Paris: The End of the Story. Epilogue

So you've figured out that we made it into Chicago... you're correct. Although for the first time in my life I checked the seat back in front of me to make sure they had a barf-bag included with the in-flight magazine and SkyMall. Something I ate later in the flight must not have settled well, and I was actually feeling queasy... something I don't usually worry about. All fears aside, I kept my lunch on the inside, which was better off for everyone concerned.

Once in Chicago we had three hours to kill before the next flight, and I was looking forward to relaxing, maybe finding a Starbucks and enjoying NOT being on a plane. Boy, were we in for a treat.

Little did we know that as soon as you get off an international flight, you're herded into a corridor that goes on and on for what must have been the length of a half-marathon. Turn left, turn right, up an incline, down an incline... this airport Bataan Death March seemed like it would never end. Skeletons of the people who didn't make it were strewn along the side of the walkways, still clutching their carry-on baggage.

Finally, we got to the U.S. Customs and Border area, and passed through. Then we got to go claim our bags... all of them. For some silly reason I had assumed that once checked they'd go all the way to Boise from Paris. I assumed wrong.

Then we get to wheel our bags through another check point, then go to a spot on the other side of said check point and have our bags rechecked for the remainder of our flights. After that we got to find our way to a different terminal, and go through the TSA screening one more time.

The whole point of this little rant is that by the time we finally got to the actual gate for our flight they were starting to board! So much for relaxing...

Our flight routed us through Denver, where we switched planes and then headed back to Boise. Nothing out of the ordinary here. In fact I was feeling hungry and brave enough to put some more food back inside of me, so I got a little pizza from the Pizza Hut near our gate and chowed down. Valerie found some treats at a pretzel stand.

Anyway... we're home, and have gone back to work. I'm missing France, and the little pastry shops and bakeries that seem to be found in every village and small town. I really enjoyed the rural areas, and the peaceful bike riding opportunities that they afforded us. I'm missing the family we stayed with, as they made this trip something more for us than just the usual tourist's vacation. We got to see the spots that most people on a commercial tour would never stop and see, and experience life as it's happening, rather than as it's planned in a daily itinerary.

Thanks to the dear friends we stayed with; we had a great time! And thanks to the folks who were curious enough to follow us through this blog, and also to those of you who added comments or sent e-mails to us.

I will now put this blog back into a deep sleep until our next biking vacation...

Paris: The End of the Story. Part Four

Thursday morning, the alarm goes off at 6:00 AM and after getting things ready its off to the airport right around 8:00 AM. I'm thinking that there's the possibility of getting the taxes we paid on all of our purchases back as we get ready to exit the country, so I'm hopeful of getting a small, but welcome rebate. Once we've arrived at the airport I discover something else. One way to avoid not paying back the tax money to non-residents is to have the refund line on the side before going through airport security. When someone (like me) sees how long both the lines for the refund and the line through the security and border check is, and they don't know how long all this will take... they panic, throw the receipts in the trash and go stand in the lines that will actually get them home on time.

If the tax refund line was on the other side of all the check in procedures, I would have gladly waited in line until I either got the refund or the flight started boarding. The refund window is where it is for a reason!

Once through the check in procedures, Valerie found a couple of last-minute souvenirs and before too long the flight started boarding. When our turn came to board, I picked up our two carry-on bags and we started walking toward the jetway. As we were ready to turn the corner and head to the plane, I got picked for a random inspection. Valerie was told to proceed to the plane, even though one of the bags was "hers".

They, of course, went through everything (including frisking me too). They found my case of nylon tipped knitting needles and got very concerned, calling over supervisors for their wisdom. These were, naturally, against the rules and needed to be removed from my bag. They would be checked as regular baggage and would be found when we claimed our checked baggage later.

This is the part where I get a little pissy. We really could use a little regulatory uniformity. These knitting needles were not a problem when flying OUT of the United States. Flying OUT of France? Oh, no! It makes me wonder how many other holes there are in the system... and what's being brought on board an aircraft in some part of the world that really shouldn't be. C'mon folks, one set of approved and banned items for every airport worldwide!

Oh yes... and while standing in their inspection area I suddenly got a (thankfully small) nosebleed. No tissues, or any offer for something to help. I just had to stand there pinching off my left nostril with a finger while they went about their business.

After getting through the inspection process I boarded the plane to find that most of any overhead space for carry-on baggage had now been taken. (If I had boarded with Valerie there would have been lots of space still.) The flight attendants weren't very helpful, and at first made me feel like I was the bad guy for arriving on the plane late. (It wasn't MY idea to be randomly inspected!) Another attendant told me to keep looking for a spot for the bag; there had to be something somewhere. In the end one attendant actually started helping me look in the overhead bins and found one where we could reposition some items and make it all fit. From there it was eight hours of smooth sailing to Chicago...

