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.