Day Sixty Six: Bretignolles Sur Mer to La Barre de Monts

June 1, 2017

(Photos coming)The essence of today's ride is that of a cycle cruise along a gorgeous coastline, with seaside houses of a consistent design that enhances and reflects the maritime environment. This of course has been the story of the last few days, but perhaps the route brought us a little closer to the sea this time.

Our world today. We started where my finger is at the bottom and went to Noirmoutier, at the top,

Our coastal tour is continuing, for a few more days.

The style of the houses I m talking about is that of a simple low bungalow, with orange tiled roof and bright white stucco walls. Typically windows and doors will have shutters, and these will be blue.

I formed this impression from lots and lots of examples, and decided that this was "it", until we rolled into Saint Gilles Croix de Vie. Saint Gilles is built around an inner harbour, and this is suitably lined with restaurants and some hotels. The buildings housing these were general nondescript ones. But outside of town instead of a return to the orange tile white wall standard we found a kind of Belle Epoch situation of many unique and handsome houses. I shot a few, to give the idea.

One of the special houses we found around St Gilles

This building stands alone outside Saint Gilles

This is the kind of hotel we would ike to stay at.

In Saint Gilles, there is a line of restaurants and some hotels.

In due course, though, the architecture style returned to the standard. I think these standard houses are newer, and are mostly for retirement of ordinary people, while the fancy ones come from an age when this coast was most popular with well off visitors. One example of this comes at Sion Beach, just beyond Saint Gilles. A trailside information panel reproduces an old advertising brochure, touting the pleasures of the beach, picturing one of the house styles we noticed, and citing the place as 10 hours from Paris by train.

Outside of Saint Jean, near St Hilaire de Riez, we were pushing up a hill. For some reason Dodie had taken the left side of the path. A man came down the hill on his bike and stopped directly in front of Dodie. for a second we both thought this could be an evolving contest of wills. But no. The man was Andre Penhoet, and he only wanted to say hello. As is the case worldwide, when one touring cyclist sees another there is an immediate comraderie and a desire to find out what the other is up to. This applies if both are are tour and have the heavy bags on the bike to prove it, and it applies if one has toured a lot but happens to be near near at the time, and has no bags. This was the case with Andre, who lives at St Hilaire. He has toured extensively up and down this coast and around France, but also in Senegal and Vietnam. The thing that made Andre specially interesting to us was that he is 80, and in great shape mentally and physically. We especially noted on the mental side his great enthusiasm, which showed in his plans for further tours and in his interest in what we were up to.

We also thought, talking about it later, that Andre reminded us, in his intellect and enthusiasm, of Dodie's dad, who we still miss so terribly. Partly for that reason we could have talked to Andre for much longer. As it was, it was over 30 minutes, which is a lot in a cycling day.

Two other things about Andre. He had his contact information (children, and doctor) printed boldly and on top of his map case. Not a bad idea. He, like us, also had some stickers and patches on his bike and handlebar bag. Most notable was the Bretonne "cross?" - with three swirly arms. Andre said that Bretonne dialect is his other language. We will look for this symbol as we progress north.

Dodie encounters Andre, 80 year old cycling enthusiast

Andre. We learned a bit about him. He fought in the Algerian war. Lost his wife 16 years ago, and cycled the Camino the next year. He still carries her pictures, and we were pleased to look at them.

Nearby Sion Beach there are five rocks in the sea just beyond the beach. These are called the Five Monks and have spawned various stories. Their main role, though is as a place for cormorants to spread and dry their wings after fishing.

Look Amelia, Evee, and Joe - a backhoe and excavator playing at the beach

This train ad reveals enthusiasm for this beach area

Not much farther north we came across a restaurant that I think in past years we had also noticed. This restaurant serves two dishes, and gives them exactly equal billing on the signage - moules, and crepes. We designate this spot as the moule/crepe boundary. South of here it is all moules all the time, and in Bretonne (just north) it is all crepes all the time. And here at this restaurant, it is 50/50.

The famous Grampies moules/crepes dividing line restaurant

Crepes get billing over moules. Moules will always be popular in France, but we are definitely moving into crepes territory.

We did not stop in to the restaurant because at this time it was about 10:30. But we had skipped breakfast, preferring to knaw on some bread and some chaussons pommes. By 11:00 we were starting to weaken, and with the temperature approaching 40 again, Dodie was also starting to wilt. so we went on the lookout for a crepes restaurant, and some ice cream would not hurt either. We would have thought that the food (and shade) problem would be quickly solved, as we entered Saint Jean de Monts. This is one of those places with ice cream/crepes places lining the seafront, one after another.

At 11:20 we stopped into our first one. Unlike the Pataterie from the other day, it was not locked up, but rather had its signs out out front and staff in the doorway. But it also was not about to serve up any food. That only begins at noon.

