat but some trees, dikes, canals, etc. 

I got separated from Tom and Roger when I went ahead to look for trail signs and they stopped to take some photos on a dike gate.  I eventually rode back to where I had last seen them and they were no where to be found.  I turned around again, the electric bike making it easier to make up distance on the flat ground.  Came to one area where the trail sign seemed to point away from the fenced and gated dike. I went on down a gravel road, but after a kilometer or so it dead-ended in a field that showed only traces of a few bike tracks.  I turned around and came upon a French couple on bikes and told them the trail dead-ended. They checked on their phone and announced that indeed going across the field seemed to be correct, so I followed along.  After a half-kilometer or so, we came to a dike where there was a woman on a bike seemingly trying to go in the other direction.  The three of us pushed our bikes to the top of the dike and discovered that apparently the trail ran on top of the dike, but was gated at both ends, We could have saved a lot of work by just opening the gate at the other end!

Canal Gate Where Tom and Roger were Last Seen

Roger, Tom, Gérard, and I had agreed to meet about lunch time in a nearby small village, so I headed for that.  When I arrived, I found the church where we had agreed to meet but no one was around.  Not too surprising as it was after lunch time and there appeared to be no stores or restaurants in the town.  I decided to head for our stop for the night in La Rochelle.  The quickest way was on the highway but I am not a fan of sharing the road with lots of fast-moving cars, so I found some back roads and after a while arrived in the outskirts of La Rochelle.

La Rochelle is a good-sized town, and larger French towns have lots of signage pointing to such things as the city center, the railroad station, etc.  I headed for the city center and after a while I began to see signs for the tourist office.  Experience has taught me that the folks there are extremely helpful with town maps and directions.  I was not disappointed, as the young lady at the harbor-side tourist office quickly provided me with a map of the center of town with the tourist office location marked and then drew a line to our hotel for the night.  It was maybe a kilometer away, so I quickly arrived and discovered that Roger and Tom had arrived only 20 minutes or so earlier.  It turned out they had left the trail to ride on roadways when it seemed to them the trail was not going in the right direction.

La Rochelle Tourist Office - photo from the web

After cleaning up a bit, the four of us all walked back to the harbor area where there were lots of things to see and lots of sidewalk cafés.  We found a café and elected to sit outside in a covered and sheltered eating area as it was breezy and cool.  Our dinner was decent but nothing special.  Because we have been on the coast most of the time, we have been eating a lot of seafood, a practice some us continued at each meal.

David at La Rochelle Harbor with One of the Two Towers

La Rochelle has a tumultuous history - it was recovered from the English about 1370 and the harbor was guarded by two large towers connected by a large chain across the harbor mouth that was closed off in the evening.

The wars of Religion in the 16th century saw much fighting and destruction in and around La Rochelle as the town was a Protestant stronghold.

La Rochelle Town Gate 

Interesting Statue in La Rochelle

Roger and Tom did 76km, me about 86 with all my retracing of my steps.

The 8th Annual Bike Tour Through a Part of France - Outline of this Year's Adventure

The Tom, Roger, David, and Gérard bike trip for 2019 was going to be different.  The idea was to ride from St-Brevin-les-Pins to La Rochelle in an area just south of Brittany known as the Vendée, with actual riding to start June 2 and ending June 6.  Tom reminded us that this was also the 75^th anniversary of the D-Day landings in Normandy and there were going to be a number of events, including, on June 9, a commemoration parachute jump near the town of St-Mere-Eglise.  After finishing our bike ride, we planned to make a “visual” visit to nearby Le Mont-St-Michel followed by a visit to Ste-Mere-Eglise for the parachute jump and maybe a visit to the renowned D-Day museum in Caen.  

A Signpost Photo from the Web Showing the Trail Logo

The bike route we were to follow is part of the French section of a European bike trail running down the Atlantic coast.  As the website says:La Vélodyssée est un projet porté collectivement par 3 Régions et 9 Départements réunis autour d'une ambition commune : positionner La Vélodyssée comme un itinéraire d'excellence du tourisme à vélo en France et à l'étranger.

We would begin the adventure by driving in Gérard’s car to St-Brevin-les-Pins, a distance of about 700 km, and riding south from there.  Gérard has been prevented from bike riding for a while as he is recovering from a medical procedure, but he volunteered to accompany us in the car, carrying most of our bags, meeting us for lunch, arriving first at our lodging stops, thus ensuring that the team of four stays intact. 

