26 May, 2015

When we came down from our room last night for something to eat we discovered that the hotel had closed up since we had arrived and that there was absolutely nobody there except us.  This has happened a couple of times before when we have been cycle touring, but we still find it strange that the owners of hotels just let you in, give you a key and leave you to it.  Especially as this was not a particularly small hotel.  So we hunted down food in the town, not so easy on a national holiday, but a pizzeria came to our rescue in the end as they have done so many times in the past.  We did see a piece of familiar street furniture too – not sure why it was there.

So today’s weather is sun and then cloud, then sun and then cloud……. Coat on, coat off.  A farmer has decided that we should get wet even though it isn’t raining – wouldn’t be the same if we didn’t.

We have the usual diet of châteaux, riverside runs, inland runs through fields and little towns.  Everything is open again after the holiday weekend, but despite this, we aren’t seeing any food shops in the towns and villages.  We suspect that, as in the UK, the big supermarkets have resulted in the demise of local food shops.  The towns have shoe shops, flower shops, chocolate shops, always a bakery and sometimes a fruit and veg shop, but nowhere to buy general supplies.  We manage with what we can buy in the bakers and fruit shop.

Right at the end of the day we came across something we hadn’t seen before;  a canal crossing over the river – a mighty feat of engineering.

We found a campsite right next to the canal lock adjoining the river, the lock-keepers house was the reception for the campsite.