21 May, 2015

Today everything came together to make a perfect day of cycling.  First of all, the sun came out early, drying the tent out nicely ready for packing.  Secondly, the cycle paths were extremely well-marked and ran mostly alongside the river, deviating only to pass through some beautiful small villages and hamlets.  Real picture postcard cottages.  The surrounding countryside was mainly water meadows full of spring flowers and sometimes old deciduous woodland – nothing like the sterile pine woods of the Atlantic coast.  Everything looked truly resplendent in the dappled sunshine.

 

The first coffee stop of the day was in a village where a market was being held.  Several of the stalls were selling live chickens – I only hope people were buying them to put in their gardens to lay eggs and not for the oven.

 

Although we had not actually travelled the same route up the west coast of France before, we had cycle toured in the region on a previous tour and did know the terrain to some extent.  It may just be psycological but knowing the area even a little bit takes some of the excitement out of the touring.  Now we have turned away from the north-bound route, we are experiencing the thrill of exploring a new area.

 

Last of all, we were split for choice with campsites all along the route at intervals of 10 or so kilometres.  Fingers crossed that the rest of the trip is like today.