Not Flanders Fields ~ A Hot Day out on a Bike

Weather today got to at least 33.
So while Richard  visited important battle sites, I took off on a bike.
Challenge 1. Hire a bike.
Bike hire place number 1

Bike hire place number 3 is for motor bikes...
Bike Hire place number 3 is away for 2 days on a randonee...
Bike hire place number 4 is a winner!!  Bikes and maps... and suggestions about where to go.

I choose the greenway... it sounds cool on a hot day.

I loved the rural scenes...

This is not Flanders Fields, Tashi, but there are poppies.

The shade was welcome while it lasted.

Through the trees glimpses of castles and rivers hinted at more unexplored places.

 Sign posts kept me on track, but also tempted with promises of ancient abbeys, little towns and more of the unknown just a pedal stroke away.

Thury-Harcourt was the turn around point and also the scene of the most expensive glass of water on this trip.  It was also just past a lovely cool tunnel.
So back onto the cycleway... a cheery 'bonjour' and 'merci' to the workmen at the tunnel as they waved me onto the dry part of the newly painted cycle path.

Caen: Cheese, crepes and cathedrals

So Daniel asked for a photo in the cheese...

Is this what you meant?

And for Ali and Rhiannon...the crepe was cooked fresh in front of me and served steaming hot - with Nutella... mmm

The train to Caen involved a change at Le Mans... I guess some of  you would have liked a stop there too, but tough.  Hotel, lunch, tourist office, war memorial museum cathedral 

where William the Conqueror is buried. 

 There are a few cathedrals and a castle,  all of which have been extensively  repaired since the war. The rest of Caen is pretty new.

St Nazaire, U boat pens and dolmen.

Nantes is a picture in the early morning.

Castle of the Dukes of Brittany. 

St Nazaire

from the roof these  huge concrete bunkers are beginning to become  overgrown with trees. Down below stray cats prowl the chilling dark tunnels. 

The beach

Dolmen

Puy du Fou

Today we did the impossible. .. went back in time to the days of the Vikings, Medieval knights and Roman Emperors throwing christians to the lions.

Equally impossible  was actually getting to Puy du Fou without a car. 

The saga goes something like this...

Arrive in the nearest main rail hub/ large city/ tourist destination- Nantes.

Ask at tourist information ... no they can not book us in or get us there or tell us how to get there.

Our lovely  hotel staff  phone Puy du Fou  and are able to assure us that the park is not fully booked, we can buy tickets at the gate, but again we draw a blank on transport  options. 

Next stop train station- bus station then back to the train station where we get a ticket for a bus!

From the bus/ train station in Cholet we are able to  catch a taxi to 

Grande Parc de Puy du Fou.

the colosseum 

chariots

magnificent horses

yes that really is a lion

and geese

and horses

and crowds.

Our first spectacle was the Viking story...

I never knew who were the good guys and who were the baddies... especially when someone runs off with a whole farmyard of little black piglets.  

But the really good bit was the viking ship rising out of the lake.  As if a flaming  longboat careening down the slipway wasn't dramatic enough.

Most of the set had been set alight at some stage as well as fights and falconry a treasure chest, an  action heroine who threw the attackers off the roof.... some superb horse riding.  But wait, there's more. Parc first aid staff were kept busy with tourists fainting as well.  

Just a train day

To get from Dijon to Nantes for our  next adventure we take the TGV all the way back to Paris,  then change stations... and out to the south west.
We speed along at 293 km per hour past fields dotted with hay bales. Wheat fields blur into mounds of golden velvet, edged with clumps of rich green woodland.  Fences, roads and paths are tossed like so many ribbons across the landscape while clusters of tiled village roofs are stitched tightly to the hill tops.  Cows gossip contentedly in the shade, dappled with the sunlight filtering through the leaves.
  The rush from Gare de Lyon to Gare Montparnasse went smoothly, despite crowded trains.  With a sense of relief and satisfaction, we stashed the wonderful wheelie bags that had rolled and shuddered along behind as we zoomed across Paris before collapsing gratefully into our first class seats.
The Okko Hotel turned out to be a 4 star delight that we had booked on a half price deal... not that we knew it at the time, we only found out the real price when we went to book an extra night!

Hope you like the room Keishi.


And Richard's favourite...

the coffee machine.

The only thing missing is a view of the Palace of the Dukes of Brittany... which is only about 50 metres away!

The only thing missing from the picture, is the remotely moaty smell of the moat.  On closer inspection the moat was home to live and dead fish, ducks, geese, pigeons and turtles.

Love this bike.

Our day in Dijon started as all days in France should... with a quiet walk through freshly cleaned cobbled streets. Smells of coffee and croissants invite us to join the other tourists at an outdoor table in the square. 

is this the sort of bike you wanted Tashi? 

Love this bike!

Love this bike path.

Chauntelle.. this bike path has locks on it... is this what you meant by a lock bridge? 

Or did you mean this sort of lock bridge?

Oiuyt

Dijon, TGV, Vercengeterix and Asterix

Yes, you  guessed it! Another early start. On the metro by 6 am to get to Gare de Lyon.  In true Richard style we had done a reconnaissance  run the night before, but that still didn't  stop us popping up unexpectedly between two TGV on a deserted platform. The TGV  is a high speed train (tren a grande vitesse) and takes a little  over an hour to cover the distance from Paris to Dijon. The regional train could take 3 hours or more.

views from the train

Summer  has arrived in France.... just when I had put away my summer skirt and switched back to jeans and 2 layers of merino wool.
As we had already validated our eurail passes for the day, we took off straight away for Alesia... site of a major battle between the Gauls (French) and the Romans.

Museo Parc Alesia 

Museo Parc Alesia is off the beaten track, not beseiged by tourists and inconveniently spread over a couple of kilometres of HILLside, a good kilometre from the train station.  It is very hot and I am still in a merino shirt?!  Ah well... at least merino doesn't smell...
We were in time for the re-enactments...
Then begged a ride from some passing English tourists to see the Roman ruins
and statue of Vercengeterix

Baxter and armour 

Roman legion marching off to war.  

 Can you spot any extras?

Leighton is at the ruins of a Roman fort on the hillside above Alesia.

Vercengeterix 

Walking past wheat fields to see the roman ruins and statue of Vercengeterix.