Today's photos were a view of Châteaubriant , a view into the neighbor's yard and a field along the coast to Omaha Beach.

Paris: The End of the Story. Part Three

There are three photos in this installment; one is the view of Montmartre from the Eiffel Tower. We walked to the basilica from the North Paris train station and then over to the Eiffel Tower and then maybe a third of the distance back to Montmartre before the day was over. Definitely more than just a walk in the park!

The second picture is of us on the Eiffel Tower. Notice how the brim on the right side of my hat is folded upward. In the third picture, Valerie stands in front of what is the entrance to the Louvre. Notice how here hair is standing straight out to the left. Both these photos attest to the WIND that we were putting up with in Paris on two of the three expeditions we took there.



As I have said previously, the second motel we stayed in (the night before heading to the airport) had a bathroom and a shower. It was one of these self contained units just a little bigger that some Recreational Vehicles might have, and probably not as nice. But the motel served us well in that the trip to the airport was short, quick and easy. We would have stayed at a nicer hotel on the airport grounds, but there's apparently a trick to getting a room at a "reasonable" rate; reserve it much further out than just a week before you're scheduled to fly out! We expected to pay over $100 a night for a hotel room at the airport in a name Americans would recognise... but the "cheap" rooms were long gone, and the only rooms left were the more posh ones starting at about $350 a night and going for more than double that amount. Yet another reason we stayed at "El Schlocko".

Next door to this motel was a restaurant called the Hippopotamus Grill. (This is apparently a chain...) The morning we transferred over to the motel Valerie wanted a decent cup of coffee. Badly. So she wandered in to the Hippo to get one, and was rudely greeted and told they were closed. Okay... that was our mistake as we didn't catch the time that was on the door, seeing some other numeric designation and thinking that meant they opened at 7:00 AM.

She waited and then went back in when they were open, and tried to get some coffee and was refused again. Apparently they're too good to serve just coffee; it's a full meal or nothing. So she left in a huff and we started our journey into Paris.

After the day's adventure when we were back at the hotel, Valerie decided she needed a little dessert, and possible a coffee. So... stupidly... we tried the nearby Hippopotamus once again. They asked if we were there for dinner, and Valerie told them that she'd just like to have a dessert and coffee and they told her they could not do that. (Forget that I might have wanted a dinner for myself...) We both turned and left in a angry mood and have vowed never to return to this restaurant. (That shouldn't be a hard vow to keep, considering their location...)

In case anyone from the Hippopotamus Grill accidentally finds this blog and reads this, we had no trouble with ANY other food selling establishment on our trip except for YOURS. We have but a two word expression to express our sentiments to you, and the second word in that phrase is "you". Take a wild guess at the first word!

As for anyone who might be heading to France, our advice to you is find some other place to eat. The choices are numerous, and most businesses welcome the chance to sell anything to someone who wants to buy it. Except if you're a Hippo...

We walked the other direction and found little to choose from, and finally settle on a KFC where she found something to satisfy her sweet-tooth, and then promptly dropped it on the floor when the store manager bumped into her. Apologies were offered, another dessert was quickly given to her, and we walked back to the hotel to settle in for our final night in France.

Paris: The End of the Story. Part Two

This will be a shorter installment, as I'm under extreme pressure from "management" to reassemble the bike so she can go for a ride while we're experiencing good weather in our area. So... today I'm going to include links to some of the places that we visited for those who might want to look a little closer at any particular topic.

Today's photos are: A window from the Brittany American Cemetery and Memorial.

Views of homes built into the rock and hillside along the south shore of the Loire river.

The links:

Au Vale de Loire Hotel and Restaurant

Mercure Ouistreham Riva-Bella

Pegasus Bridge Memorial

The Louvre

The Eiffel Tower

Montmartre

Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial

Brittany American Cemetery and Memorial

Paris: The End of the Story. Part One

Let’s begin with “the rest of the story”. I’ll break it down into two or three parts, depending on time and how many photos I want to upload. The photos you’ve been seeing so far have been from my cell phone; the ones uploaded from this point to the end of the France installments will be from our regular camera.

First of all, we said goodbye to our hosts (and friends…) and they headed back to Châteaubriant to beat the traffic out of the greater Paris metro area. So we were on our own… and caught a bus toward a train station. (Apparently not the right bus, or the right station… but it still got us into Paris without much trouble.)

