Day Sixty Four: Marans to Saint Vincent Sur Jard

May 30, 2017

Our way out of Marans was through the centre of town, so we were able to briefly stop by two of the landmarks - the church, with its unusal steel and glass steeple, and one of the three bakeries. The church was built in 1900, but money ran out before a steeple could be put in place. However it was financed some time later by a local boy who found success in Paris. That is all I have been able to learn about it, though it is rather unique. From a distance it looks like it had caught flesh eating disease or something, but apparently it even has a viewing platform in the glass section, and is quite the thing.

The bakery was a small and simple one, but it did have the nice selection of breakfast food shown in the photo below (when it gets added).

Just kidding, eh, breakfast this time was very nice bread, cheese, and yogurt.

Marans qualifies as a typical French white crumbly village. In their basic way, these are very picturesque. You have to wonder, though, why no one thinks to respray or restucco the structures occasionally.

Marans is built around the river Sievre Nioetaise, but has at least four canals running around

A typical crumbly white village is Marans

The bakery had this special display of Steve breakfast food.

Our way once out of town followed a drainage canal for some distance. This whole area is one of "polders", like in Netherlands, with the land having been reclaimed from the sea.

We started out on this track beside one of the many canals

This fisherman is using a net of a typical local design.

Cows here come in all colours and styles. Riding by, we rate them for elegance and contrast - ability to stand out in a field.

For what it's worth, where we are. My finger is where we started this morning. We ended almost at Sables d'Olonne, along the coast to the left.

This poo covered path reminded us of dike riding in Netherlands.

Here are the culprits. They are very tired!

Again today we can not say the cycling was really exciting. Villages are rather far apart, and they do not contain much that is noteworthy. We did enjoy our visit to St Michel en l'Herm though. We came to the church first, and found it pretty normal. The facade does have an angel slaying a dragon. I notice this, because I am always amazed at the number of mythical creatures that churches put forth, without any comment as to whether these are officially part of the belief system or not. Dragons appear so frequently, though, you would have to say the Church believes in them. Does Pope Francis know about this?

What was actually nice about St Michel was that it had a central square, housing a bakery, the Tourist Information, a hotel/restaurant, and suchlike. The city hall, a spare bakery, and an old abbey are just around the corner.

As we swept into the square, I assigned myself to the bakery, because it was coffee time, while Dodie went to the TI to look for Velodysee maps for me, now that we were in the new Departement of Vendee. At the bakery I picked up a nice medium sized fruit tart and came around to the TI, where Dodie was still stuck outside answering UQs. My appearance allowed her to excuse herself and go inside, while I finished the UQs.

When Dodie came out, she found that I had gobbled own the whole fruit tart, much to her disappointment. I recommended we go back and get another, and Dodie agreed. "Are you going to eat the whole thing yourself?", was my next question. Dodie couldn't believe that the person who had just inhaled the previous one was asking this! So we went back, and rather than have to beg for some of tart #2 (though Dodie, being a sweetie was willing to share, I got yet another item. It was an apple crumble little pie, or "crumble de pommes". I learned that the way you pronounce "crumble" in French is "crumble".

We must have been short of sugar at that moment becasue we were also attracted by little baggies of sour gummies, in lurid colours and weird flavours. They were actually high quality for what they were. Our son Joshua loves these things. Too bad it was not really practical to bring some back.

The church in St Michel, has a standard angel and slain dragon on the facade

This is the priest killed last year by terrorists. He is not forgotten here - several things about him were posted in the church.

Dodie and a sour gummy thing. This reminded her of childhood visits to the sweet shop. For some reason her sister and she called such stuff "smish".

Grampies almost clean St Michel out of tartes

The St Michel central square - nothing fancy, but eassy to find things here.

All this excitement at St Michel was about it, save for the gypsies we spotted, and the ponies, who appear in the photos below. Which pony do you think is cutest - and worthy of our My Little Pony award?

We found a place to stop in St Vincent sur Jard, which is an area that is kind of a desert in terms of services. There is a (closed!) Tourist Information, a small grocery somewhere, and a pizza restaurant - that's about it. Our place is a hotel/restaurant out near the beach. It seems to be one of the few around.

The restaurant part will not do us much good either. As drop outs from Family Restaurant 100, what are we to make of its 62 euro dinner offering?:

For the 62 euros you can have 12 oysters or duck foie gras or a plate of Coquille St Jacques. Then it's half a lobster and some kind of tart for dessert.

If you are not into 62 euros or so much sea food, you can knock 20 euros off by subbing in duck fillet.

We need to go back to those 12 euro "pilgrims' menus"!

At our hotel, they have a pair of St Bernards. This is "Flocon" (Snowflake). Flocon knows several languages!

Today's ride: 68 km (42 miles)
Total: 2,952 km (1,833 miles)

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