Loire à Vélo - day 1

Here I am on my next bike trip. Although I still have to complete the middle section of the Camino de Santiago, this time I only have a week, so I'm going to be riding a section of the Loire à Vélo route along the Heritage listed Loire river valley in France  instead of riding the Camino. I'm going to head downstream to Nantes, before turning around and backtracking, hopefully not along exactly the same paths. I've allowed eight days for what should be around 500 km.

Day one will take me 60 km or so to a little town called Bréhemont. So off we go!

In the middle of nowhere I pass a sign pointing to a little village with the most accurate, but spectacularly unimaginative name: "Le Village". Clearly not a lot of thought went into coming up with that name. It's heavily overcast with a constant slight drizzle for the first hour or so of my first day's ride; not enough to warrant stopping to cover up but enough to keep me cool and damp.

Lunch with cow at Pernay

I stop for lunch in Pernay at 'Le Crêpolo' (the name is not inspiring), sitting at a table on the footpath under a manicured tree and next to a life-sized pink plastic cow. There must be a reason for that cow, although it's not obvious to me what it is. I am eating a sandwich jambon blanc-fromage; boringly reliable. While I am sitting outside eating my baguette, the local workers start arriving for their midday meal. Small groups of painters (recognisable by their white pants covered in paint), carpenters, stonemasons (covered in a light dusting of the local limestone) plumbers and electricians arrive, look at the menu of the day  - entrée, plat, dessert + 1/4 de vin, a pretty standard French workers' lunch - and then head inside to sit at the prepared tables. The daily ritual; no lunch boxes or take away food for these guys; this is France after all! Then three older women turn up and start taking their photograph with the cow; perhaps it's a local landmark; at least I'm not the only one to find it unusual. I offer to take their picture for them so all three are in the photo. The cow's purpose remains a mystery.

At La Houbellerie, the road passes some sort of military installation. There's a double barbed wire fence, floodlights on the perimeter and signs warning of all the things that are prohibited, including taking photos, which although tempted, I decide not to do. There are lots of strange looking antennae and an enormous grey metal sphere on an impressively large pole. Some sort of military surveillance installation I conclude. And then, as if to make the point, while I'm writing these notes, a military 4WD with two soldiers drives past, seemingly checking me out. In my fluorescent vest I am hardly trying to hide and they do not stop. A little further along the road there are several old concrete bunkers and then another set of buildings, clearly military. The old jet fighter plane on a stand in front of the main building is a bit of a sign that this is indeed a military, probably air force, installation. Then again, James Dyson, of vacuum cleaner fame, has a 1960's Hawker Harrier parked in the car park in front of his factory, so having a jet fighter on display isn't always an indication of a military presence.

The road heads down now, towards the Loire river. That's a nice feeling; both because from here on the ride will be more or less flat and because the Loire is really the whole point of this ride. I meet the river at the rather strangely named town of Cinq Mars La Pile. Supposedly, the name is a bastardisation of "Saint Martin" and has nothing to do with the fifth of March as you would logically expect. The 'Pile' refers to a local landmark; a Roman brick tower.

I pass through Langeais, an attractive little town with a marvelous medieval castle. I don't stay long since I've been here a few times already and will be spending the night here on my return  journey. So I'll leave exploring the town until later. I pass a (closed) newsagent with a sign on the footpath advertising La Nouvelle République, a daily newspaper. Written by hand on the sign are the words "News Paper". I wonder whether this is to attract English speaking tourists, or perhaps to explain to the anglophones what La Nouvelle République is. Maybe both. This little bit of English is certainly unusual and somehow out of place here.

After Langeais my path finally meets the Loire river and I cross to the south bank over the impressive suspension bridge. I'm now riding the Loire à Vélo route proper and begin meeting the first bike riders I've seen today. Only a few more kilometres to Bréhemont, my destination for today.

Bréhemont is a tiny sleepy little village whose main claim to fame seems to be that it is on the Loire à Vélo route and that it had a small bicycle rental and repair shop, which also seems to be the only place that's actually open. Actually, I think it might just be the only place. I've arrived early in the afternoon so I sit for a while on the banks of the river watching it go by.

Boats waiting patiently for their owners to return

As it's still a bit to early to go to my B&B I decide to go for a ride in the surrounding countryside. After all, what else do you do after just having ridden 60 km? I end up taking little gravel paths between the fields to get back to the B&B, which is in an interesting if somewhat ramshackle collection of buildings. It is very quiet.