Along the bus route we spotted a store called “Intersport”. We had been looking for one since shopping at the one in Châteaubriant; our big souvenir hope was to find some cycling jerseys that were locally French. Intersport had team jerseys from the world cycling teams that you can buy anywhere, and something that celebrated Britany (the northwest portion of France). Britany would have met our requirements except for one little thing, the colors of the flag, which the jersey was modeled after, are black and white. The flag of the region looks similar in design to the American flag, except that the stars are replaced with other symbols… black and white stripes and a black field with white “symbols”. It just didn’t do it for us…

We tried to find bike shops in smaller towns, and they carried bikes – but either no clothing, or a very limited (and very plain) selection. And apparently clubs have their own jerseys, but aren't available publicly... as seen with some riders in Châteaubriant. So here was Intersport in Villepinte – we thought this would do the trick. But, no… they had NO bike clothing at all. The mall that they were located in had a very thick cross section of people from all over the world, and as we’d find out later we were in a section of town that one woman said compared to America’s ghettos. But we found a patisserie there that had some interesting pastries just coming out of the over, and we bought one figuring we’d split it. One bite was all it took and I was back in there buying a second one.

We were pretty walked out from our Paris expedition the previous day, but figured that we needed to see the Louvre (or after finding out how huge it was, seeing at least part of the Louvre)! Not being much of an art aficionado, I was delighted to have heard of two items there: the Mona Lisa (also known as La Gioconda or La Joconde), and the Venus de Milo. I figured that if we saw these, then we’d seen two of the biggest names in the place… and we’d certainly see a bunch of other items along the way trying to seek out our two targets.

The Mona Lisa was the only painting we saw that was kept as far away from the crowd as it was. Perhaps there were others, but where most had a separation of just a few feet from the viewers, this painting had several barricades, guards and glass protecting it.

But we hunted these two treasures out, and I’ll end this installment with these two words: Mission Accomplished!

One Day Later... We're Home!

The alarm clock went off Thursday morning at 6:00 AM in Paris... subtract the 8 hour difference in time zones and that would be 10:00 PM Wednesday night in Idaho. And tonight (Thursday) at precisely 10:00 PM we arrived home. The house is still standing, the cat is still alive... and we're ready for some real sleep!

Almost Home...

We're at the Denver airport waiting for our connecting flight to Boise. It's been a long day, and will probably be a little over 24 hours in length from the time we woke up in Paris until the time we get home in Idaho.

We will have more photos and comments within the next couple of days... once the dust has settled.

Wednesday...

Our hosts said goodbye to us after dropping us at our last motel for our stay; it's a step up in that it has a bathroom and shower in each room. Other than that it's very similar to last night's abomination.

We managed to find our way to a bus stop and then a train station, and then we went back into Paris for our last bit of "touristing". We went to the Louvre and wandered around for a few hours until we'd had enough of the crowd and started to make our way back to the motel.

Tomorrow's alarm will come too early, but I hope to recap parts of this trip on a regular keyboard instead of this virtual keyboard on my phone. It works, but it takes too long to write a novel!

More Paris...

Yesterday we started walking from the train station at Paris North and wound up at Montmartre, a basilica on a hilltop. We then marched down to the Seine and eventually saw the Awful Tower.  (Eiffel Tower)  We spent two and a half hours there, mostly in lines for tickets, and the elevators that take you up to tbd top in two separate stages.

From there it was off to the Arc de Triomphe and then a long walk down the Champs d'Elysees past the Louvre and then back to a rail station nearer to the Seine. We spent nearly 11 hours on our feet marching through this HUGE city!

Tuesday in Paris...

We had a very long day in Paris, with more walking than would seem humanly possible.  I'll have to recount the adventure at a later date; it's very late and I'm exhausted!

Paris!

It's roughly 6:00 PM and we've checked into our posh hotel and our now at a train station waiting to ride into Paris. By posh I mean no bathroom in the room we're staying, no attendant at the hotel (we had to check in with a credit card in an outdoor machine) and punch key combinations that were printed on our receipts that will let us into the building and into our rooms.

8:35 PM

Sitting a few blocks away from the Seine waiting to eat.  Finally found a Starbucks in Paris and had a mocha, something I've been missing since we left the U.S.  This city is HUGE and it would certainly be easy to get lost in if one wanted to.

This is the beginning of the end, insofar as our trip is concerned. Who know what tomorrow will bring?  One thing I can guarantee is that it won't be the Louvre, they're closed on Tuesday.

Monday Morning...

It’s 8:00 AM, Monday the 14th of June. I’ve got a hot cup of tea beside me as I type this message, and looking out of the window I see both blue sky and clouds – I guess you could say that it’s too close to call at this point. Yesterday would have been a great cycling day, but it was the day to return to Châteubriant and break the bike down and put it in its case. (That would figure…)

Today we switch into full-blown tourist mode, driving with our host to Paris and then finding cheap accommodations (we’ve got some reserved in advance). I’m expecting the “worst” as these apparently are pretty much a room with a bed, and a shared bathroom down the hall.

Then it’s just a matter of catching some kind of transport into Paris and wandering around for the next couple of days doing whatever it is that tourists do. At this point they no longer ride tandems… so I’m a bit confused. No doubt we’ll see other tourists in Paris and we can follow their example.

