September 9, 2012
Love on the highway: Karacicoy - Vize
GRÉGOIRE AND FLORIANE are from Champagne. Even if you can't place it - it's close to Paris - you'll know why it's famous. And it was 'Paris - Istanbul' that Greg had written on the pennant above his trailer.
I can't remember if they met on the road or set off together as companions. But love blossomed and they are now a couple and Flo showed no objection when Greg said he hoped it would last.
He is tall and lean and outgoing. She is more shy and joins in conversation only when addressed. She has black panniers marked La Poste which suggest a history of letters for delivery. After Istanbul they are flying to Morocco - too complicated to ride there - before setting off home across Spain and much of France.
We met on the road just after Saray, a busy if unremarkable town which ended the roller-coaster hills for me but announced their start for Greg and Flo. We talked of passes across the Pyrenees and the wisdom of avoiding the Gers, a cyclists' graveyard, and the attraction of the bike-riders' church at Labastide d'Armagnac. And we talked of their staying a night or two as they came back through France in November.
Our meeting showed the odd way that dice roll when you travel. Two hours earlier I stopped to greet three Germans who said that in all their ride from Berlin they
| Heart | 0 | Comment | 0 | Link |
had met no other cyclists other than two Austrians with whom they kept crossing - and who whizzed past as we talked. By contrast we had met four Poles, numerous Czechs, several more Germans (including the despairing Berliner with no maps, whom we saw in Istanbul in the process of giving up and flying home), and a bunch of Taiwanese lads including a TV presenter who performed an acrobatic trick by grasping my ankle and shoulder and said the snap would be on TV the following day 'because every day I try to do something wacky.' And that's only part of the list of chance encounters.
Anyway, the Germans said there'd be little chance of wild camping because the land would become increasingly open. They told me of two hotels in the next town, Vize, and suggested the cheaper one by the bus station. So I tried it. It was run-down and barely more than a collection of rooms above the owners' living area. There were no windows in the rooms. The lock didn't work on the first because the lead to the TV, which also didn't work, ran in from the corridor and stopped the door's closing. There was no lock on the grimy communal shower and no hot water either.
| Heart | 0 | Comment | 0 | Link |
For all that, the owner asked 50 lira. I decided that whatever the grander hotel down the road asked, I would pay it. It turned out to be the same price, for a three-star hotel with a generous room, working shower, breakfast and unlimited internet - during the use of which I was repeatedly brought free water and tea. I even had my bags carried to my room.
Moral - What seems in life to be the cheaper option can cost you a lot more in the end.
| Rate this entry's writing | Heart | 2 |
| Comment on this entry | Comment | 0 |