Loire à Vélo - day 4

When I leave my room in the morning to go down to breakfast I notice that the room opposite mine is open and of course I can't help but look through the open door. It's a complete mess; clothes all over the floor, stuff scattered everywhere. At first it doesn't make sense (what sort of guest could do that to a room?), but then the penny drops: this must be the owner's teenage daughter's room. Teenagers all over the world clearly follow the same rules of housekeeping: maximum entropy - the floor is the best place to keep your stuff.

Over breakfast - homemade cakes, bread, jams (4 types) I chat with the owner. She's only recently started the B&B and is doing everything (cooking, cleaning, gardening, repairing...) by herself. On top of that she's running a cake decorating and catering business and she shows me some of her creations; chocolate artworks, vegetable platters that are sculptures, and so on. Maybe not all to my taste, but I am seriously impressed by how much she achieves, and all self-taught. No wonder she says she doesn't have enough hours in the day to do all her projects!

I'm riding along into a relatively strong wind when my olfactory senses are hit with the smell of a farm where, quite literally, the shit has hit the fan. Like most farm machinery, the fertiliser machine is impressive to see in action: imagine a large container of chicken shit, add an enormous fan, then connect both to a tractor that pumps the shit through the fan as it tows the machine behind. You get the idea. I cycle on, getting the full impact of the freshly fertilised field since I'm downwind from it. As I ride past the entrance to the property, the irony of the farm's name is impressive: "Bel Air" announces the signboard. Clearly whoever thought of the name 'beautiful air' for this place didn't do it in fertilising season.

At Ingrandes Sur Loire I spot a sign advertising the Hotel Restaurant 'Le Poisson d' Argent'. The joys of languages: let's hope they don't think of opening another restaurant of the same name in an English speaking country: I doubt that the 'Silverfish hotel restaurant' would get a lot of customers, at least not based on the name! Images of silverfish crawling out of the menu, or perhaps from under the bed-sheets come to mind.

The bridge at Ancenis - bikes on the footpath

At Ancenis there's an imposing suspension bridge to cross. According to one guide I've read, there's even a dedicated bike bridge, but when I get there it is a case of riding on the footpath to allow the trucks to squeeze past; there's no sign of any bike bridge. Perhaps the guide was written based on the plans for a bike bridge that hasn't been built yet? It's a bit like the street directory we once used in Kuala Lumpur; it showed streets that hasn't actually been constructed yet, something we only discovered the hard way by finding ourselves looking at the middle of an empty field instead of the road we'd planned to continue driving on.

Saved by the sign

It's coffee and patisserie du jour time, so I look for the local boulangerie-patisserie but the more I look around the more disheartened I get. This is a pretty dire sort of town: dry and dusty, lots of closed shops and several rather seedy looking bars. The fact that the town centre is essentially a construction zone doesn't help the impression. I ride out of the centre into the residential streets until I spot a sign to a boulangerie. Saved! There's no coffee though and I ride back to the Loire and have my apple tart with a nice view (but no coffee).

Later on, the route approaches the railway line and then a little further on turns to run parallel to it. The railway tracks are right next to the path and quite a bit higher so the trains rush by seemingly overhead. The way ahead is partially barricaded, with a small gap to allow walkers and riders to pass. But first there's a large sign full of fine print to digest. Unusually, it's in English as well as French and it states: "This path is on the property of the French government and has been developed to provide maintenance access for French railway employees who are to be given priority at all times. The path is subject to flooding, irregular surfaces, land slips, and unforeseen train derailments and the French government declines all responsibility for any accidents or delays that may occur." Or words to that effect. You're never far from the long arm of compensation lawyers.

The castle at Oudon

At Oudon, an attractive little place with an imposing castle right in the middle of the main road, there a nice-looking café with a shady outside area near the bridge over the river. I stop for my coffee and go inside to order. Like the nice place yesterday, it's run by two young guys who are probably a couple. The place has a pleasant, homely feeling about it, unlike most French bars which are pretty grim places to drink and place bets on the horses, but not places you'd actually want to spend much time in. The coffee, however, is still terrible. So hot it burns on first taste, all life has been burnt from the milk, it is flat, bitter and altogether rather sad, but not unexpected. Next to me there's a table with three local workers who are having their midday lunch break. Between them they've had a bottle of wine and four beers and they're discussing whether they have time for one more beer. I'm glad they're not doing the construction work on my house this afternoon!