Blog updates? Who knows? I’m highly doubtful that our motel is upscale enough to have Wi-Fi (but then again, I’ve been wrong before). And there are actually some Starbucks scattered through downtown Paris, so maybe I’ll find one there that has Wi-Fi and will get a post and some photos out.

So if you don’t see anything here for a couple of days, don’t panic. Just keep checking back; somewhere we’ll find an outlet to throw out our last few “French hellos”!

News Flash! -- Parts 1 and 2

Ah yes, whatever CAN go wrong, etc. and so forth. We're waiting at the hotel to be picked up; our hosts gave us an old cell phone to use in case of emergencies. They told us to turn it on this morning and they'd phone us on their drive here. You get ONE guess here: what quit working (and won't turn back on) 15 minutes after I turned it on this morning?

That's me, outside the hotel, pointing at the culprit. It seems to be working once it was hooked up to a charger for a while, but it's an old phone with an OLD battery, so anything's possible. Maybe it'll hold... maybe it'll drain right when you want it the most.

5:45 PM -- Back in Châteubriant

We've been home for almost four hours. As soon as we got here, lunch was served out in the yard (under some of the nicest skies we're seen since we've been here) and then it was time for me to engage in one of my most enjoyable hobbies: pretending to be a mechanic. Outside of forgetting to pack the stoker's handlebar in with the first layer and discovering this in layer 4 of 6, everything else went fairly smooth and the tandem is packed away and ready to transport. Did I mention how PERFECT the weather is here today for a ride???

Sunday Morning...

We're at the hotel waiting for our British friends to come pick us up and transport us back to Châteubriant where we can begin to do some serious packing. We think we'll check out of the room and go do a little laundry while we're waiting.

I don't know how fortunate we'll be as far as Wi-Fi connections go staring on Monday; we'll get out updates as we can, if we can...

The photo is a shot of the hotel restaurant with its breakfast setting; dinner is a much more elegant affair.

The Last Ride? (Part 2)

I mentioned how some restaurants were closed by the time we got back to the hotel. My mistake... they hadn't closed early; they just open late.  Like 7:00PM, for example. So the restaurant we wanted to eat at was open and packed with people as we strolled past it on an after-dinner walk.  

Let me add that the dinner we had here at the hotel was absolutely marvelous, so perhaps it was to our benefit that we misunderstood how the restaurants worked around this area.

Our main course was a white-flushed fish of a variety I can't remember the name of, but sauce it shared with the vegetable was amazing.  There were 5 courses served, if you count the salad, desert and cheese samples as courses. And the gespatcho (sp?) -- small in size but mighty in flavor!

The Last Ride?

Today we took what will probably be our last bike ride in France, as tomorrow we will be picked up and transported back to Châteubriant where we'll then have to get things washed and packed (bike included).  Then on Monday we're off to Paris to wander around for a couple of days before catching our flight home on Thursday.

Our ride total today was 60.82 miles; I would have liked to beat our mileage from Omaha Beach, but we wanted to be sure and get dinner tonight.  Some places were already closed when we got back and didn't want to take any chances on missing out.  

Tomorrow is Sunday, and as such just about everything is shut down tight. We brought some pastries back and I picked up a couple of bananas just in case the hotel isn't serving breakfast either!

Friday Night...

We ate dinner at a bar/restaurant across from the hotel this evening. The meal was adequate, although nothing to get overly excited about (or repeat anytime soon).

Valerie had a salad and I had a mushroom omelette.  We both shared an order of fries, and ended things up with a couple of scoops of ice cream. We then took a short walk through town, took a couple of pictures and are back in our room now, wondering where we'll pedal tomorrow and how far to push ourselves. The good news is that the bakeries in town open at 7:00 in the morning; the bad news is that we can't have a taste of everything the shops have to offer. The little bakeries are THAT good!

Friday Evening...

It is Friday evening and I'm in a hotel room with working Wi-Fi!  We arrived in the town of Les Rosiers sure Loire, which is southeast of Angers. We are staying in a hotel called au Val de Loire up on the third floor; no elevator but a nice spiral staircase to negotiate.

We did a 28 mile loop east of here on the south shore of the Loire to a town called Saumur, rode through the town a couple of times, stopped at a big department store where I bought a map of the area and then pedalled back to our hotel along the north shore of the Loire.

We've showered and are ready to try and go order dinner somewhere. Our interpreters are back home near Châteaubriant, so we're on our own!

Rainy Days and Thursdays (Always Get Me Down)...

Still one day behind in getting updates to the general public… there are excuses I could offer, but would you really care?

Let’s start out with saying that yesterday’s weather was abysmal. We didn’t bother trying to ride, but instead tried planning our exit strategy for our return to the U.S. of A. My thought was that there were some hotels right around Charles de Gaulle Airport, and that they’d have airport shuttles available. The one thing I hadn’t counted on was the price. (Dear Mom… please send money… trapped in deepest, darkest France. Love, Sonny-boy.)