I ask my host about dining possibilities in the village and she offers to call the bicycle rental shop, which turns out to also be the only place that sells food in the village; she's not sure they are open (it is Monday, half of France seems to close on Mondays). She ends up getting an earful from the guy who runs it, along the lines that it's getting late (although it's not even 17:30 and their brochure claims they open until 19:00) and that they have better things to do than stay open just to serve their customers. A not uncommon attitude amongst shopkeepers in France unfortunately and my host makes the same observation. She offers to provide some food so I can cook my dinner in the B&B because she feels put out by the guy's attitude and so doesn't want to send him any customers. It saves me the ride back into the village I suppose, although it means I get to cook my own dinner. I am compensated by their offer of a half bottle of local (good) red wine and some local lait cru goat's cheese to go with it.

I am sold; the wine is excellent and the cheese delicious. I will sleep well tonight.

Distance today: 67km, 4 hours riding.

Normandy - not just D-day beaches

So here we are in France and as it happens, our trip coincides with our 25th anniversary. Perhaps I should have told my wife we were going to France for our anniversary - a much more romantic concept! To try and salvage this situation a little, I planned a little trip to Normandy, including a visit to Alençon to visit the lace museum, which she had been wanting to visit for  years.

Our home for the three nights we were in Normandy was to be a castle no less - and on instructions from the management it had to be a medieval castle: thick stone walls, towers, secret passages, low doorways and so forth. Actually, it's amazing how many place that would fit this description still exist in France (and in Europe generally). We stayed at La Ducrie, which our daughter had stayed at a few years ago and which fit the bill perfectly.

Our hosts were Joe and Vivienne, a retired and some might say slightly eccentric English couple, together with their two dogs and three cats. They were living the dream that so many have but so few realise - pack everything up, buy a run-down castle in France, do it up and live in (medieval) style.

La Ducrie was the home of a future King of France and goes back to 1437. Coming from Australia, which was only discovered by the English in 1770 it always impresses me how old things are in Europe. You see that bridge? It was built in the year that the first settlers arrived in Australia. You see that house? It was built two hundred years before Australia was even on the map!

I helped Joe get his computer and WiFi systems set up and to thank us he invited us to join them and a couple of their friends for a BBQ dinner. I think the "prick with a fork" apron he donned for the occasion nicely summed up his joie de vivre. Although I promised him I wouldn't post the picture on Facebook, I'm sure he wouldn't mind it appearing here; it perfectly captures his lifestyle of medieval castle living in Normandy.

Although we'd been to Normandy before and had visited many of the D-Day landing beaches, we made a little trip to Utah beach which was nearby and which we had not visited yet. It's amazing what an effect this area can have on you when you are faced with the realities of the actual beaches where all those people were sacrificed in order to free Europe and trigger the end of WW2.

So what else to do in Normandy? Have the world's most delicious ice cream in the home of seriously wonderful dairy products, Isigny-sur-Mer of course! Arriving at the dairy we were greeted by the sight of dozens of people milling around all holding ice cream cones; an odd sight, but soon we had joined them and had appreciated why they were there! Next on the agenda was a visit to the ancestral home of cheese: Camembert. For what must be the world's most recognisable cheese type, this is just an unassuming little village - similar to many such places that are familiar from their products, but unassuming in real life.

Last on the agenda was a place that I'd had on my to-do list for quite some time: the Musée Schlumberger, which is located at the Château de Crèvecoeur. I did not realise before visiting that the chateau is in fact much more than just the museum, which is actually only a relatively minor part of what the chateau has to offer. 

[Schlumberger is the company I used to work for, and is an oilfield services company started by two brothers in France, back in the 1920's; the Chateau is owned by the Schlumberger Foundation and contains, amongst other things, a small museum that tells the "Schlumberger Story"]

If you're thinking of going just for the museum - as we were - be aware that the exhibit is relatively small and will not take you long to visit although it is quite informative. It does however contain some interesting and rare pieces of early equipment (as well as some wireline logging equipment which my dear wife Ann was astounded to learn was of the same type that I had actually used when I worked for the company:  "but that looks antique" was her comment, making me feel suitably old).

Interior of an early Schlumberger wireline logging unit

Still, I now realise most people will be visiting the chateau for its restored medieval "village", and especially on those days when they hold reenactments, which I am pleased to say we very much enjoyed - they were very well done and everyone was not just in costume, but also very much in character. We hadn't expected any of this and it was a nice surprise.

Road trips and other observations

A bit of an odd post this. The first of a compilation of various observations and anecdotes written over the last couple of years that I never got around to actually compiling into anything organised. Rather than lose them forever in the dark recesses of some long-forgotten disk drive (or perhaps floating in the cloud somewhere) it seems reasonable to bring them together here for posterity. So, in no particular order - actually, probably in roughly chronological order - here they are:

Here I am in Bangkok, sometime in 2013. I'm staying at the Pullman hotel (it's a work trip, I am teaching a course here and someone else is paying the bill, so it's the Pullman this time). I am at the reception desk where there is a lot of staff. They have name tags with 'English' names - how do they come up with there I wonder? I am served (at the same time) by two lovely girls named 'Nutty' and 'Luck'. My mind goes back to the early 1980's and other places in Bangkok where you could (can?) be served by multiple girls (often also wearing name or number badges) at the same time. I drag my mind back and focus on task at hand: checking in. There are other interesting names, but these two catch my attention. 

