Day Sixty Eight: La Barre de Mont to Pornic

June 3, 2017

We had a nice send off from Karine and family, who join a group of B&B hosts that were super nice to us. The group, though, includes every B&B we have been at. They have just all been nice!

After a quick wave at downtown La Barre (church, bakery, tabac) we immediately plunged into the area of marshland, polders, canals, and oyster production that comprises the coastal area as far north as Les Moutiers en Retz. That is, for the first 3/4 of our day.

Our hosts at Le Vieux Colombier in La Barre de Mont

The map gives this area a name: the Breton Marsh. This is kind of news to me. I had thought of Breton as being north of the Loire, and I understood Nantes to have once been viewed as the capital, but to have been on the extreme southern boundary. Now I have seen this Breton marsh, and also the term on a sign somewhere Breton South. Ok.

The marsh was made all the more "interesting" by the advent of rain. At times this was quite heavy. It's always an inconvenience, but perhaps in this case it was good, because the marsh has no trees or shade of any kind. We did take a bit of care, though, to stay off of dirt tracks that bike route planners like so much, to avoid getting into mud. Overall, it was fine.

Out on the marsh, there are lots of fishing shacks and nets, like this.

A great example of the bike route leading you to purgatory. You can see how Dodie dealt with it.

Hairy asses. We have not seen these in quite a while.

In France, a Route Barree signs go up at the drop of a hat. Usually, they are not really serious about it. This one was pretty much a joke. We came to the "problem" area - the sign should have said "Route narrows slightly"

Beauvoir has a nice central square. This is a small town in the middle of the marsh.

I can just hear Dodie reading this and saying: "Fine??" "You forgot to mention the head wind!" Yes. I was getting to that. There is a strong prevailing wind from the north west. Someone obviously picked up on this (duh) because we passed a nice wind farm, of eight towers. It was good, because we were right under the towers and could have a close look at them. They were of the now standard 2.5 MW type. These eight towers produce enough power annually for 22,000 households. We think it's nuts that our home province, with its huge coastline, has basically none of these.

By the way, a few other facts - each tower weighs 50 tonnes. The turbines rotate at 11 to 19 turns per minute, and can start up in wind as low as 14 km/hour. Each vane is about 40 metres long. The towers are stuck in the ground from 10 to 24 metres deep. The things are made in Denmark. For the benefit of Mr. Trump and his stance on climate change: The revenues for this went to Denmark and not to the U.S.

Wind turbines. We found out why they were placed here!

All the rain and headwind fighting had us pretty hungry as early as 10 o'clock. Out in the marsh, we did have a secret solution for this. Michel's wife Jeanette had made and sent along a giant coffee cake yesterday. Today, it was instrumental in keeping us going.

We had our coffee break beside a pile of oyster shells and shell pieces. It would have been great for our chickens.

Oyster shells. Actually we have not seen huge piles of them, as we have sometimes seen on our own island.

It seems on every trip we take a lot of photos of swans. This is because they are common in Europe and of course because they are soo elegant and photogenic. But so far this time - none. Until today. So here is at least the one required swan photo for this trip:

One thing we have been able to photograph a lot is St. James statues. So here is maybe (hopefully) the last one. As you can see, it was outside some sort of home. Maybe a home for old pilgrims?

As is always the case, St. James is wearing at least two shells. They seem a bit inconveniently placed. We have ours dangling from the back of our helmets and back of our panniers. More efficient.

There was lots of oyster production, in places like this.

Dodie cuts the cake sent by Jeanette - out on the marsh, and when we really needed it.

Occasionally the route came right down to the sea. The sea in this case was not exactly there, being "out".

The marsh was exciting, as an ecological zone, and felt quite wild, especially in the rain and wind.

The Velocean starts in the middle of nowhere.

The marsh ended at La Bernerie en Retz, which is where a long run of quite sterile (for us) residential housing. We very loosely tallied 2/3 of these to be closed up, not in use right now. We have no idea what kind of people own all these buildings and how they use them. But we do know that we also saw a lot of new construction.

We followed the bike path signs, which had now magically morphed from the Velodysee to the Velocean, into Pornic. We were cautious, because we wanted to stop in Pornic and we know that the bike routes like to steer you away from services like place to stay. This time, though, we rolled right into the thick of it.

Pornic is one of those coastal places built around an inlet/inner harbour. and quite properly for this model, the harbour was lined with restaurants, ice cream places, and bakeries. On this holiday weekend, too, it was hopping with people.

What was not to be found around the harbour was hotels. We only located one, the Soleil, and it was full. But Tourist Information was miraculously open, so we figured we would have a solution soon.

Dodie went in, but did not emerge as usual with a map and a plan. Rather she had been told that everywhere was full, except for a place in St Michel chef Chef (30 kms away on our bike track, 10 km by dubious shortcut) and a place at 120 euros - somewhere.

We went back in, and after some discussion came out with a reservation at a Best Western, out by the `Super U (!) and the Decathlon. 102 euros and a few km away.

We did manage to find the place, though its signage and entrance were oriented only toward the nearby big highway. On checking in we asked our normal question about where to put the bikes, and were told there would be a charge of 3 euros each. I blew my stack at that (to the extent that the super cool Steve ever does) and refused to pay. I told them that this was the first hotel in all of France that in my experience had dreamed up such a ridiculous charge (true). They said - ok, fine, and coughed up the code to use the garage anyway.

As it happened, our 102 euros had also bought the only hotel room in all of France big enough to swallow the bikes and not even notice.

We are now about 30 km from being firmly on the Loire, as opposed to coming up the coast or being at the mouth of the Loire. In it's own way, it an achievement. We will have come about 900 km from Irun. Pretty cool (we say).

We have covered a major portion of the Velodysee. This roadside map showed us a ferry from Spain to near Nantes. That could have been a way to have skipped Velodysee and subbed in the Camino Norte. But havng seen the hills on the Norte, we are probably happier we did it this way.

But before we get fully immersed in the joys of the Loire valley, we have the three towns near the mouth of the river. There is Saint Michel Chef Chef, St Brevins les Pins, and Paimboeuf. Of these, St Brevin sound normal, as a name, but the other two are kind of cute. Saint Michel is also the home of a giant biscuit factory, making the St Michel brand (since 1905). But that is jumping the gun. Stay tuned!

In la Bernerie - lots of services preview Pornic.

Restaurants line the harbour in Pornic. Hotels - not.

The bikes fit easily into our room this time.

Today's ride: 60 km (37 miles)
Total: 3,179 km (1,974 miles)

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