Seriously, I expected to pay a premium to be near by, but the cheap rooms were apparently long gone. We were getting quotes of $350 and up for a night; we settled on something a little further away from the airport with no shuttle (ah, the thrill of living dangerously!) but the assurance that it’s roughly a €20 cab fare to the airport.

Of course, getting this information should have been easy… but dial-up internet was all we have at the house we’re staying at, and comparing hotels was taking minutes between each mouse click. But all was not lost, according to our host! In town there is a library that also has a computer section with high speed internet connections. So into the car and off to Châteubriant we went.

We arrived at the “Cyber” to find that it didn’t open until 2:00 PM on Thursdays… and that they were holding a private computer class for old people. They all stared at us as if we had desecrated the temple with our arrival, while the instructor told our host where they had the hours of operation posted by the door.

So, even though my phone is relatively useless here in France, we do know of a bar in town with Wi-Fi. And that is where we sat for the next hour or so looking up hotels, having our host phone his daughter back at the house who in turned phoned the hotel to inquire about shuttle availability and then phoned us back with the results.

I’m sure that people who know me are wondering what in the world was an alcoholic doing in a bar? You mean besides using the Wi-Fi? Well… having a couple of drinks, of course. Many of the bars here also have an espresso machine so they also serve coffee drinks (and the girls working at this place have found a way to disguise the coffee with a little chocolate so I can actually get the stuff down and nearly enjoy doing so). This place also serves lunches, so it’s kind of a one-stop-for-all kind of place. There are windows with no curtains, so it's a well lit and inviting kind of place to sit and drink a beverage of your choice either inside, or at the outdoor tables, unlike so many American bars that are dark and uninviting.

From there we wandered over to our host’s favourite crêperie (hmmm… I see that the auto-correct on this computer is set to British English, hence the word “favorite” has a “u” in it – I can force it not to, but why bother?)… but back to the crêperie. We had to wait for a table so we walked a block over to the Cathedral and took a look inside. That’s today’s picture, looking from the front near the alter toward the main entrance.

Back at the crêperie… we were served some very interesting breakfasts, and were entertained as a thunderstorm rolled through the area. The crêpe is like a large pancake, with any assortment of toppings added to it. The edges are folded over toward the center, and the crêpe takes on a square appearance. Mine had an egg, ham and cheese in the mix. Valerie had an apple compote.

Back at the house, shortly after 5:00 PM we finally decided that the weather had taken a turn for the better and got ready to take a short ride. We did a fifteen mile loop through the countryside on smaller lanes, and then the whole group headed back into Châteubriant to a pizza restaurant. They also served salads and pasta dishes, the pace was slow and relaxed and each person ordered their own pizza. The crust was very thin, but the combination of toppings, cheese and crust worked well together and the meal was very tasty.

Evenings at the house often end with some kind of game being played, which is a good excuse to socialize and have a laugh or two in the process. One of the games we’ve been playing in called “Master Quiz”, a game much like America’s “Trivial Pursuit”… and this game was, coincidentally, made in the 1980’s. Many of the questions are British in nature, so we are at a disadvantage there, but they also have a fair number of American based questions that make us appear smarter than we truly are!

Today we think we may run away from home to the Loire River and see about cycling down there for a day or two. It sound like it’s about an hour’s drive from here, much easier than the trip to Ouesterham last Sunday.

Another Day Behind...

Again I find myself one day behind in my updates. Yesterday we didn’t ride, but instead borrowed the car and a crude map and made our way into the city of Nantes to find a sporting goods store that would carry bicycle clothing. (We’d like to find some French cycling jerseys to bring back as souvenirs). There is nothing in Châteubriant that we can find, yet we see groups of cyclist going by wearing an attractive jersey that lists a few local businesses and says “Châteubriant” clearly on the back of the jersey. It must be the colors of a local team or club, but unlike many American shops that sell jerseys with their own team or store logos the shops here have nothing to offer. They have to come from somewhere…

The large store in Nantes did indeed have jerseys, but nothing out of the ordinary. The typical professional team’s jerseys, and some nice (but plain and unmarked) jerseys, but nothing that would be remotely connected with this region of France.

Admitting defeat we walked around another part of the mall in Atlantis, and had a coffee while watching a carousel spin children around in the middle of the mall. It was quite clever in that it had several moving parts within its structure; a rocket ship that blasted off and then floated back down, a mini-Ferris wheel that consisted of small airplanes and an upper deck as well. Included is a photograph for your amusement.

The other photo is from the cemetery we visited near St. James a couple of days ago. There were many markers from Virginia, Pennsylvania, California and Oklahoma… but it took me walking six long rows of headstones before I found one from Idaho. Being that’s where we’ve both lived since 1980, it just seemed fitting to try and find someone’s final resting place and say “thank you”.

