Thursday September 27th - forests

Thursday marked my departure from the sea, and the start of a long journey across the continent towards the Mediterranean.

The weather was still a bit grey and miserable, with very little actual rain but not enough sunshine to enjoy lunch by or by which to adequately charge my phone.

The morning landscapes consisted mostly of unremarkable flattish stuff. I left Normandy and entered Brittany for a short while, crossed the pleasant Foret de Fougeres and then continued into the Mayenne region of Pays de la Loire.

I passed lots of farmland and cows. I startled one cow, which caused it to start bucking around and charging in my general direction, and I was very glad of the electric fence between us. After this incident I would take a lot more care around cows, trying not to ride past them too fast, and crossing to the far side of the road whenever possible.

Later there was a nice gentle winding climb up into the Mayenne forest, followed by a nice fast straight road to Andouillé, where I camped for the bank-breaking cost of 1.85 euro/night at the camping municipal.

Wednesday September 26th - le Mont St Michel

I decided to take Wednesday off to visit Mont St Michel, and it was well worth it. I walked along the footpath on the mud flats, over to the not-quite-island that is the mountain, and into the narrow cobbled streets of the town.

The abbey proved an excellent way to spend a morning, with its fantastic views over the surrounding mud flats from the terraces and self-guided tour of the church, cloisters, refectory and other atmospheric and beautifully constructed rooms.

The abbey had to be designed around the steep rocky slopes of the Mount, and it is an impressive feat that the 13th century architects and builders were able to create this carefully-crafted three-storey building around the huge granite pyramid that is Mont St Michel, supported by strong buttresses and designed so that the upper layers are as light as possible.



It started to get a bit drizzly when I came out of the abbey at about 11. I tried to get my first crepe au citron but nobody was serving crepes till lunchtime so I started to wander back to the campsite. As I left the town, a fellow tourist approached me and asked me to take a photograph of him and his buddy... with their car as the main backdrop. I'm sure that'll be a fond memory for them to look back on...

Walking back, along the road this time, I noticed sheep upon the mud flats. These are salt marsh sheep - agneau pré-salé (salt marsh lamb) is a local speciality, the meat being very well flavoured.

I encountered my first fellow cycle tourists, a group of three riding towards the Mont as I made my way back, and said hello as they passed.

Lunch was bread with a lovely and rather creamy local cheese, Cremeux du Mont St Michel. I made the most of the afternoon to do a bit of washing, not that I had accumulated much at that point, and not that it had much chance of getting dry. I picked up French Marie Claire at the supermarket and started to read it with the aid of my French dictionary. They did have a couple of English papers and magazines but they're quite expensive and don't last anywhere near as long!

Tuesday September 25th - approaching the Mont

After the previous evening's car chase, I wasn't quite sure which side of Coutances I was on, but after a little map-and-compass work
I decided I was on the west side, which was the right side to be on. I left at about 9:30am, having slept a lot to make up for the previous night. It took me about two hours to get up, make porridge, pack and get going, but this was my first time doing it alone and I did cut that down to about an hour and a half for most of the rest of the trip.

There was a broken bridge at Pont de la Roque, destroyed during the Second World War in an attempt to cut off the Germans. I started to notice signs to town campsites, which I hadn't really done on Monday but decided it was good to get into the habit. I got my pain au chocolat, and had one for dgym too.

The weather was very changeable, the very definition of "sunny intervals". My raincoat stayed on as it wasn't too hot, but the hood was constantly up and down. I spent most of the day watching the skies. When it was sunny, I kept a suspicious eye out for grey clouds. When the grey clouds came along and rained on me, I would scan the sky hopefully for the tiniest blue patches.

I slipped in the gutter at le Repas, the bike fell (not that it has far to fall with its wide load on the back), I stayed on my feet but a passing motorist seemed to find it amusing.

Lunch at la Haye-Pesnel consisted of sheltering under a dripping tree in the town centre with bread, jambon sec and cherry tomatoes.

My first glimpse of Mont St Michel came during a sunny spell near Lolif.