Actually, there are lots of staff everywhere; a feature in Asia where staff is still cheap enough to have lots of them. The lobby area sometimes seems to have more staff than guests, the restaurant is bustling with not just customers, but also the huge number of staff replenishing the buffet, cooking, baking fresh bread, making coffee at the two enormous machines (that look like they are set up for guests to use, but with the amazing service mentality of the staff, they are not giving any guest the chance to have to make their own drink). You order a coffee at your table from one person and what seems like seconds later another person magically appears with a freshly made cup. How do they know where you are in this vast place? There are no numbers on the tables. But then again, there aren't so many westerners  either, the place is certainly popular with the Chinese and Japanese tourists, clearly outnumbering the locals. I probably stand out from the crowd more than I realise.

Now we're on a quick road trip from France to Andalucia (and back again!), also sometime in 2013 - June actually.

We make a special detour to Le Puy en Velay to visit a lace school. As luck would have it, the day we are there the school is closed "exceptionally". The heating isn't working so all the teachers have gone home... We stay in a quirky B&B right in the middle of the old town. It's a medieval building, charming in the sense that there's not a square angle in the place and if you were to spill a bag of Maltesers, they'd roll over the sloping floor to the far corner of the room, falling into the gaps between the floorboards as they went. Since we're in France, and not in an Australian cinema in the 1970's, we don't have any Maltesers with us anyway. The B&B is actually a tea shop with a couple of rooms upstairs. There's free WiFi, but it doesn't reach the upper room, which of course is the one we're staying in. The view through the wobbly old glass paned windows over the town square is gorgeous. Breakfast is generous with a vast array of cakes, breads and other things - and tea!

In Montpellier we have dinner with some friends in a restaurant that seems to serve essentially baked slow cooked food. It's tiny. The service is good and the wine list is impressive - and since we like our red wine, all seems well with the world. There's confit de canard and a slow-roasted lamb, which is delicious, falling off the bone. The portions are very large, but we have enough red wine to last the distance.

Then we're in Spain and in Murcia after a marathon run down the east coast autovias. It must be said that the motorways in Spain are, in general, excellent. Most are quite recent, there's not a lot of traffic, and there's enough bendy bits to make them interesting as well. Driving into the town we spot a familiar sign: a hotel Campanile. Boring as anything, but reliable, clean, and at this late hour a welcome sign after all. The place is being run by just one woman who is flat out trying to deal with everything, including manning the desk, handling the bar, and serving food. There's no dinner however. The next morning this is somewhat compensated by the very complete breakfast buffet. 

Now we are at our destination in Andalcia, Jimena de la Frontera. We're staying at Casa Henrietta which is a relatively recently restored large building on the main street. It's probably an old doctor's mansion or something similar. There's a nice feeling and decor, with central space open to the roof level with balconies looking down into the lobby area. Like many buildings in this part of Spain, there's a Moorish / Moroccan influence and the open central space with patterned tiling reminds me of a small hotel in Morocco I stayed at towards the end of my trip across the Sahara desert way back sometime in the eighties (is it really that long ago?) I like how things can trigger memories of places you've been but may have not otherwise remembered.  Our room has great views as you would expect in Jimena. It's all very casual and easygoing; the girl running the place has a relaxed approach to hotel management, which it must be said is not at all out of place here in the south of Spain. Again there's no dinner here (seems to be a theme we're encountering) but there's a good assortment of rather unusual tapas and there's a bar, so all is not lost. Breakfast is very simple but adequate. The only disappointment is that since we're the only guests, we don't warrant them turning on the espresso machine in the morning so have to have tea instead, which seems somehow wrong when you're in Spain. The free WiFi is only in lobby area and if you're lucky perhaps in the rooms next to and above the lobby. Our room is on the top floor, well beyond the range of the little WiFi router in the lobby (seems to be a theme we're encountering). There's a lift, but (of course)  it's not working. It's probably been a long time since it has worked. Miraculously, we find a parking spot in the main street, right outside the hotel so we end up leaving the car there for most of our stay in Jimena (which is a village for walking in any case).

