Day 23: Bordeaux-Stockholm (much delayed post)

Dear Reader, it has been three months since my last blog post. Last time we met, I was in Bordeaux, planning how to get back home. 

The next day, which was a Friday, I took another walk around Bordeaux. I visited an interesting old church, and picked up some used paperbacks. Around lunch time I went back to my hotel to pick up my luggage and Bike and see if we could get on the commuter bus to the airport. The first bus didn’t have space, but the second bus did, so I got to the airport with a couple of hours to spare.

My plan was to check in Bike as special luggage, and then wait with my new old books, maybe browse the shops and buy a bottle of Bordeaux wine. But when I arrived at the check in counter, after a long wait, I was told I must absolutely pack Bike in a box. This was not the information I had received at the time when I booked my ticket. I had expected I could do like I did at Arlanda: just turn the handle bars and remove the pedals. But “Non, Madame”, this was impossible.

I was directed to the Air France counter in another part of the airport, where I could buy a a large card board box. Somehow I managed to get Bike into the box, which was not an easy feat, then push the box back to the checkin for Norwegian, all the time holding on to my two bike panniers. All this I did in an awful hurry – and in the knowledge that my deodorant was letting me down. Finally I was allowed to check in, and proceed to the security check.

As I approached the desk I reached for my camera, and found it wasn’t there! The case was empty! So I started another mad dash around the airport, approaching the various people I had talked to before. None had seen my camera, but I got the phone number to the airport office and was instructed to call later – maybe my camera would turn up. It never did, and the memory card with my holiday pictures was gone with it. I don’t suspect that it was stolen, but that it fell out when I was dealing with packing Bike.

I went back to the security desk, where the lady at the X-ray machine found the Swiss Army knife I had been looking for, and assumed I had left at home when I didn’t find it. All the time it had been deep down in a pocket in my handle bar bag, and now it was confiscated.

By then it was a half hour before boarding time, and I just threw myself in a chair, reflecting on why I should have such a lousy end to an otherwise lovely holiday.

The rest of the trip home was uneventful. I got my bike-in-a-box at Arlanda, and arrived at my apartment at about ten in the evening. The only food I found at home were crackers and a tin of hummus, so I made a meal of that, and enjoyed it on my balcony, looking out over the night sky of the southern suburbs.

Day 22: Orleans-Bordeaux

Thursday.

Today I experienced two new ways of bringing a bike on a train. The train from Orleans had a special carriage for bikes, with staff who lifted the bikes in and out of a door on the side. In Tours I changed to a TGV (high speed) train. Here I had to reserve space for my bike, and could bring it into the same carriage where my seat was. This was the first time in France I had to pay for bringing the bike. There was already another bike there, belonging to a young American who was visiting family and friends in Europe.

In Bordeaux I spent half an hour trying to find the hotel I had booked by following instructions in an email. In fact the hotel was only five minutes walk from the station.

By the time I arrived it was late afternoon and I just dumped my bags in my room and went out to see the town. First I interviewed a bus driver who said the airport shuttle would bring a bike IF there were not too many bags on board, and IF the driver felt like it. A taxi driver said that he didn’t think a taxi would take a bike but I could ask my hotel to call ahead and try to find a car which would.

Another problem to be solved later.

Bordeaux is a beautiful city, with some grands boulevards, impressive 19th century buildings and a pedestrianized center. I just walked around, had some food, and later joined the crowd outside the theater who watched that evening’s ballet performance on a large screen.

Ballet in Bordeaux.

Back in my hotel room I checked on the internet and found out that the airport is only 12 kilometres away, and that I can probably get quite close to it on the tram and walk the rest of the way if Bike should let me down again.

Day 21: Tours-Orleans

Wednesday.

The next few days I will be on my way home, slowly, as I travelled here.

But first I went to see the Chateau de Villandry. Not by bike – by bus! Villandry is close to Tours and has a lovely large garden in the renaissance style. Very strict and French with cabbages and leeks in precise formations! I loved the lavender garden and the more contemporary Cloud and Sun gardens best.

