* * *
* Pardon my French but… 'the dog's bollocks'.(BACK)
THE ELEVENTH DEGREE
46°–47° NORTH
6–9 May
I was back on the Vélodyssée for the last time, picking up the route by accident a few kilometres north of Rochefort. It hugged the coastline like never before, often vying for position with the regional train line to La Rochelle. I was cycling almost as much to the west as I was to the north and, due to a strong breeze blowing onshore, the effort required to make progress was a step up from anything that I had become accustomed to since arriving in France.
Helpful signposts loitered on most street corners as the route of the Vélodyssée turned left and right at every opportunity, navigating the higgledy-piggledy layout of small houses crammed close to the sea wall. It was a fun, if at times confusing, cycle but after only a few hours I began to see La Rochelle in the distance. On land were the town's distinctive medieval harbour towers. On the sea was what must surely be one of Europe's largest marinas, with dozens of horizontal floating piers and hundreds – probably thousands – of vertical yacht masts twitching from side to side as the boats bobbed in the water.
It was only 3 o'clock in the afternoon; I had arranged accommodation via WarmShowers and agreed to meet my host, Chris, at 9 p.m. I hadn't envisaged arriving in La Rochelle so early in the day and now had six hours to fill with meaningful activity. I had plenty of experience keeping myself busy for much longer periods of time when taking a day off for example. But on those occasions I could wander aimlessly – flâner in French – without a bicycle, four pannier bags and a tent. My ability to flâne in La Rochelle would be severely curtailed by my two-wheeled friend and all my luggage.
I needed to find activities that would involve leaning Reggie against a wall and sitting in one place for a long period of time. First up was a small outdoor jazz concert taking place next to one of the old towers. I was happy tapping my feet to the music until lack of movement in the rest of my body began to get the better of me and I started to feel the cold. Later, perhaps inevitably, I found a quiet backstreet bar, ordered a glass of wine and started to read the local paper from cover to cover.
Three stories dominated the front page: 330 jobs being lost at a car component factory, the progress of the good ship Hermione on her tour of the eastern United States and a large picture of a rather gaunt-looking David Cameron under the headline 'Vote crucial pour l'Europe'.
The British general election of May 2015 was about to take place, and the question of the United Kingdom remaining in the European Union was being mulled over by the columnists in the newspaper and by me in the bar. Here I was, benefiting from a united and peaceful Europe. The European Union was by no means perfect – few people had ever argued that it was – but whatever faults could be found in the European institutions of the twenty-first century, they were surely incomparable to the fault lines that had fractured Europe in the first half of the twentieth century, as I'd recently been reminded when learning of the senseless killing of hundreds of civilians in Royan. That wasn't ancient history. Was it worth the risk if, taking a lead from a British exit, the Continent again became fragmented and factionalised? Over the next few days, I would have one eye on the road and one eye on the political comings and goings back home.
As 9 p.m. and my rendezvous with Chris were approaching, I retraced my steps back to the marina, having agreed to meet him at the end of pier 41. I felt a little uneasy hanging around a port – even one as civilised as this – at dusk, waiting to meet a complete stranger. Chris arrived, on an engineless scooter, just after 9 o'clock. He shared a flat in one of the nearby modern housing blocks with his girlfriend, Audrey. Both were scientists. His specialism was digital animation and he was a researcher at the university, while she worked in a water quality laboratory. With computer gadgetry taking up much of the living room, a large fish tank on the dining table, and science-themed books and magazines filling most of the gaps, there was something of The Big Bang Theory in their flat that night, and Chris' resemblance to the main character of the hit American comedy series only added to the slightly surreal atmosphere.
By the time I woke, Audrey had already left for work but I shared coffee and croissants with Chris at a café a short scoot from the flat.
'Have you ever seen The Big Bang Theory?' I asked.
'No, I don't think so…' replied Chris.
I left it at that, to avoid digging myself a grave out of which I might find it difficult to climb in French.
Before leaving La Rochelle, I popped into the tourist office. Rumour had it (well, someone had told me on Facebook) that a new cycle path was about to open, linking La Rochelle with the northern coast of France on a route that crossed the Loire at Saumur. This was my next medium-term destination, as it was where I could hook up with the EuroVelo 6. It was this kind of cycling serendipity which made me feel proud that I hadn't wasted too much time at the pre-trip planning stage.
Initially, the young woman in the office de tourisme looked perplexed. She glanced over her shoulder to an older woman who was hovering behind her. The older woman whispered something in her ear.
'He's English. You'll get used to it,' she probably said but, whatever it was, it prompted the younger woman to stand up and announce: 'Un instant.'
A few instants later she returned and I was presented with a hot-off-the-press brochure for La Vélo Francette. She went on to explain that the route hadn't yet officially opened – that was due to happen in early June – but that everything, including the brochure and the signage, was in place.
I was reminded of the moment many years ago when, during a period living in France, I went to my bank to sign up for the fledgling internet banking service. It was explained that I was the first person to express an interest.
'Ah! Je suis un cochon d'Inde!' I exclaimed – I'm a guinea pig!
The woman dealing with me looked up with a confused expression on her face.