My training this year was more rigorous as I was determined to avoid a repeat of last year when I managed to run myself into the ground.  Additionally, we were for the first time going to all have electric-assist bikes.  Roger had bought himself one a couple of years ago, but I had never even tried one.  Using one is quite the revelation.  I did not know what to expect, but discovered upon trying Roger’s for a short time in Lyon, that the technology is truly amazing.  The bikes have 4-5 levels of power-assist, and in “Eco” mode, the battery will last for 80 or so km.  And, the amount of assist seems to be proportional to how hard one pushes down on the pedal.  There is still effort involved, but it is certainly very satisfying to get more speed for one’s effort, especially on hills!

I did a bit of research on the various towns we were stopping in, Roger and his wife Dominique arranged our nightly accommodations, and we all looked forward to our next adventure.

One negative that began to appear was the weather.  This spring has been cool and wet for most of May and conditions in the Vendée and in Normandy were forecast as rain/clouds every day.  Riding in the rain is definitely not fun, so I packed extra clothes in case I had difficulty drying my clothes.  Having Gérard and his car available to transport our bags at least meant that we did not have to worry about our extra things getting wet while we rode.

All photos, unless otherwise noted, were taken by the four of us.

Bike Trip Day 1 - to St-Brevin-les-Pins

Tom came to town and stayed at Roger’s and Dominque’s place before our trip.  We had arranged to rent two electric bikes, so we picked them up the Friday before we were to leave Lyon and took them to Roger’s place.  I had brought my saddlebags to Roger’s on Friday also as the plan was to have the car there so we could pack everything and load the bikes there.  Anna and I would come over that morning so I could help load and Anna could take pictures.  The four of us then drove to Gerard’s place to pick him up, with Anna taking pictures and then she would head back to our apartment.  [While we were gone, Anna had a busy week planned with lunch with Estelle, a French class, and a day of sightseeing and lunch with Dominique, among other activities.]

Tom, Gérard, David, Roger ready to Leave in Gérard's Trusty Peugeot

We left Gérard’s at about 9:25; the car trip took about 9 hours, with coffee, gas, and snack stops.  The French Autoroute system allows for rapid travel as the speed limits are often 130km/hr, which is almost 80mph.  For 300km the cost is close to 30 euros or $35. 

We traded off driving; we had frequent stops, lively conversation, and much scenery to look at.  We arrived at our hotel at about 6:30PM, unloaded the bikes and put them into locked storage. 

Our hotel had no restaurant and there was a Liverpool-Tottenham soccer game on TV that Roger wanted to see so we walked about a half-mile into town to find a place that had the game on and where we could eat.  We found a sort of ‘sports-bar’ where we could have some casual food and see the game.  We also chatted with the restaurant folks as we are quite the anomaly in small French towns – a Frenchman with two Americans and a Brit.  I went back to the hotel at half time as I am not much of a soccer fan and I wanted to be sure to be well-rested for the start of the trip.  

Bike Trip - Day 2 to Bouin

Our hotel, like most French hotels, provided a light breakfast the next morning.  It had rained during the night, but had stopped by the time we got ready to start off on our bikes.  There was a well-marked combination bike route and lightly used road along the cost, the “Velodyssée” so we were able to ride reasonably securely.  While French drivers are very respectful of bikers, it is still much more comfortable if one has at least a bike lane where one is relatively safe from cars and trucks.

About to Leave our Hotel - St Brevin-Les- Pins

We rode mostly near the coast and saw a number of interesting fishing platforms where the fisherman can simply dip his net while the tide is in.

Fishing Platforms

We stopped in the seaside town of Pornic for lunch at a restaurant called “Le Skipper” ?!  [English words continue to creep in and ‘pollute’ the French language!]  Typical touristy place; our ‘serveur’ was from the French Caribbean island of Martinique.  

Le Skipper - Pornic [with blue sky - web picture]
David and Gérard Below - Dessert and Coffee

The weather remained threatening - foggy, windy and cool with a few sun breaks, but riding was relatively easy and the view of the ocean was good.  We stopped for the night in Bouin at a B’n’B with modern rooms. 

View of Bouin From the Landing Outside our Rooms

We went for dinner down the street to a nice restaurant - Le Martinet - attached to a hotel and had an excellent 3-course meal for under 20 euros. To that was added wine or beer and coffee.  Still an excellent value. 

Le Martinet Dining Room - From the Web

We did about 85km for the day.

We awoke the next morning to a steady rain and I was afraid we were going to get wet, but by the time we breakfasted at the B’n’B, the rain had stopped and the road was drying a bit.  We got our bikes out and headed down towards the shore to find the path again.

Breakfast at the B'n'B in Bouin - Gérard, Roger, Tom