September 24, 2019
Combreux
Dodging the rain
Last night we had great meal of a warm goats cheese salad. We met a man from Boston who said he had a business in Sully sur Loire. When I asked him what it was he said it was making the glass for Airbus planes and he had to come here for a week or so every 2months. It is certainly strange that an industry like this is in a remote little village in central. France
The forecast for today was bad, I looked at several sites in the hope I would find something better! The essence of it was that from around 8am until about 10 there would be very heavy rain then just intermittent rain until later when it would be heavy for a while again. Around 7.30 it started and it certainly was heavy so we waited it out then about 9.30 it eased a lot. Off we set clad in all our rain gear, we said good bye to the chateau and were off as fast as we could back to Chateauneuf sur Loire - I think it was the fastest 20km we have ever done. it paid off because we didn’t get rained on at all and were safely in a PMU in Chateauneuf when the rain started again
Getting to Combreux involved first this back track then finding a route to meet the Orleans Canal at Vitry. The rain stopped and it was a matter of following small roads. We really were were feeling pretty proud of ourselves when having crossed the canal we pulled into a bar at Vitry. We were much to early for our check in and again it started to rain this time extremely heavily - that was OK we would sit it out and so we did until 1pm when the bar closed. It was still raining a bit but shortly after we were under way it got heavier and heavier, when we got the hotel surely they would let us in. We arrived, still about 45minutes until check in - the place looked completely dead - we were freezing, there was an umbrella to shiver under. 2pm came not a sign of a human being anywhere, I rang the phone number of the hotel. I got the answer phone and left a message, quarter of an hour passed, nothing. I rang again - this time my message on the answer phone was not as polite Another twenty minutes or so and I was firing up the phone looking for any hotels in a 10km radius and then in pulled a van and out hopped our hosts. Almost at the point of exposure we were checked in and were given a large cup of hot coffee, then into bed with all the blankets in an attempt to warm up
The sun has come up and Ken has taken a walk down to the canal and says it is beautiful with a really lovely Chateau but I will just look at the photos until we ride past it in the morning
Today's ride: 40 km (25 miles)
Total: 2,567 km (1,594 miles)
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