May 22, 2022
The holy church of lawyers
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THERE IS in France a cathedral to the patron saint of lawyers. For all I know, you're charged for every hour spent there.
You, of course, a sinner, will be unaware of such things. But lawyers from around the Catholic world have, it's said, been turning up at Tréguier to sidle up to their patron saint. And confess their sins.
We rode there from our overnight stop at Port-Blanc and I'd tell you more were it not that the building had been taken over by hundreds of sadfaced people gathered to say farewell to a town worthy. The croque-morts waiting to drive off with the body told us it would be another hour before we could wander tactfully in Lycra and bare legs and so we abandoned religious learning and drank coffee instead.
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And it was then that we met Vincent and Pauline, she in a padded jacket against the cold, he wearing a cloth cap labelled "No pain, no gain."
Vincent and Pauline were Young People. They lamented never being able to get away for more than two weeks. That, I assured them breezily, was the price of youth. They were in their late 20s, early 30s. I am not.
Brittany was hard riding, they said. Their only other experience had been the Via Rhona, which if you ride south is always downhill.
"What we'd really like is to tour Iceland," Pauline sighed as she sipped. "We've never been."
We hadn't been either but we discussed remote inland tracks, autonomy and high prices. Oh, and the weather, a hint of which they were getting as they rode against the wind and into the rain that started the moment they continued their journey towards Quimper.
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This weekend has brought out the nation's cycle-tourists. We are in a spell of national holidays which, bridged by extra freedoms between each, provide two weeks of cycling for the price of less.
The panniers were all heading west, the way that Pauline and Vincent had gone after secretly paying for our coffees. That took them into the wind that we had behind us and we bowled effortlessly for hours until we reached the Route des Falaises.
A falaise is a cliff and the clifftop road hands out caves and bays and rockfaces in return for repeated steep climbs. We stopped for a picture on one and along came a backpacker who'd been enjoying the view from a bench.
"I'm Flemish," he said, which not only explained him geographically but also separated him from the wider experience of being Belgian. Belgium has still to come to terms with being two nations forced to live together.
He came from Flemish Brabant, he said, which is between Brussels and Antwerp, delighted but puzzled when I said he didn't speak with a classic Belgian accent.
"There's no classic Belgian accent," he said. So I imitated the exaggerated Tyneside tone of many a Belgian bike rider.
"Oh, West Flanders," he said, as though I'd spoken of people who stole cats for vivisection.
West Flanders is the reach of Belgium before it's consumed by the North Sea, a vague country defined by its vagues (waves) as the singer, Jacques Brel, put it although in French.
"I'd be embarrassed to speak like that," our rambler said. "Such an ugly accent, and the people..."
He blew through gathered lips and raised his eyebrows.
Half an hour later it started raining on us and, separately, on him. I don't know where he is but we are at Lanloup
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Your encounter with Vincent and Pauling reminded me of touring in Iceland. Well, they should go now while they have the optimism of youth. One encounter in particular stands out. Several cyclists of all ages and nationalities had gathered around a table in the kitchen/common area in the campground in Grindavik. An older English lady was there because on the first night out from Keflavik airport the wind had destroyed her tent and she was forced to borrow a spare from the campground folks while waiting for a replacement to come from Reykjavik. An Italian rider was just spending his last night after completing the ring road only using buses twice to escape the weather. I was there because I had to return to Reykjavik for tent repairs four days previously and I could go no further before I had to return to France. Nobody at the table had had a trouble-free tour. I later found out that Sean Kane was snowed in on the overland route at the same time, spending two days in his tent before backtracking to the coast. In short, it had been quite a week for cyclists in Iceland. After getting home I discovered that two Brits had made it across the interior the following week with no problems at all. Luck is everything when dealing with Icelandic weather.
We dutifully went to the polls yesterday. Our candidate didn’t get enough votes to pass into the second round, so once again I will be choosing the least objectionable of the two survivors.
Have a great tour, and maybe a galette with a Breizh Cola.
Cheers,
Keith
2 years ago