It's turned out to be a rather hard day's cycling with almost the whole way being into the blustery wind. It reminds me of Holland; nice and flat so you expect an easy ride and then having a headwind that completely ruins the whole experience. At times I'm down to a low gear and making only 14 km/h. The last part into Nantes however is quite pleasant along a smooth path under the shade of trees (and somewhat sheltered from the wind). But it's through a pretty dodgy area, the sort where at regular intervals the asphalt has been melted from where a car has been torched. I pedal on and do not stop.

Nantes - Quai Ceineray

Now I'm in Nantes, I've checked in and done my laundry and I'm sitting by the water at the Quai Ceineray. Next to me is a guy playing jazz guitar accompanied by another guy on double bass. They are good. There's a pop up bar set up nearby serving drinks and there's lots of people sitting around on ad-hoc seats and platforms enjoying the evening. Many seem also to have brought their own drinks or snacks. It's a nice atmosphere; casual, relaxed and friendly. The swans are also joining in. First impressions of Nantes (at least after the dodgy area entry)  are good. My hotel is on a main street which seems to be a textbook example of good public transport management: in the middle of the street is a wide bike lane, on one side of the street there's a bus corridor And on the other side there's a tramway. And there's even two lanes left for the cars (it's a wide street). There are a lot of people riding bikes and there's a system of (free?) bikes available.

After sitting at the water's edge, listening to jazz guitar for a while, I finally get up to leave: it's time to find dinner.

There's a restaurant right near my hotel which is very highly rated on TripAdvisor. It's looks reasonable and I'm hungry. Although it's early and the restaurant has only just opened, there's already several tables occupied, which is not a bad sign. I go in and the waiter says "Table for three?" Of the many things he could have said, this is not what I expected and I have to regroup briefly before I reply. After all, I am traveling alone and there are no other people anywhere near me. Where did three come from? He realises his mistake (perhaps he had a booking for three at this time?) and I am shown a nice little table in the corner next to the window: a perfect strategic position from where I can observe all the other diners, both inside and outside.

Amuses Bouches, nice local wine - the start of a nice dinner

The table near me has three Dutch people, including a rather wild-haired guy who looks like a caricature of a university professor. I'm impressed that there are real people who actually look like that. Outside there's a table of four, all seriously smoking: one of the big disadvantages of the relatively recent no-smoking laws for restaurants is that outside dining areas have essentially become  smoking zones. And given the laws of physics as they apply to smoking; as a non smoker you will always be downwind from a smoker, so outside areas are now not very appealing for non-smokers.

The waiter is outside and intercepts a group of four young Chinese, proposing them a table outside. They opt for inside, and become my neighbours for the evening. This will be interesting. The waiter arrives to take the order of my Chinese neighbours. I have to give him credit for his patience, there is a lot of discussion and negotiation about the menu; one girl only wants a dessert, which to his credit the waiter deals with admirably. He suggests continuing in English (which he used with some success with the Dutch group) but the Chinese are not to be deflected from their attempts at French (which, to be fair, is not actually that bad). The lamb is ordered and the waiter suggests 'pink', which is the standard doneness for lamb in France. "Rare" the Chinese guy replies, to which the waiter replies, firmly, "no, lamb is pink, not rare". A very French response. Negotiations are finally completed and the waiter leaves. The Chinese subsequently have a long discussion, presumably about the order (I catch a few French food words in amongst the Mandarin). The food arrives at my neighbours' table and smartphones appear to record the dishes for later uploading to Facebook or its Chinese equivalent (since Facebook is blocked in China).

It's still relatively early and at least four of the tables are occupied by tourists - a consequence of a high TripAdvisor ranking I suppose: non-locals are going to be attracted to the restaurants with high TripAdvisor rankings (as I was). Good for the restaurant since they can manage two sittings an evening: the early sitting for the tourists and  the later one for the locals. Much better than a single sitting which the locals alone would generate. It's the American multiple bums-on-seats concept without the pressure on the customers to leave straight after they eat; this way it happens automatically and nobody feels like they have to leave against their will (as you sometimes do in the USA).

The first locals start arriving, including a young couple amoureux. They are holding hands across the table and looking longingly into each other's eyes. It's lovely to see and they are oblivious of everything around them. When the food arrives they feed each other little tastes of their dishes. Very sweet. Speaking of sweet, the Chinese girl next to me is now eating her dessert while her the companions are having their lamb. And the waiter takes it all in his stride.

Just before I leave, the young amorous couple get up to leave. "Can we thank the chef?" they ask the waiter. What a lovely idea and the chef is suitably impressed by the attention. The waiter announces to the kitchen that a group of eleven are arriving and the restaurant moves to the second sitting (the locals are now arriving in force).

Distance today: 70 km, 4.5 hours riding