Lavender in Villandry.

The Love garden. Best admired from a distance.

After I returned to Tours I sat for a while in a park and chatted with a local lady who had just arranged her tickets for an upcoming culture festival, which I will miss. She told me about the new tramway which is to be inaugurated in Tours next year. Trams are in vogue in France at the moment, but the projects can be controversial. In Tours the construction work disturbs traffic, some buildings have been torn down to make way for the tracks and the cost is so high that it might lead to higher taxes.

In the afternoon I took the train back to Orleans, to return my rented bike and pick up my own bike at the youth hostel. I need to spend a night there before going south to Bordeaux by train. Then I spend one night there before flying home Friday.

When I considered my options after I found out about the fault with Bike I decided to still fly home from Bordeaux even though it is in the wrong direction, instead of trying to book a flight from Paris. For some reason flights from Paris were more expensive. Later I realised that as Orleans is much closer to Paris I could also have saved money on the cheaper train ticket, and on not paying for an additional night’s accomodation.

Oh well, I’m not in a hurry, this is indeed slow travel. And the whole rental business worked out very well. I got some additional very pleasant biking days at a decent cost, and the people at both the hostel and the bike rental have been very helpful.

Day 20: Blois-Tours

Tuesday.

When I set out from Duisburg over two weeks ago I didn’t know how far I would travel, although I counted on reaching Paris and aimed for Bordeaux. Because of the trouble with Bike, Tours turned out to be the last stop on this stage. I feel it is an appropriate finishing point. Tours is also an old pilgrimage site, the town of Saint Martin. And on the next stage after Tours I will leave the Loire and turn southwest towards Poitiers, Saintes and Bordeaux.

After travelling for two days mostly on the northern side of the Loire, I crossed over to the southern side this morning when leaving Blois. First the road followed the flat low banks of the river, but after a while it climbed up into the hills, and closer to Amboise I came into wine country. On this section the previously abundant road signs became scarce. This section of the “Loire par velo” path isn’t quite finished, and the few signs said “Itineraire provisoire”.

Soon in a bottle near you.

In Amboise I had a really good lunch, so I could manage all the way to Tours. I’ve gotten used to my rented bike by this time and made fairly good speed, but it’s a slower bike than my own.

During the day I kept passing and being passed by the same groups of cyclists, and chatted with some of them. Sometimes we puzzled together over where the “Itineraire provisoire” was trying to lead us.

Amboise has a fine chateau – which I didn’t enter. I’ve skipped other famous castles in the valley, mostly beause I’ve seen some of them many years before, when I travelled in France on an Interrail card.

Not only wine, I passed this field of sunflowers.

I arrived in the youth hostel in Tours (not a very nice one) at about six and took a walk around town, saw the cathedral with some lovely old stained glass windows, and celebrated my safe arrival with a beer on a lively square in the old part of town. The weather has turned quite cool after last week’s heat and thunderstorms.

Day 19: Beaugency-Blois

Monday.
,
Three types of cyclists were represented at the breakfast table I shared with an Englishman and a Norwegian couple this morning. The Norwegians are short distance tourists, who rent bikes for a week or so in various regions in Europe. The Englisman is the fast long distance type. He travels from north to south of France and planned to do about 120 kilometres today, an easy day as he sometimes goes further. And that leaves me as the slow long distance type at between 30 and 60 kms per day.

Today I continued along the Loire and reached Blois in the early afternoon. There was less wind today but some showers in the morning. My hotel was closed until 1500, so I went to see the castle. But first I noticed a house across from the chateau where suddenly four large golden dragon heads protruded out of four windows and started to move around and open their mouths. They live in the Museum of Magic, which I suppose explains their appearance.

The Museum of Magic.