Today is grey and windy; we're unsure of our plans as they haven't unfolded as of yet...

Return to Châteubriant...

Yesterday was a travel day, returning to Châteubriant from Ousterham. Along the way we stopped and visited another American cemetery nears St. James, which holds over 4000 soldiers (Omaha Beach held around 9300). We also saw from a distance the monastery of Mt. St. Michel.



Today is a questionable day weatherwise, and there are no plans as of yet. I’m behind in my updating on the blog though… again just the inability to log on and upload items.


The lighthouse was across the inlet from the hotel we stayed at; the monastery is of course St. Michel. The spire measures about 492 feet above the church.

June Seventh...

Today was a test.  It was only a test.  Had this been a real day I might have just jumped in front of a bus and called it "good".

We decided to try and ride from our hotel to Omaha Beach and see the American cemetery and memorial there. It was 75% cloudy and it seemed that we were riding into the wind for a good portion of the ride.

Then came the flat tire.  A pinch flat, to be exact.  This put a big hole in the tube and tore a tiny hole in the tire casing. I replaced the old tube with a new one and wrapped a dollar bill around the inside of the tire casing where the hole was -- this trick really helps keep the tube from forcing its way back through the hole in the tire and then blowing up.

We continued on and reached Omaha Beach only to find that we were welcome at the cemetery but our bike wasn't.  Valerie went inside to look around while I was trying to sit on a long marble block that, for all practical purposes, looked like a good place to sit and wait for Valerie to come back out. But "there are rules... you understand" said the guard there, and I had to go stand out in the parking lot with the bike.  Yes, in case you were wondering, there IS a bike parking area... way out at the far end of the car lot where no one would ever notice someone stealing it!  So we took turns watching the bike while the other quickly went in and took a look.

Leaving Omaha Beach we retraced our route eastward finding that the wind had changed direction during the afternoon, so we could enjoy fighting a heading on our return trip too.  And then the tire went flat again.

After trying to pump it up again the stem came out when I removed the pump head, forever lost in the grass.  Great... one good tube with no way of keeping the air in and one tube with a hole that would take the largest patch on the kit plus a lot of luck.  We patched the tube and underinflated  the tire hoping that the reduced pressure wouldn't cause the patch to leak.  And here we are, back at the hotel safe and sound with 65 and a half miles of cycling under our belts.

The hotel offers free Wi-Fi in their lobby, which hasn't worked since we got here. I finally had to buy an hour's worth of Wi-Fi that could be accessed from the room, and the rest is history!

June 6.1944

We are in Normandy, and have visited a memorial for the British troops who flew here in glides, surprising the Nazis and preparing the way for the Allied invasion forces. One of their key objectives was to capture what was then renamed Pegasus Bridge.

The bridge has been moved since being replaced with a stronger bridge, but it is still within eyesight of its original site.  On that site is a restaurant that is said to be the first liberated building in France (and according to our hosts their prices will liberate guests from their money quite rapidly).

Valerie and I wandered around town a little bit, found a place to eat and are now back at the hotel.  Tomorrow we will liberate our tandem from the basement and take a good ride.

Saturday In the Park...

I’ve almost forgotten (again) to post something here today. We pedalled out to a monastery just past a village called La Meilleraye de Bretagne and took a quick look around while waiting for our British friends to meet us there for a picnic lunch.

While at the lunch my allergies (hay fever?) really got out of control and my eyes were watering and itching so much that I couldn’t even keep them open most of the time. As soon as we left the park we were picnicking at things settled down a bit and we rode back toward Châteaubriant and hung around there for a little while before returning home.

Tomorrow we hope to travel up to the coast to wander around during the festivities that mark the Allied Invasion and beginning of the Liberation… otherwise known as “D-Day”. I have no idea whether or not I’ll find a place with a Wi-Fi connection so the updates may come to a grinding halt for the next few days.

Today’s ride only amounted to 31 miles, but the weather was sunny and warm and well worth the price of admission. I’m sorry to say that I didn’t take any pictures I can upload today; but I’m hoping to have a few to post in the next couple of days that will make the wait worthwhile.

We learned about everything shutting down tight on Sundays and got a little shopping in earlier this morning to make sure we wouldn't starve before Monday arrives!

Friday Part 2...

Today’s ride totalled 50.04 miles… that was 4/100ths of a mile further than I wanted to go! We learned a few things today on our ride:

The notion that everything closes down from 12:00 noon to 2:00 PM is false. We rolled into a village precisely at 2:00 PM only to find that the bakery was closed from 1:00 PM to 3:15 PM. So much for perfectly timing our meal stop!

The sun does shine in France. Today’s weather was great, and the sun was out for most of it… just a few occasional clouds in an otherwise clear sky.