'Ah oui? C'est intéressant…'
The appropriate expression should have been 'Je suis un cobaye', un cobaye also translating as guinea pig. Perhaps the woman in the bank worked all this out as I was standing in front of her. Or perhaps she was experiencing the same level of bewilderment as a cashier in NatWest who had just been informed by a customer that he was a hamster ('Security!').
'Merci. C'est très utile,' I responded to the women at the tourist office, avoiding any mention of rodents.
I went outside to examine the brochure. La Vélo Francette was a godsend: 600 km of signed cycling of which I would be following the first 250 km from La Rochelle to Saumur via Niort, Parthenay and Thouars.
Although not yet hot, the sun was shining brightly in a sky of only sporadic high clouds. I reached for my sunglasses and… one of the lenses had a large crack in a corner. They had been the third pair since setting off from Tarifa. In hope of more sunny days to come, I detoured to the La Rochelle branch of Decathlon, where I managed to ignore the mass of advice and multitude of options available and plumped for a pair that looked good.
My new sunglasses gave everything an Instagram tint that made the greens even greener and the blues ever bluer. This being spring in an already very green and pretty corner of France, under a bright blue sky, it was almost too much to take in, but I wasn't complaining as I headed east in the direction of Niort. Much of the cycling was along the towpaths of canals and rough tracks, as directed by the signs of La Vélo Francette. It made for a bumpy but traffic-free ride and the advantages of the latter more than compensated for the inconveniences of the former.
On a macro level, the terrain was as flat as a boy band singing live, but I refrained from bursting into song myself as I trundled from one picturesque village to the next. This was a part of France that I had never previously considered, let alone visited, and it was rather nice. I was cycling through the Marais Poitevin, an area where the marshes had been drained in the seventeenth century by forward-thinking Dutch engineers
. Forward-thinking because, whatever their motives at the time, it had provided me and all the other Thursday afternoon tourists with somewhere very nice to do what we were doing.
It was turning into an almost perfect day. Yes, Reggie was still making that annoying noise but after 85 km of cycling I arrived in Niort and booked into the Hôtel Particulier La Chamoiserie. We would call it boutique. The owners called it cosy-chic. With its modest prices, I couldn't understand why I was the only customer. Of the 16 rooms, just one was occupied, by me. I was a prince in his palace. There was no waiting to be endured and no issue finding somewhere to store the bike – indeed, no problem that couldn't be addressed immediately and to my full satisfaction.
After a meal on the edges of a vast square in the centre of Niort, I returned to my palace to follow events back in Britain via the satellite TV in my room. David Dimbleby was sitting in his usual place, looking no different to how he has looked for most of my adult life. His thick mane of white hair gave him a level of dignified gravitas of which the likes of me could only dream.
At 11 p.m. French time, the exit poll was announced and it appeared at the bottom of the screen below the unflappable Dimbleby:
CONSERVATIVES LARGEST PARTY
CON +9 LAB -19 SNP +52 LD -47
I had been hoping for a rather boring status quo. Consensus politics; agreement and compromise seemed the way forward. It might not have been as exciting as a landslide but at the risk of sounding like a wishy-washy liberal, the coalition appeared to be working well and had prevented the real political nutters from imposing their agendas. Perhaps that's why I was also such a fan of the European Union: countries trying to get along with each other in a complicated, difficult world and, on the whole, succeeding.
As Mr Dimbleby, his colleagues and their guests spent the next few hours discussing a result that was already clear-cut, I fell asleep on my comfortable cosy-chic bed.
I descended for breakfast at around 8.30 a.m., the only person to whom breakfast needed to be served. I felt embarrassed to the point of apologising for the fact that the chap attending to my every need had had to drag himself out of bed and get dressed. He had certainly kept himself busy, however, as before me was a large feast: toast (brown and white), butter, jam, marmalade, cheese (three varieties), ham, pickle, muesli, corn flakes, milk, tea (several options), coffee… Everything was laid out on a small table beside the one at which I was sitting. This wasn't a buffet; it was all for me. At least the amounts were modest – except, that is, for hardboiled eggs, of which there were five. Five. I feel obliged to write the number twice to avoid ambiguity. Cinq. I peeled one of them and ate it. The other four (four) were left for lunchtime egg mayonnaise… But for whom?
Much of cycling days 28 and 29 was run-of-the-mill stuff, certainly when compared to number 27. My aim was to arrive in Saumur on Saturday sufficiently early in the afternoon to be in with a chance of having Reggie's noise investigated properly. According to its website, if I were to follow the exact route of La Vélo Francette, I would need to cycle 166 km. Having only had a few hours' sleep, however, I wanted a short Friday cycle followed by a long Saturday one. I located a campsite at a place called Parthenay – 40 km from Niort – and decided to aim for that. I reckoned that by cutting out a few of the meanders of La Vélo Francette and opting for the roads instead, I might be able to shave off a good 10 or 20 km. It seemed like a good plan.