One night when we are thinking about dinner, we decide to walk into a restaurant on the main street called El Ventorrillerro. This is a place we've walked past many many times over the years, but which we never thought would be much. How wrong we were! Our evening turned into a memorable event, thanks to both the excellent food as well as the theatrical owner, who also turned out to speak excellent English. The meal was designed "to order" together with the owner / waiter, who used the paper tablecloth to write down various suggestions, making up "our" menu as he went. While this sounds potentially tacky, it was all great fun. Red wine came by the bottle-on-the table and pay-for-how-much-you-drink method, which personally I think all restaurants should propose, since I can never finish a whole bottle (although I have been known to come close on occasion). The food, cooked by Mama, is genuine, simple, generously portioned, and delicious.

One of the nights we are in Jimena we make a pilgrimage visit to the El Anon restaurant. It's a pilgrimage of sorts since this place is an institution that's been there even longer than we have been coming to Jimena, which I realise is almost 30 years now. Is it really that long? El Anon is still essentially the same as it has been for all that time and it's nice to come back to something reliable and known. There's quite a large selection on the menu with an eclectic mix of local foods with a few British influenced dishes - just like it always has been.

On the way back to France, we stop in Cáceres and stay at the Hotel Iberia. This place is a little quirky, but it has an excellent location just off the Plaza Major. It's a charming old building, clean and tidy. We have a good-sized room and there's friendly and helpful staff. Parking at a special price at a nearby parking station. Furnished with attention to detail. Cáceres is a medieval walled city and it's a pity we're on a quick road trip back and we're only stopping for a night. Still, we spend a little time wandering through the cobbled streets getting a feel for the place. The Iglesia Concatedral de Santa María is fascinating, not least for the square bell tower (with wonderful stone spiral staircase) which you can climb all the way to the bells - and stay there while they toll (fingers in the ears is good strategy at that point). Great views over the old town from here.

Then we're in Salamanca and staying at the Hotel Toboso. It's a good location, right in the old town - which is always nice for discovering the old areas, but not so nice if you're arriving by car, since often - such as here - you cannot reach the hotel by car.  The receptionist is very friendly and helpful; he's chatty and I guess that might be because he's glad to have someone to talk to; are we the only guests I wonder? The reception area is a bit grim and there's nobody to be seen. Salamanca is a university town and is a lovely colour as a result of the local stone used for most of the old construction. There's also the unique feature of having two cathedrals; the old cathedral and the new cathedral. These two buildings actually join at one point and are most definitely worth visiting. "Old" and "new" are of course relative concepts; even the "new" cathedral dates from the 16th century. The new cathedral has a gorgeously decorated (on the inside) dome and there's a clever mirror set up directly underneath it so you can look up without having to look up. In the morning we head for the "best churros in Salamanca" - a little hole-in-the-wall place which serves up what are indeed very delicious churros (con chocolate, of course). There's a guy making them in front of us, by the hundreds. He's clearly making orders for surrounding restaurants and large packages of churros are regularly picked up and taken away. We are glad for our chatty hotel receptionist, who let us in on this little gem.

Our last stop in Spain before re-entering France is Vitoria. Here we stay at the Hotel Dato which is most definitely deserving of the label "quirky". Outside, on the footpath there's a large bronze statue (chained to the door, presumably bronze statues - even almost life-sized ones - are popular souvenir items in Vitoria). There's no elevator and our room is on the fourth (top) floor (seems to be a theme for our entire trip). The walls in the hotel public areas are pretty much  all covered in mirrors and everywhere you look there are brass, marble, and bronze statues. I have to wonder what this establishment was in its previous life? Our room in in the attic and is small, as is the bed. Dinner that night is at the Restaurant Dolomiti, which turns out to be a very good Italian restaurant. To complete the non-Spanish picture, the waiter turns out to be English. The home-made desserts are seriously good. After a couple of weeks in Spain it's good to have a change from tapas....

Back in France and it's time to re-visit St Emilion, which I last visited in what seems like another life, when I was working in Africa (the eighties again). A lovely town in what is, of course, a key region for red wine lovers: Bordeaux is emblematic of red wines in many ways (of course, this is not to say that there are not many other regions making very good red wine!!) But, if you're in that neck of the woods so to speak, it would be a shame not to stop in St. Emilion. We stay are a B&B just out of town and are greeted in a fairly odd way on arrival - it's a bit like "what are you doing here?" although no quite. Luckily, things do get better and the room - and the breakfast next morning - is very good. Dinner is at L'Envers du Decor, which is definitely a good choice: simple, great wines (of course!) and good authentic food.

Lakes Entrance, New South Wales, Australia

25 March 2015

Watching birds at bird feeder. Interesting hierarchy. The Rainbow Lorikeets and Rosellas argue amongst themselves for the prime spot. The magpies, which are much larger, have to content themselves with whatever falls on the ground. Each time they attempt to get seed directly from the feeder the Lorikeets drive them away. The wild pigeons stand on the sidelines watching. When the Lorikeets leave, the Magpies take over the feeder and chase the pigeons away.

