September 14, 2019
Niort
We get to know the Marais
It was a very different day from yesterday but not without its frustration.
This is a huge area of ‘wet marshes’ said to be the second biggest in France and it has been certainly embraced by the French people as an area for recreation. The whole area is criss crossed by innumerable canals, these are covered with a green algae so the area is given the nick name the green Venice. Tracks are everywhere as are signs for cycle ways so as you can imagine things get very confusing. Steep (and sometimes very steep) little hump back bridges are crossing the canals. There were a lot of cyclists, lots of people punting their boats along but much more than any of these activities were the walkers. There were huge groups (up to about 100 in some groups) of them earnestly tramping along I think examining the flora and fauna.
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Arcais was a bit off the official route so we started on the road to Vanneau. At this little stone village we met 2 English cyclists going the other direction - the warned us that the signage was terrible so be careful. We arrogantly thought ‘we are experience cycle tourists what can go wrong’ - but pride comes before a fall. Their other piece of advice was that the part between Niort and Saumur as well as being poorly signed was very hilly continually up and down and they had found it hard and not particularly interesting (and they were in our eyes young). Anyway off we went we were loving it, we were finding coffee stops loving the countryside, enjoying the leisure activities of others, moaning about having to push up steep bridges and finding a shady table for lunch. We had done over 30km and THEN we rode into Vanneau again (Arcais was signed as being 3km away!). It was a lovely circle we had ridden but at this rate would we ever get to Niort?
I set Google maps to Niort and off we went once more enjoying all the things we had seen earlier in the day. Then we came to a spot where google gave us a crucial right turn - previously we had turned left - it was onto a reasonably busy road which in not too long got us here
Both Ken and I have heavy colds and seem to be coughing incessantly so with the second bit of wisdom from the English cyclists ringing in our ears we have changed our plans. Tomorrow we will take a train to Tours and stay there a couple of days to try and shake these colds off. Then we will just quietly go down the Loire until we reach Orleans and turn there for our last push to see Louise and get to Paris
Today's ride: 52 km (32 miles)
Total: 2,318 km (1,439 miles)
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Hope your colds get better soon...
5 years ago
5 years ago