May 3, 2014
Day 4: Villers Cotterets to Reims
A quick review of where we think we are going/ what we are doing at this stage. In our title of "By the Books", our first Book is the Mosel Radweg. That starts at Metz, France and runs to Trier, to near Shengen, Luxembourg and then to Koblenz, where the Mosel joins the Rhine.
So, with our flight landing at Paris, our first thing is to get to Metz. We could call the "book" for this the road atlas (Routier) of France, but instead we just called the section "Across France". We actually started "Across France" following a Google Maps route that we generated at home. However, Google first took us on a muddy track and then tried to lead us onto the busy and dangerous National Route 2. So we have taken to making our own way, following back roads from village to village.
In France, village to village takes you to a lot of villages! Here is the list of where we went through today:
Fleury
Corcy
La Falaise
Le Plessier Huleu
Grand Rozoy
Beugneux
Cramaille
Mareuil en Dole
La Tuilerie
Chery Chartpreuve
Fismes
Courville
Crugny
Savigny sur Ardres
Favorelles et Coemy
Treslon
Rosnay
Le Camp
Gueux
Champigny
Saint Brice Courcelles (just outside Reims)
That's 21 towns, that we noted, anyway.It's quite a difference from getting on the Interstate (or even the N2) and blasting along. Each and every one of these towns had gorgeous stone buildings and an ancient church. Sadly, only about a quarter had a bakery. This caused me to whine that each one we found could be the last ever. Fortunately Dodie was having none of it we only stopped at one. Our total cost for today was therefore only 12.50 euros.
For much of the day we battled a headwind. The land here is made up of low ridges, which makes for some rolling and some short and sharp hills. Although wearing, this was never killer, though, because (unlike in Texas) you were always coming to the shelter and interest of a village in short order.
The ridges and rolling hills house a gorgeous patchwork of farm fields, and there were frequent vistas of shades of green, and of yellow. Add to this the stone houses, ancient churches, and 1 1/2 lane wide little roads, and you have as picturesque a cycling location as you could wish for.
Depending if you like wine, there was also something else here. After Fismes we were cutting through the northern outskirts of the Champagne region. Several of the villages housed small Champagne producers. These had tasting caves and retail sales, but alas, we are not drinkers. We did tell ourselves that if a bottle somehow easily appeared in front of us (like at a road side market) we would try it. Unfortunately this stuff is too high class to sell by the road.
Unlike in other wine regions of France we have passed through, the vines here did not cover every available inch of land. Maybe it's just because we were only on the edge of the region. The vines themselves were a little confusing. They stood only a couple of feet tall which is normal, but there was no wire or trellising provided for their summer growth. Stakes or supports were only 2-3 feet tall. So how these vines actually grow in the season is a bit of a mystery. We will need to come back and see!
When you come to a large-ish city in North America, as a cyclist you will normally face elevated expressways, heavy traffic, and a tangle of generally impassable roads and bridges. In France along the Loire anyway, and in Germany, the cyclist is lead through the city on safe bikeways. But where we are right now roads have no shoulders and there are no bikeways. What there is is a multitude of secondary roads. So on approaching Reims we avoided the national routes and autoroutes and found the back way in. To be fair, our Google track helped with that and even included a short bike path.
The bike path was a special help, because it lead by a small and reasonably secluded park. So we abandoned our plan to find a hotel downtown, and presently are setting up the tent in a hopefully secluded corner. We have a view of the famous cathedral of Reims from here. Tomorrow we will cycle in for a close look.
photos - coming!
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Today's ride: 84 km (52 miles)
Total: 177 km (110 miles)
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