The sunset is filtering through the gums trees as I sit on a veranda overlooking the bush, glass of red wine in hand. The local cat is much too old to even think about chasing the birds, who clearly know that he isn't going to cause them any harm. In fact it's more like they are taunting him. The cat contents himself with brushing up to my legs and trying to find a way up on my lap. There are definitely worse ways to spend an evening.

Another series of strange beds

For the French part of my bicycle trip (on the Camino de Santiago), I've been staying in places found on Airbnb. It's a bit of an experiment. My only experience with Airbnb so far has been two places in Australia, and both were positive experiences, in each case essentially like a good B&B. As I have written earlier, on this trip I've decided to book my accommodation ahead, something I hadn't done before. Initially I'd planned to stay at hostels, but these are, interestingly, few and far between in France. I don't travel with a tent (although I have a sleeping bag just in case) and hotels are boring, expensive and don't lend themselves to meeting people. "Real" Bed and Breakfasts (Chambres d'Hôtes in France) have become ridiculously expensive and in reality virtually boutique hotels, having lost the sense of staying at someone's house and becoming more and more anonymous. So I'm experimenting with Airbnb hoping to find a more authentic bed and breakfast experience.

My first one in France is run by a gay couple. It's a large house that dates from the fifties perhaps. It's been renovated in a fashion; Fake wooden flooring roughly cut and placed on top of the tiled floor so you can still see the tiling around the edges and around the toilet type of fashion. The couple is super friendly although one is clearly the boss in the house and he thinks a little too much of himself I think. They have invited a couple of friends over for the evening and we have dinner together. It's a very male gathering tonight and we are five boys for dinner (two couples and me). It's all cider and beer in this part of France and the cider is local and very good. The beer is Belgian. Not a bottle of red wine in sight. My room is large with a nice view into the garden, which also contains the swimming pool featured in the description of the place. The description hadn't mentioned the fact that the pool was empty and to all intents and purposes derelict.

I'm surprised to find a waterproof sheet on the mattress which reminds me of the youth hostel's plastic mattresses. It makes for a sweaty night's sleep. Breakfast is French, meaning coffee and yesterday's baguette cut into pieces and toasted. There's a young Labrador which is way too friendly and won't stay away. Later in the evening the guy smokes in the room (it's his house of course but you'd think that nowadays this would not be done when you have guests.)  During our pre-dinner conversion the conversion is inevitably about my bike ride. The youngest, a very sweet slim young lad, pipes up: "mais ça fait mal aux fesses" - 'but that gives you a sore bum'. What he says and the way he says it just crack me up; he's a caraciture. Is it bad of me to think this, I think to myself?

Next night and another Airbnb, this one is very different. Run by a rather alternative couple who have several medium and long term tenants as well as at least one room for people like me who are passing through. Unusually there's no breakfast included but when I come back from dinner there's a brioche in a bag and a cup with some teabags left out for me to have next morning. The woman later explains she realised I'd need something before going on my ride; it's a nice gesture. There's an over-friendly dog but he's reasonably well behaved. When I ask for dinner recommendations they seem surprisingly unprepared; you'd think that if you have guests every night you'd expect them to need to go and eat somewhere. Perhaps they are used to the longer-term guests who cook their own meals. But a bit later I find a photocopied list of restaurants with a couple of hand written notes. Another nice gesture. The room is simple and I have to make my own bed. The bathroom is a conversion of part of the upstairs landing, so is small and a bit rickety (it's a very old house) but everything works and the place has a certain charm. In the dining area the walls at covered in pictures and articles from magazines and papers, some of it fascinating. There's one photograph that catches my eye: a naked couple walking down the street. They are both well built. The woman is walking is front leading the man by his penis, like a dog on a leash. There's a story there. The next morning the couple comes out to say goodbye and wave me of on my journey. They are gentle caring people with an good sense of humour.

Third night, again Airbnb. My room is exactly like it was in the picture on the website, which is to say not particularly welcoming. But the whole house is like that. I feel like I'm in a shared student hovel. In the bathroom there's multiple collections of toiletries everywhere. The owner is Indian and the house looks Indian and is very cluttered and messy. There's a lot of stainless steel cookware and little dishes. In the bathroom there are four such dishes, each with someone's soap in them.

The house is full of furniture that looks a bit like it was taken from charity shops or bought at garage sales, which I'm guessing it probably was. Many of the doors and drawers appear to be left open, it looks a bit like someone's been rummaging around everywhere looking for something they misplaced, and in their frustration just left everything open.