McDonald’s does have Wi-Fi in France. ("Friday Part 1..." was sent from there.) Their drive-thru is called “McDrive”, and their French fries taste pretty much like they do (for better or worse) in the U.S.

Friday Part 1...

Just a quick message as we're still out riding and it's getting late. The view is Rougé and the tray of treats is what we ate after we got there.

A Little Sore in and at France...

Today finds me not living up to expectations… certain people I’m bicycling with expect me to pedal more miles than I seem to be capable of at the moment. Yesterday we did 35.5 miles and today it was only 38.5 (I had hoped for 40 as a minimum but came up short on both distance and enthusiasm (physically speaking, that is). Seems like I’m developing a little saddle sore problem… and I’m not happy about it. Valerie on the other hand seems to be suffering no ill effects from cycling and seems to be in great shape and could probably ride circles around me at this point… what a show-off!

France is an interesting, yet frustrating country. I think that I’ve mentioned that damned near everything is closed on Sunday. What I didn’t mention was that most all shops in most of the villages seem to close up between noon and 2:00 PM. It seems that everybody likes have a long lunch… but if you want to do something during your lunch hour… forget it!

Our ride today was in a counter clockwise loop that stopped in Châteubriant about two-thirds of the way to completion We had hoped to find a little bakery or butcher in St. Julien de Vouvantes, but everything was closed up tight so all I got was a photo of their cathedral… nothing to eat.

In Chateuâbriant, however, we both made up for lost time by wolfing down several pastries and tarts from a local shop that we had visited a few days earlier. While sitting outside the shop looking down a narrow street in the business district I noticed a sign sticking out from a building with the silhouette of a cat on the top of it (left side of the street in the photo). Of course it wasn’t a silhouette at all; it was a real cat that had jumped down from the roof a few feet above the sign. The cat seemed to enjoy watching all of the people passing by.

Today was sunny and warm, but the breeze was very apparent at times, and riding into it wasn’t the most fun thing to do. But when we turned and rode with it at our backs – life was sweet!

P.S. -- If you read the post "The Eagle Has Landed" and wondered why it seemed a little out of place, go down two posts and read the newly added introduction to it!

Wednesday in Châteubriant...

It's 3:45 I'm in the afternoon and I'm back in the  coffee bar we found yesterday. We've ridden out to a village called Rouge and back into town where I finally found a place that has Wi-Fi access!  

Hopefully two pictures will accompany this post; one is in Rouge by a monument that most villages seem to have that commemorate the people they lost in WW1.  Then somewhere else on the monument they had to add in their losses for WW2.  The second photo is of me in the bar learning to drink coffee with chocolate... not quite a mocha, but good enough to keep me happy!

The Eagle Has Landed...

+++ BOGUS POSTING!!! +++ This was typed on the plane the last half hour or so before we touched down... I never found a wi-fi zone and thought that I had successfully deleted this post off of my cell phone. Obviously, when I found a wi-fi hotspot in Châteubriant this message came out of hiding on my cell and uploaded itself. Sorry 'bout that!
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If this post is being read, it means that I found a wi-find hot spot at the Paris airport (CDG). We are on the ground, although feeling worn out from a relatively sleepless 8 hour flight from Chicago to Paris.

We're wishing someone would win the lottery quick so we could afford to upgrade our seats for the return flight; 1st class and business class flyers appear to have little cubicles they "live" in with a chair that folds back into a bed! How we envy them after banging our knees into the backs of the seats in front of us all night long!

An Off Day...

I write this little piece at 8:15 Wednesday morning; I forgot to write anything yesterday as the few faithful followers would know. As I look out of the window from the study, I see sunshine and blue sky – unlike yesterday.

We didn’t ride yesterday, due to the threat of weather. 80% chance of rain the weatherman said, along with cool temperatures to make for that perfectly miserable day. At one point the temperature felt tolerable and the question of riding arose, but soon it was raining and blowing and any thoughts of being out in the elements subsided.

We drove to an old mining site where the slag pile is now a hill that people hike to the top of to admire the view of the farming communities and villages that comprise this area. When we reached the top it was raining and the clouds were so low that there was no view to be had.

We also travelled back into Châteubriant in search of a bike shop to see if we could find any jerseys that are uniquely French. No success in that department as the biggest bike shop in town mainly had a small selection of bikes, choice parts and just a few pieces of cycling apparel – nothing that had any kind of printing on it like so many American shops have. No team jerseys, no local club jerseys or even any items with the shop’s name on it. The closest we came was in a sporting goods store that had a bike section; they had some jerseys that were French, but they were also just in a black and white motif. Very boring and unattractive… and also they didn’t have anything in “fat boy” size.

