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?