The address the house is in a quiet street in a quiet area but it's otherwise totally without charm or character. It's an area I would never normally have come to, so in that sense it's a good experience because I'm discovering something new. Which is one of the reasons I'm making this trip of course; to expose myself to different things.

In Paris I am lucky to be able to stay with a friend at her apartment. What a difference it makes to be able to spend a night with her and her family, who I have not met properly before. They are gracious and welcoming hosts and it's nice to chat about "old times". In the morning she makes me a picnic lunch for the day's ride which is a lovely gesture.

My next stop is a 'Room in a large house in the country'  according to the description and the picture looks impressive. I'm arriving before my host comes home, but she's generously offered to leave the key to the house out for me (hidden away, with a series of clues to find it). I love the fact that such trust still exists and feel somehow honoured to be considered worthy of it. The house is just as impressive as it was in the pictures. When my host comes home we have a drink and there's open and easy conversion. Dinner is shared with her and another guest who is staying long term. The house is a renovation work in progress, and I admire the tenacity the couple shows to continue working on it, even though  they both work and the husband works in Versailles, which is a very long commute. There are children's books everywhere, but no children. The garden and surrounding forests are full of the sound of frogs and birds. I am woken next morning by a real cuckoo, not a clock, which is just lovely.

I am cycling along a street in Orléans looking for the address of the place I'm staying at for the night; it turns out to be a group of large older social housing apartments; HLM as this type of accommodation is known in France. Another new experience, I've never been inside one of those. This is going to be interesting. On the way up to the apartment, which is on an upper floor, we meet several other tenants, who clearly know each other and my host chats with them. It's a like a little village and although it's obviously not well off, there's a spirit of community.

My host is an artist and somewhat alternative in her ways and very left in her politics. She's someone who has hitch-hiked around France when she was 17 to attend anti-nuclear protests and self-converted an old work van into a camping car, and then lived in it for several years. She has slept on the beach, buys only 'Bio' food products (but shops at Carrefour, a major supermarket chain) and uses goats milk because it's supposed to have less pollutants in it than cows milk. When she came into a little money, rather than buy a house she bought an empty block of land on the river where she can go camping. But we have art in common (she a lot more than me of course) and we have some interesting discussions about art of the Renaissance and later periods. I learn that the Château de Chantilly has a very impressive collection of mostly Italian art, second only to the Louvre according to my host.

My room is exactly like it is in the picture on the website, which is to say charming and welcoming, which I think I can say about the whole apartment as well as the host. It's a great experience to recalibrate what are at times preconceived ideas.

Blois. Here I am in an older (38 years old, not really so old by French standards) house in suburb, in somewhat down-market area. My host is an 80-year old widow. She has 5 children and 11 grandchildren and a cat. Only the cat still lives at home. Although we converse in French, it turns out she speaks pretty good English, which she learned after the war when she worked at an American military base in France. I ask her how she finds having guests, and she mentions that it was her daughter's idea (just like the host in Orléans in fact) because she needs the money to supplement her pension; since her husband (who was in the military) died, her pension has halved. We talk about her experiences with previous guests, Chinese, Korean, several Australians and an Italian American girl with quite a story who obviously made an impression. I suppose I'll be added to the list for discussion with next next arrival.

She shows me the room (which has a couple of glasses and bottles of water), bathroom, toilet and even has the WiFi code written on a piece of paper. The room looks and feels a bit like it used to be the master bedroom and there's photographs of her husband in uniform. She seems pretty well prepared. But when I ask for restaurant guidance she's can't help much (she clearly doesn't go out to dinner.) However she does take the phone book "goodness, there's a lot of restaurants in Blois" and finds the number of a relatively nearby place which she calls for me to check if they are open. I am touched by her efforts to look after me.

My final night on the journey is yet another place found through Airbnb. And it's another female artist. The house is an old city house, typical of Tours. Except it's absolutely full of artworks in various stages of completion; leaning against the walls, stacked in a corner, and so forth. My room is under the roof space and has a nice feel about it, even if it's a little cramped. Just as well I'm not that tall. This host is very well organised and has a sheet of instructions and a list of restaurant recommendations laminated in the room. There's also little notes stuck in various places, such as in the bathroom; "These toiletries are my own and are not for your use" and so forth. A little too organised perhaps, but I can understand why she might have felt she had to resort to that. The restaurant recommendation turns out to be very good. Breakfast in the morning is carefully prepared with organic foods and fresh breads and coffee. But she has forgotten the milk and my image of perfect organisation is dented. Of course I am being far too critical as she is really doing her best.

So in the end I am happy with my choices: it has turned out to be a very eclectic mix of places and people, and every one of them has given me an experience I wouldn't have had otherwise. I've been out of my comfort zone a few times and that's just what I have been looking for. Why travel if you only want to see and experience what you already know?