What wasn't part of the plan was the weather. In depressing contrast with that of the previous day, it was cold, blustery and wet. I had no desire to cycle along muddy tracks so I opted for the D743 – one of those long and uncompromisingly straight secondary roads that criss-cross France – all the way from Niort to Parthenay. The rain never stopped but fortunately it was another bank holiday in France so there were no HGVs on the roads, just lots of cars. I pulled the hood of my raincoat over my helmet and cycled until, after about three hours, I arrived at my destination.
Perhaps on a sunny summer's day, Parthenay shone. But it wasn't shining on Friday 8 May. A quick cycle around the town centre had me fleeing to the campsite – Camping du Bois Vert – where, by the time I arrived, the rain had finally stopped falling. I erected the tent, gave it half an hour to dry out, inflated my camping mat and snoozed for most of what remained of the afternoon.
The short day of cycling had, for the first time since my stay with Juan in western Spain, pushed my daily average to below 75 km. It now stood at 74.4 km. This was only a difference of some 0.6 of a kilometre but the more days I cycled, the more difficult it would be to close the gap. If I wanted to be in with a chance of cycling the estimated 7,500 km in 100 days or fewer, I couldn't afford to have too many more lazy sleep-in-a-tent-all-afternoon days. From now on I needed to be hitting not just 75 km per day, but well in excess of 75 km per day.
THE TWELFTH DEGREE
47°–48° NORTH
9–15 May
Upon arrival in Saumur in 1993 as an employee of Eurocamp, I discovered a delightful, quintessentially Loire Valley town complete with fairy tale castle, medieval squares and lots of sparkling wine. I also discovered a great municipal campsite on an island in the middle of the Loire where I worked during that long, hot summer season. Twenty years later, the town had barely changed, or so it seemed. Camping l'Île d'Offard, on the other hand, had changed significantly. It had been privatised and therefore was no longer run by the local council. Gone were the open-air swimming pool ('condamnée' according to the receptionist), the shop run by friendly Jean-Claude and the incomparable views of the château. That's not quite true. The view was still there, but you had to be staying for more than one night to be allowed to camp on the hallowed part of the site from where you could appreciate it. I was allocated a pitch on the other side of the island with a less-than-majestic view of a green metal fence and some bushes.
But enough reminiscing; I had a bike to mend. With most of what I was carrying deposited at the campsite, I cycled into town to locate VéloSpot, a bike shop that I had found earlier online.
'J'ai quelques problèmes avec… le... bottom bracket?' I explained to Patrice, the owner of the shop, struggling with my bike-related vocabulary. Of more use to Patrice was my finger, which was pointing at le bottom bracket.
'Le jeu de pédalier?' he suggested.
'Oui, c'est ça!'
'Oui, je peux le changer,' he replied.
'Et le… stand? Je ne sais pas comment dire "stand" en français,' I admitted.
As for 'le bit of plastic that holds the CatEye computer to the frame', I didn't even attempt its French translation and just let my finger do the talking.
Up close, Saumur wasn't looking quite as good as it had done from the other side of the river. The rose-tinted sunglasses of time could play cruel tricks on the mind and the years of growing up from being a twenty-something casual campsite worker to being a forty-something middle-aged grump had me noticing every crumbling pavement, every piece of discarded litter and every abandoned shop. The Trianon restaurant – my favourite – had closed and the bar where we used to challenge the locals at pool on the Place Saint-Pierre was now a busy upmarket bistro. The rest of the square was filled with trendy bright young things creating memories that they would one day look back upon and cherish unjustifiably.
I picked up Reggie late in the afternoon and cycled him back to the campsite, praying that the clicking had disappeared. The journey was short and he was unladen. Everything seemed to be OK. I dined, alone, on a baguette, some cheese and a bottle of wine, next to the fence and the bushes. I had been looking forward so much to this portion of the trip but so far it had turned me into a melancholic reminiscer of days that were probably nowhere near as good as I remembered them. Was this the shape of things to come over the next week or so, as I made my way along the familiar Loire Valley towards Paris?
In the morning, my mood remained low. Upon being served a croissant in a local boulangerie by a woman who gave every impression of having just lost her entire family in a plan
e crash, I didn't hold back: 'S'il vous plaît, madame; soyez polie avec vos clients!'
I was impressed with my use of the imperative as I admonished her for her attitude; the customer behind me was impressed with my courage in saying what I did (he smiled, discreetly) but the recipient of my words was not impressed. She glared at me and remained silent but I could read her mind, which was shouting, 'Get out!'
I needed to relax, chat to someone and smile. Fortunately, I had arranged to meet Lynne from the cycling website FreewheelingFrance.com. Lynne, an Australian by birth, was now based near Bordeaux and we had only ever communicated online, so it was good to put a face to a name. She happened to be in Saumur because she was also cycling La Vélo Francette with a friend in anticipation of its official inauguration the following month. Over coffee and a croissant we chewed the fat of being on the road: the highs, the lows, the miserable bastards who ran local boulangeries... Her positive Aussie spin on life shamed me. What did I have to complain about? I was on a cycling odyssey across a continent, travelling through gorgeous landscapes, visiting beautiful villages, towns and cities, and meeting people who were almost always charming, helpful and polite. I didn't have much to complain about at all.
Spain to Norway on a Bike Called Reggie Page 9