We tried another two, and each time the answer was the same. At the fourth one I changed my tactic just slightly. Instead of asking if they were open, I asked if they could whip up some crepes for us. This subtlety was like water off a canard's back. Midi (noon) is the time to eat anything, not before, and that's obvious and final!

so we passed up the other dozen places and dejectedly cranked off toward the next place, Notre Dame de Monts. At Notre Dame there was not a lineup of seaside restaurants, and the trial instead had taken to doing a long series of ups and downs on a dirt path in the forest. We could have taken a chance on heading off route toward some imagined crepe restaurant, but instead we jut plodded on. Two raspberry filled cookies from our favourite company Bonne Maman, staved off any total bonk.

A panoramic wheel at St Jean looks great against the pure blue sky.

In the forest there we many butterflies, like this one.

Another move that helped was our eventual abandonment of the gravel forest path, in a bold run for it down a slightly busy D road. This took us quickly into La Barre de Monts/Fromentine. Our plan had been to go to the Tourist Information to find a place to stay here, but in fact we fell across a B&B on the way.

Our forest path, until we abandoned it for the faster D road.

The B&B, called Le Vieux Columbier comprised two buildings of the exact type we have been talking about as seaside typical for here. Our place has bright white walls, orange roof, and blue shutters! Inside the maritime theme is carried with nets and life preserver type decoration. Even better, there is of course only the ground level and our bikes are just outside our door. There is also a large kitchen, full of equipment. making the place feel all the more homey is the pleasant proprietor, Karin, and especially her dog, Vanille.

Our place in La Barre - totally typical design.

Dodie in "our" kitchen. We are the only people here, so it really is ours.

La Barre de Monts is located at the spot where an island, Ile Noirmoutier, most closely approaches the coast. There is a large bridge here, joining up the 20 km long island. Most interestingly there is another link, called Le Passage du Gois, which is only usable at low tide. Afternoon low tide here at this season is in the vicinity of 6 p.m.

We have to admit that this is not our first time in this territory. In 2012 we made our first visit here. At that time we ran into a fellow named Michel Fleurance. We put his picture in the blog then, and wrote this:"About mid day we came upon a fellow pedalling towards us on a recumbent trike. It turned out to be Michel Fleurance. Michel lives nearby and has been up and down La Loire a Velo a lot.He gave us some tips about the best way to follow the route up ahead, and about the best places to camp over the next day or two's range. Best of all, he knew all about Crazyguy, was running Schwalbe Marathon Plus tires (same as us), had an Airzound (like Dodie did last year), Schmidt dynamo (like I should have bought), and Ortlieb trike bag. In short, he ws our kind of guy, and we much enjoyed talking to him.Too much talking to other cyclists can use up time, but just enough is energizing, as you realize you are not alone."

Not only did meeting Michel mean we were not alone then, but we feel we made a lifelong friend. We have been back to stay with Michel and Jeannette since, and are often in touch. Michel and Jeannette are active members of a group that helps to link their town (St Luce - near Nantes) to one in Germany - Herzogenaurach, near Nurnberg. This often involves cycling exchanges, and one of Michel's favourite places to take visitors is Noirmoutier.

This time, some folks from "Herzo" will be at Michel's over Pentecost (Pfingst in Germany) this weekend. So we will not be able to join Michel and Jeannete at home. But Michel is coming down here tomorrow to guide us around Noirmoutier!

The trip with Michel is the reason we took care to find a place to stay near the bridge. We will meet Michel in the morning at the nearby Intermarche, and go from there. since Noirmoutier is a circle tour, we will be in our seaside style cottage for two nights. Given how lovely it is, that is very fine with us.

We dropped our stuff at the cottage and set off to find the Intermarche, not to mention to finally find some food! We cycled into "downtown" Fromentine, which consists of a TI plus a selection of restaurants and two bakeries. Talk about Catch 22! At 11:30 it was way too early for anything to serve food in Saint Jean. Now at 2:30 is was way too late for anything to serve food in Fromentine!

Well, not quite. It took some research, but we located one open creperie. This was a real celebration of having finally arrived near Bretonne. We started with galette, which is a buckwheat based batter, usually used for savoury varieties. Then we moved on to crepes, as a sweet dessert. But is was all crepes type stuff. Not a moule in sight!

Stopping by Intermarche on the way home, we picked up some things for supper. Among these were potatoes. Potatoes are one of the famous products of Noirmoutier (others being salt and oysters). Michel has written a bit about the price of Noirmoutier potatoes, as sold to tourists and when bought at the market. We will be interested to see if he thinks we paid the right price!

Noirmoutier potatoes. Not sure if the price was right.

(Michel has also written about cooking them while camping. Have a peek at this, even if you do not know French.)

Flash: at 4 euros a kilo, Michel thinks we paid the right price. The tourist roadside price is 6.50.

In La Barre he is a small twist on the typical design.

In Fromentine, a fairly rare house with thatch roof.

In Fromentine at 2:30 p.m. you can not buy an ice cream?

Crepe sucre with ice cream. All sweet crepes have sugar, "sucre". But at a market in another year I asked for sucree, which would be with sugar on the sweet crepe. I was charged about double for the sprinkle of standard sugar.

The tide is clearly out. We need it like this to cross on the "Passage du Gois" tomorrow afternoon.

Today's ride: 54 km (34 miles)
Total: 3,066 km (1,904 miles)

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