clairedavieswriter

They say train hard, ride easy. If that’s the case, the last three days must have been training, because today I felt I was flying. Obviously, it helped that my northeastern nemesis let up a bit.

But who knows, maybe you get fitter if you pedal over 1,000km in two and a half weeks? It also feels good to be well past the halfway mark of my France end to end.

I had two main concerns on departure. The first, given I was unlikely to pass a town for a while, was where to get breakfast. That was quickly resolved by the appearance of an enormous boulangerie just around the first corner.

My second concern was the hill I would have to climb immediately afterwards. But the gradient turned out to be easier than I’d feared – or perhaps it was the effect of the oil I’d applied to Bernard’s chain, and the four-star fully-caffeinated allongé I’d ingested at the boulangerie. Before I knew it, we were on a high plateau

We rode through gently rolling hills, swooping down to the Loir several times

As it meandered through pretty villages:

This one sounded like a helpful kind of place:

While these villagers took a direct approach to traffic calming (‘It’s not the motorway, so slow down!’):

In Bonneval my shot of the ancient coaching inn was photo-bombed by its modern day equivalent

We saw thatched roofs for (I think) the first time in the trip. This one seemed to have a flower bed on its apex:

Even on the tiniest rural roads, our cycle route was marked out:

And on the wall of this stout church in the village of Bouville, where I had my picnic lunch…

I found a touching, if time-worn, memorial to fallen allies:

Meanwhile, across the street, the local baker had taken extreme measures to ensure people knew the whereabouts of his shop:

This vegetable farmer had taken a different approach to sales. You could get anything, as long as it was potatoes

Having crossed another river:

I reached my destination at the uncommonly early hour of 3pm.

All being well, 100k in the saddle tomorrow should get me to the Seine. Better get my strength up…