We left the hotel before 7:00 to ride to the dock to board the ferry across the channel to France. The sun was bright, the winds were low, and the channel was calm. My fretting about sea sickness was for naught. I never opened the Dramamine I had stowed in the pocket of my jersey. It was a smooth sailing for over four hours.
We disembarked in a long line of traffic and after passing the immigration checkpoint emerged into a maze of traffic. We are back on the right side of the road, which immediately felt more comfortable, but now the challenge is that I can’t read the road signs. The two years of French I had in college just isn’t coming back to me fast enough. We headed out of town and within the first 10 miles had four long, hard climbs. Our route was through French countryside, which was beautiful. we rode by large, old stone houses with barns and silos attached and there was farm equipment passing us on the road. The road here are wider than in England and the road surface is smoother (at least thus far). The forecast was for rain at 5:00, but unfortunately for us, the storms rolled in around 3:00. We were riding at a good pace to get to the hotel when the lightening started. Our lead rider spotted an open carport on a home and we pulled in just as the skies opened. One of our group is fluent in French and asked the resident if we could huddle there until the storm passed. He kindly agreed. After an hour delay, we set out to complete the final 13 miles to get us to our hotel. Not many miles of riding today, but we did a lot of hills in a short distance. When you finish a ride, especially a wet ride, it is important to wipe down your bike to get the road grit off the chain and components. We asked at the front desk of the hotel if they had rags we could use, and the desk attendant was quite put out by the request. One of the female riders said that make up remover towelettes work well to clean a bike. Ironically, I have no make up with me, but I do have the make up remover towelettes in my toiletry bag, so I was able to put them to good use! Tomorrow is a big day through the French countryside. Over 70 miles and over 4000 feet of hills. The forecast is for sun and pleasant temperatures, highs in the low 70’s.
Next time you are near a market that sells clean up stuff, a bog of handiwips works really well, they are light and don't easily fall apart.
ReplyDeleteWhen we were visiting Paris I made a huge faux pas by not saying Bonjour before asking for directions to the bathroom. It was a good lesson to learn and served me well for the rest of our trip to France.