While in Châteubriant we were also looking for some place that might sell mochas (for me… Valerie will take just a strong cup of coffee and be perfectly happy). I’m beginning to think that mochas, lattés or any kind of foo-foo coffee drinks haven’t quite made it to this region of France. I hear rumors that there are Starbucks stores in Paris, but there seems to be nothing here that mimics that kind of shop.

Yes, they have coffee bars and, yes… they have good coffee… I just can’t find my particular style of beverage (although we came fairly close in a bar yesterday afternoon). It seems that a lot of the bars serve alcohol and coffee beverages; it’s your one-stop-shop!

Later in the evening we ventured out with our hosts to find a place to eat. There is a little village called La Touche east-northeast of here (maybe 10 miles???) that had a restaurant they knew of from a few years ago. Apparently it is under new ownership since the last time they were there, but it was open and pretty empty. Either we had arrived after the main dinner rush, it was an off-night, or the locals knew something we didn’t.

The dinner choices were limited and while our hosts speak a little French it was still difficult conversing with the waitress to find out what our dining options were. (Later in the evening the owner came by our table to say hello; he spoke enough English that we could understand whatever concept he was trying to describe. Why didn’t he come by when we were trying to order???)

Dinner consisted of either a cut of beef or a salty tasting piece of fish, green beans and what we in America would call French fries. (I wonder what the French call them?) After dinner came a tray of a few different cheeses to sample, one of which was a fairly big chunk of Roquefort. I tried it, knowing full well I wasn’t going to be putting it on my favorites-list, but it was something that had to be done.

Desert offered a few choices; fruit and syrup (which looked suspiciously like it came straight out of a can of fruit cocktail), chocolate mousse (which was the safest bet for the evening) and something called fromage blanc (white cheese) which had the consistency of a creamy yogurt and was served in a small desert cup with a sugar bowl on the side. Upon first taste it was obvious why the sugar was there.

This morning our hosts have driven north to the coast to pick their daughter up from a ferry that came over from England during the night. We’re here attempting to wake up, and I tried to figure out how to use an espresso machine that they had here at the house. I was perhaps 50% successful as I got the machine to work, made some espresso, steamed some milk and added some chocolate to the works. But in the mocha world, it wasn’t one of the best ones I’ve ever turned out. Perhaps I’ll try again, or maybe I’ll just stick with tea. Our hosts are British; they’ve got plenty of tea.

At Last We Ride...

Today was Monday, and we woke up to a light rain. So much for biking, or at least that’s the way it seemed at the time. We had a late breakfast and then loaded into the car and went into town.

We needed to do some shopping, and one of the things we’re learning is that everything is closed on Sunday, and that many places are closed on Monday or else they open later on Monday. Also… some places close from noon to 2:30 for lunch. Very convenient for people who don’t know the system!

So we picked up a few groceries at a store that didn’t close for lunch and then went for a walk with our hosts up a paved cycle track that was once a railway bed. Lovely scenery while walking through a farming community, and the sun was starting to come out – who could ask for more?

Upon returning to our starting point we had a picnic lunch consisting of some French bread, ham and cheese. After that we resumed our search in town for some open stores. I needed to find some castors for the bike case (United Airlines managed to lose one of them again), a couple of items for the bike and some allergy medication. My hay fever is really kicking in over here. We accomplished our tasks and headed back home, donned our bike clothes and took off for our first ride, somewhere close to 5:00 PM (a little late for a ride of any significance).

We rode into Châteubriant and circled part of the downtown area a few times looking for an elusive bike shop and then rode back home on a slightly different route through a village called Louisfert for a total of 15.5 miles. It is now 9:48 at night while I write this; dinner is over, the sun is still providing light and people are sitting around watching the TV while I try to get this update written and sent up for the blog.

Today’s photo was taken just a few hundred feet away from the house; I just wanted to get some kind of French sign in the picture in a vain attempt to prove that we are really here!

An Easy Day to Get Acclimated...

Good day to those of you who choose to follow along with this blog! Today was much better in the weather arena; we had sun for a while, and then some spotty clouding during the afternoon. It’s now about 6:00 PM local time and the sky is cloudy and the wind has picked up. But for a while it was cycling weather… but of course I had to put the bike together today so we weren’t out actually riding it. But the hard part is over and it’s ready to be taken out for it’s maiden voyage tomorrow, weather permitting of course.

After assembling the bike and then sitting down outside for a lunch that consisted of asparagus soup with French bread and cheese, we were dutifully loaded into the car and driven into the town of Châteubriant. The town, as apparently most of France on a Sunday, was closed. You’ll find a bar that is open, and a bakery and that is all. This made for easy “touristing” with little traffic and few people on the sidewalks.

We managed to see the remains of a castle while we were there and part of the “old town” that was originally behind a wall that encircled it.

I’m treating you with two pictures today. The first is the cottage in which we are staying in La Riolais, and the second is looking over Châteubriant from atop the grounds where the castle is.