I didn't want to go into Avranches as it looked too big, but it stood between me and my Mont. I skirted past the town quite nicely, thanks to the impressive signage on the little roads in Normandy.

I followed the on-road cycle route from Pontaubault, mostly on coastal roads so the approaching Mont was visible a lot of the time. It had been reasonably sunny for a couple of hours, so I had dried out a little, but was suddenly hit in the face by stinging, cold head-on rain, which might possibly have been hail. It was getting close to the time to start setting up camp but I was nearly there, so battled on.

I reached the "base" of the Mont (the inland flashy neon tourist settlement of hotels, restaurants, a campsite and a supermarket) soon enough. After putting the tent up, I decided to eat out while the opportunity was there (some might call it avoiding my own cooking) and had a three-course meal at one of the restaurants, consisting of oysters, steak and chocolate mousse.

Monday September 24th - Bucketloads

Maps are dangerous. They're small and flat and interesting, just perfect for seducing you into long and crazy bike tours. During our little trip to Devon, I was reminded of the reality of travelling such distances, and started to wonder just what the hell I was doing trying to cycle from one end of France to the other. Well, the first day of that trip wasn't exactly easy.

The ferry tipped us out at 6:30am local time into a dark, mild and windy Cherbourg morning. I'd only had a couple of hours sleep, not too much of a problem since I was excited to get going and was confident of making it up the next night. At least it wasn't raining...

Hungry, I stopped at the first boulangerie I saw, but unfortunately had forgotten to get any change and the lady wouldn't let me break my 50euro note on two pain au chocolats. Bah! Any patissier worth their sugar would have a heart and donate a pain au chocolat to a tired-looking windswept cyclist...

The great start continued when it began to rain. Seriously. Climbing the hill out of Cherbourg on the D900, I was suddenly caught up in huge gusts of wind and rain sheeting across the road all around me. I could barely see, and stopped on the grass verge for a while, turning my raincoated back to what felt like buckets of water being hurled at me. I was soaked in a matter of minutes. It eased off a bit after a while, but I was rained on all the way to Bricquebec.

At Bricquebec I found an Intermarche where I could replace my confiscated cheese, pick up some dinner and break one of my large notes. The rain had magically stopped by the time I came out again, and bits of blue had started to poke through as I continued down the D127.

The roads were quite enjoyable. Unlike in the UK, most minor roads in France have numbers and decent signposting. Hills are pleasant - single arrow hills involve continuous pedalling in low gear for a long time rather than huffing and puffing up a 20% gradient and stopping every couple of metres. There are double and triple arrows on the map, but those are mostly avoidable.

I found a nice picnic bench at St. Sauveur de Pierrepont upon which to eat my lunch of bread, butter, tomatoes and Camembert - the cheese was a bit feety but everything else was lovely.

The afternoon was quite sunny and I dried off quite quickly. Just before La Haye-du-Puits, I was diverted off the road onto a cycling / walking / horseriding track with a sign pointing Le Mont St Michel, which I was hoping to reach the next day. Marvellous, I thought, and followed the track for the rest of the day, passing Lessay, Periers and St Sauveur-Lendelin.

It was nice to be away from the traffic (although with French traffic there is really no need) but the track got a bit boring after a while. There were very few signs and very little indication of where I was. Being a disused railway route, it was a bit flat, and the gravel surface made it harder to ride on.

I left the track somewhere that I thought might be St Sauveur-Lendelin but turned out to be Cambernon. I was ready to find a campsite by that point, so followed the D341 to Coutances.

On arrival at Coutances, I stopped to look at the map and shortly a car pulled over, its occupant offering navigational assistance. I said that I was looking for a campsite, and he knew of one in Coutances so offered to drive ahead show me the way. He mentioned that there was a bit of ascending and descending required to get there. No problems, I thought, I can handle a hill or two. What I have trouble handing is when those hills are on major roads and I'm battling straight into a headwind whilst trying to keep up with a car. I'd also not realised how big Coutances is, and the campsite in question was a good couple of miles away. Nonetheless, I got there, thanked my guide and started to pitch up.

Not a moment too soon - the rain started coming down just as dinner finished cooking!