Camino de Santiago reprise - the analysis

Here's a quick review of the engineering and financial aspects of my second Camino de Santiago bicycle trip. Just a reminder: this section started in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and finished in Tours, France. I'll also add the equivalent figures for the first Camino trip, which started in the south of France and apart from that first day was exclusively in Spain.

Arrival in Tours, destination of Camino part 2

These numbers might be helpful if you're planning a similar bicycle trip. Keep in mind that the financial figures reflect my particular choices in food and accommodation (!) and reflect the prices at the time of the trips (2014 and 2015 respectively).

Financial summary:

	Camino part 2	Camino part 1
Food	320 (29/day)	430 (21/day)
Accommodation	317 (29/day)	308 (10.50/day)
Travel	31	247
Other	21	87
Total Cost	689	1,072
Daily Average	58	33

(all figures in Euros, daily averages exclude special days)

As you can see, my second Camino trip (which is, confusingly perhaps, the first part of the Camino journey) cost me almost twice (per day) compared to the first trip. Not really a surprise, since Spain is considerably cheaper than either the Netherlands, Belgium or France. Also, in Spain I stayed almost exclusively in hostels, while in my second trip I stayed in various types of B&Bs. The main reason the first trip total was higher was the fact that it was a week longer, and there's also the train and air fares to get to and from Spain (from France). The daily averages are adjusted to reflect that I stayed a couple of times with friends on the second trip and do not include the French section of the trip (preparation time, really) for the first trip. The totals however reflect all the expenses I made.

The Engineering review

	Camino part 2	Camino part 1
Total number of days	14	18 (including one rest day)
Total distance ridden	1,110 km	1,031 km
Total time on the bike	75.8 hours	66.8 hours
Average speed for the trip	14.7 km/h	15.4 km/h
Average hours ridden	5.4 hours/day	3.9 hours/day
Average distance ridden	79.3 km/day	60.6 km/day
Longest distance ridden in one day	105.7 km	84.5 km (on the first day!)
Shortest distance ridden in one day	49.7 km	34 km (second-last day)
Most hours ridden in one day	7.1 hours	6.2 hours (on the first day!)
Least hours ridden in one day	3.5 hours	2.1 hours (second-last day)
Highest average speed	15.0 km/h	19.1 km/h
Lowest average speed	13.5 km/h	12.4 km/h

In general in the second trip I spent more time per day riding, and rode longer distances. If I was to give any advice based on these numbers, I'd say it would be much better to take a bit more time and slow down (something I also noted on the first trip). My second trip had some total time constraints which meant I couldn't really extend my trip, much as I would have liked to. Interestingly, the average speeds for the two trips are very similar, and in fact the second trip is lower than the first. This is a bit counter-intuitive, since the second trip involved much more flat terrain (and no mountain crossings at all). Maybe I was fitter or more enthusiastic the first time around!

Day 14a: Postscript

This way to the Way

It is only a 33 km trip from Tours (the end point of this stage of the Chemin de Compostelle) to our little village house, which is really my final destination. But I decided that rather than go the direct route, I'd follow a series a small country roads and paths, much like I'd done on the rest of the trip. I justified this to myself by the fact that the direct route is a main through road with fairly heavy traffic, but I knew that somehow I was also deliberately stretching out the final part of my journey. And in any case, the sun was shining and it was a glorious day for a ride. Why not make the most of it?

For most of the ride the prevailing winds have been from the south to south west, meaning I've had headwinds petty much every day. How ironic then, that the day I turn northwards to head home, the winds also change and are now from the north, meaning that even for the final day's ride, I still have headwinds. As the Irish guy I briefly chatted with earlier had said, when we were mutually complaining about the relentless winds: "Going uphill is hard, but at least you know there will be a downhill, there's no respite from headwinds."

Much nicer than the main roads

For some reason today I remembered something that François (from Québec, not Canada) had said, or more likely, quoted: "When you're young, you think with your heart; when you're older you think with your head." (*) It's a pity that for many people it indeed seems that it has to be one or the other; if more people could use both their heart and their head we'd all be better off.

So my heart wanted me to keep riding, but my head made me ride via some shops to buy some groceries so I'd be able to make dinner tonight. No more eating out every night; back to normal life, at least for a while. Of course now I've ridden the first and the last sections of the Camino, the middle part is waiting to be ridden...

Almost home: blue skies and the fields are flowering to celebrate

(*) I tried to trace the origin of this saying with the help of the Interweb. It seems that variations on this saying have been attributed to quite a few people over the years. The earliest appears to be French, from 1875, and attributed to Anselme Polycarpe Batbie : 'Celui qui n'est pas républicain à vingt ans fait douter de la générosité de son âme ; mais celui qui après trente ans, persévère, fait douter de la rectitude de son esprit.' This translates more or less to: "He who is not a republican [liberal] at twenty makes you doubt the generosity of his heart; but he who, after thirty, persists, makes you doubt the soundness of his mind."