The palace displays four architectural styles, from medieval to classical. It was heavily restored and, as I understand it, partially recreated in the 19th century, and is now a sort of museum of that period’s vision of the renaissance.

The great council hall of the castle in Blois.

I returned to the hotel and carried my reduced baggage upstairs. I left one of my bike panniers in Orleans, with the things I don’t need. This turns out to be half of my stuff! And I thought I had planned so well! Of course my tent and sleeping bag take up a lot of space, and haven’t been used. I should have remembered that I really don’t like camping. I’ve never had any problems finding a bed for the night, even if I have spent more than I like on accommodation. Next time I’ll take no tent and more money.

Day 18: Orleans-Beaugency

Sunday.

My new rented bike is the colour of pear ice cream and it has nice high handle bars, much appreciated by my back and hands. But it seems less built for speed than my own bike, which will stay in storage at the Orleans hostel for a few days.

The slower and unfamiliar bike, added to the fact that it was almost noon before I left the helpful and professional proprietor of Wheels free bike rental, and that it was a very windy day, meant that I only made it to Beaugency today, maybe 20 kilometres from Orleans.

Here cyclotourism is well established and I followed an excellent and well marked bike path along the flat Loire valley. A few times I saw stickers with the golden scallop shell on blue, telling me this is also part of the European network of paths to Santiago de Compostela. The path often follows the wall built against floods.

In Meung I visited my chateau of the day, an old bishops palace in a quiet small town. It was not the most impressive of palaces, but the rooms where very nicely displayed with interesting facts about life in bygone days. The tour included not just the usual state rooms but also the attic, the kitchen and the dark and scary cellars where both wine and prisoners where kept.

Beaugency where I stopped for the night at the youth hostel is a pretty town by the Loire, very quiet on a Sunday afternoon and evening.

Day 17: Orleans

Saturday.

Today has been like a fairy tale. The kind of tale where the heroine is sent from one person – or animal or creature – to the next, who all give some clues to help in her quest.

I started at Decathlon where I asked them to have another look at Bike. Today the diagnosis was graver than yesterday. They could not help me – but the bike shop over in Olivet might.

The Monsieur in Olivet sent me to the bike shop by the Leclerc store who said nobody in Orleans would have the right parts for my old Skeppshult bike.

Back at the hostel I ran into the lady who runs the place. She called an acquaintance who rents out bikes, and he appeared after an hour in a white van to bring Bike over to yet another Monsieur to get a second opinion (or fifth to be precise).

Unfortunately they agreed with the others: a part inside the back wheel is old and worn and needs to be changed, or the entire wheel can be changed. But as Bike has what I believe are called drum brakes, while most bikes have external brakes, local wheels can not be used. They could order something, but that would take at least a week.

Fairy tales are all linear, and the events lead to an inevitable happy conclusion of the quest. But by this time, late afternoon, I was just tired and bewildered and took the tram into town to finally see the sights and consider my options. I could go straight home, continue on a bike I can no longer trust or continue on a rented bike.

I chose the third option, even if this will mean some crazy shuttling of bikes back and forth across the Loire valley. I also decided to go home a week earlier than planned and called the airline to change my ticket.

When all that was over I could finally settle down and enjoy some crepes and cider in the pleasant and pedestrianized old area of Orleans.

The youth hostel is incorporated in a sports stadium. I had breakfast with a wiew over the field.

Only the porch remains of the St Jacques church in Orleans.

Tree in the Parc Floral.

Day 16: Boissy la Riviere-Orleans

Friday.

I was surrounded by wheat fields on an immense plain, flat as a pancake, and it was raining. When I pedaled absolutely nothing happened, the chain didn’t connect to whatever moves Bike forward. I had another 60 kilometres to go to Orleans.

I had already travelled about 20 kilometres that morning with some small hickups. But in the rain Bike simply refused to cooperate.

That’s when I started to break everything down into small managable problems.

