April 25, 2011

At last we cycle through the tranquil landscape I had envisaged – pleasant rural scenery of Hawthorn hedges and ditches full of Cow Parsley.  The area is agricultural fenland – with drainage ditches at regular intervals.  The villages are very pretty and extremely quiet – no shops or café or bars to be seen.  When we come to the larger towns not a single thing is open – not a shop, bar, garage – nothing. 

Our supplies are running low and we run into the old problem of not being able to find anywhere to stay for the night.  We start looking at 5.30pm but 2 hours later we still haven’t found anywhere.  I ask a lady on the street of a sizeable town if she knows of anywhere for us to stay.  She promptly bustles us off into her house, where she goes onto the internet and telephones around until she finds a hotel in a town 12 km away.  She then insists on driving in her car in front of us whilst we cycle there to make sure we get there all right.  It is like doing a stage on the Tour de France with the team car in front.

A quick shower later and we hit the town for a well-earned meal.  We only find one restaurant open and the owner tells us that it is too late to eat – it is 9.00pm. OK I know this is not Spain, where 9.00pm is too early to eat, but after nearly a week in France, I am still struggling with their strange eating hours.  The cafés and bars serve lunch from noon until 1.00pm (I’m still digesting breakfast at this time of the day) and many of the restaurants only open at lunch-time.  Those that do open at night close around 9pm.

We end up eating take-away pizza from a box in the town square.  We really must try harder to adjust.