Day 13a: Blois to Tours (74km)

In the morning the sun is shining again although I don't initially see much of it because my host has closed the shutters of my room. Opening the windows so I can open the shutters I discover how cold it is out there. Last night we agreed that breakfast would be at 8:30, or rather when she asked me what time I would like breakfast and I suggested 08:00, she agreed it would be at 08:30; I wasn't going to get an 80 year-old up earlier than she wanted to get up, just to make me breakfast, so 08:30 it was. I am up well before then and later hear her pottering around in the kitchen getting things ready. When I turn up in the dining room at the appointed time, the table is laid with a simple but complete (at least the French idea of complete) breakfast. The cat is waiting there for me as well and we have breakfast together (the cat and me).

Château de Blois

At the tourist office I go in for my Camino stamp and the woman apologises that her stamp isn't very nice, but suggests that I go up to the castle where they have a very nice stamp, just for pilgrims. The girl at the castle knows exactly what I need and volunteers that her mother finished the Camino last year. It seems the further south you go, the better known the Camino is.

A nice spot for a morning break

I'm now riding in relatively familiar territory, along the Loire river. Soon I begin passing the troglodyte houses built into the side of the soft limestone cliffs. I still find it amazing how people have created whole houses into the cliff, with chimneys sticking out through the ground above, and what to all intents and purposes looks just like a normal house façade, with windows and doors, built into the cliff face.

Nearing Amboise I make another detour to go into the town itself (the route bypasses Amboise by staying on the north side of the Loire) and suddenly I am in tourist-ville. I'm following an organised tour group of Chinese and they make absolutely no allowance for me; so there's no way for me to pass on the shared cycleway. Then I begin seeing more bikes, many of them obviously Dutch, almost certainly following the Loire valley cycle route, La Loire à Vélo

Lussault - coffee pot fence

The little, somewhat hidden town of Lussault is obviously a bit alternative. There are quite a few rather unorthodox houses; some old and ramshackle, but some brand new and quite different and interesting. There's also some troglodyte houses and one place that's found a novel way of displaying their vast collection of enamel tea and coffee pots by incorporating them all along the top of and in places embedded into, the stone wall along the road. There's also a beautiful brand new section of cycleway, complete with a mini vineyard with rose bushes at the end of the rows of vines.

Seen today on the cycleways: a very large German couple, both with Lycra bums that seemed to completely swallow their saddles (I know they were German because they kindly stopped when I was making some minor running repairs and asked if everything was OK); a pair of somewhat alternative looking girls riding with a lot of luggage - literally luggage: one of them had an old suitcase strapped to the rack on the bike instead of pannier bags; a guy riding an amazingly heavily laden bike, carrying almost everything you could imagine. Perhaps not quite the kitchen sink, but he was carrying not just a spare tyre, but an entire spare wheel! An older French couple, both looking slim and fit, riding matching (racing) bikes and dressed in identical Lycra riding suits; a guy in a singlet (remember that it is a cold day) riding a rather rickety old bike with a large basket on the handlebars containing a dog; a tall guy with a ZZ-Top beard riding a Dutch-looking bike; a young (probably Dutch) couple riding a very unusual tandem - she was sitting in a reclining position right at the front and he was behind, with the handlebars and controls, sitting in a normal position and therefore looking over the top of his partner. I'd seen something very similar in Santiago last year, but that (Dutch) couple had children and was also towing a trailer. And in the streets of Tours, late at night, a guy riding a bike (look Ma, no hands) playing an accordion.

1,000 km so far...

I pass another milestone today: 1,000km. This is longer than I had initially expected the trip to be, but I've taken a few detours and ridden on more little wiggly back roads than I thought I might. Looking back through my notes, this part of the Camino has turned out longer than the Camino Frances I rode last year.

In the early afternoon I ride into Tours, the final destination of this section of the Camino. For the first time on the trip I see Compostela markings on the route. I know the way here,  so don't need my map. I ride to the cathedral and there I am pleased to find that there is a person who can give me my final stamp. She is shut away behind a sliding glass panel in a little cabin inside the cathedral and she makes it obvious that I'm interrupting her reading. She seems to cheer up a little when I speak French, but she makes no effort whatsoever to help me celebrate the occasion of my having just competed the first major section of the Way to Santiago. To her I'm just an interruption.

I feel the same strange contradictory feelings of just having accomplished something significant while at the same time having a sense of anti-climax that I felt arriving at the final destination in Santiago last year.

So tomorrow I will keep on riding.

Tours Cathedral