1 Can I reach a town where someone might help me? Yes, Toury is just 10 kms away, I can walk there.

So I set out over the plain, and when the sun came back I tried again, and this time Bike worked and I gingerly cycled to Toury. But there was no bicycle repairman.

2. Can I get to Orleans some other way? Yes, there is a railway station, a train leaves in an hour and I can bring Bike, it only takes some more carrying and wiggling to get on and off the train.

3. So I’m in Orleans, who can help? The tourist office gave me directions to Decathlon, a large sports shop outside the center.

At Decathlon a man took the bike into the shop, came back after 10 minutes, explained something in French which I couldn’t catch, but which amounted to that it was an easy problem which he had fixed. He charged me nothing!

Problems solved I set out to find the youth hostel, which is quite far from the city.

On the way there I realized that the problem with Bike was in fact not solved, not completely, because there are still some hickups where the chain just jumps. I don’t feel I can trust Bike any longer.

But this time I made like Scarlett O’Hara, and decided to think about it tomorrow.

On a happier note, I now revise everything I’ve said about traffic and lack of bike lanes in France. Orleans has a system of bike lanes and in the heart of town there are almost only pedestrians and trams.

Orleans cathedral.

Day 15: Paris-Boissy la Riviere

Thursday.

I would have wanted to pass the Tour St Jacques and Notre Dame on Bike and then roll south out of Paris. But I took the safer option: the RER train from Porte de Clichy to Massy-Palaiseau about 20 kilometers from the city center.

This was also a bit of an adventure. I had spotted elevators, but it turned out that they are exclusively for handicapped people so I had to carry Bike and luggage down several flights of stairs. Then get everything into a rail car almost full of people who didn’t expect to be poked in the stomach by a handlebar that morning. Luckily most people got off after two stops, leaving plenty of space for Bike.

Bike on the train.

After I got off the train there where more stairs and it also took me a while to figure out where I was on my maps, the Michelin and the “St Jacobs fietsroute”. But at about 11 I was finally on my way.

In Arpajon I met my first cycling pilgrim, a young man from Rotterdam who plans to go all the way to Santiago this summer. I was looking at my maps when he came up and offered to help and we ended up as companions on the road for the rest of the day. It was really nice having some company for a while, especially someone who has embarked on the same crazy long distance adventure. I also got an explanation to why several persons have assumed that I am Dutch – cykling trips are something Dutch people do.

This night I had really decided to camp but there was some rain so I preferred being indoors. My new friend stopped at a camping site and cheerfully predicted that we would meet again on the road. I continued to the next village and found a bed and breakfast which luckily had a room.

Day 14: Paris

Wednesday.

As I missed my daily palace yesterday, I visited two today. First the Cluny which was built for a bishop or cardinal or something, and is now home to a beautiful collection of arts and crafts from the middle ages. The centerpiece is a room dedicated to The Lady and the Unicorn tapestries, and they are indeed magnificent.

Saint James in the Cluny museum.

I also added two Saint James to my photo collection, one in wood and one in stained glass. The palace was even decorated with coquilles saint Jacques, as it was commissioned by a man named Jacques.

Then I took the metro to Vincennes and saw the impressive and probably heavily restored medieval chateau. It was the king’s favourite palace in the 14th century and later became a prison.

It was a hot day and I’d had my fill of the middle ages, so I spent the later part of the afternoon resting and reading in the Tuileries garden. I’d planned to pop into the museum shops of the Louvre but there was a long line just to get into the entrance area. Yesterday there was even a long queue in front of Notre Dame. I have never seen so many tourists in Paris before.

Velolib.

Yesterday I read an article about how more and more French people buy bikes and also how the authorities want to encourage bike tourism. I say: First improve conditions for your own bikers before trying to get foreigners to come here on bikes. In Paris I see some few brave souls on bikes, usually riding in a daredevil style, and sometimes using the Velolib, a scheme of public bikes which can be rented. But there are few bike lanes and I have decided to take the train across the city and not tough it out with the cars.