August 5, 2014
Honfleur to Caen: Why August might not be the best month to tour in Normandy
My early night turned out to be an illusion. One couple, camping with their kids, kept a large fraction of the campground awake with their fights, fits, and antics until after two in the morning. I slept in fits myself (fits of sleep between fits of pique?) but they managed to wake me at least five separate times in the night. The result was that I didn't leave until nearly ten in the morning, preferring to catch a few extra winks until the sun made the tent too hot. The benefit in this is that the tent was almost dry when I packed up. Leaving Honfleur there are only two routes to the west and both were packed with traffic! Vacationers again, no doubt. There was just enough of a shoulder on the route I took to keep me mostly out of harm's way, until I could turn off once more onto quiet country lanes. I found myself in the famous Norman bocage, the hedge-row country that played such a significant role in the invasion of 1944. These hedges are not your tame, trimmed and manicured shrubbery that one might think of. Rather they are more like trees so closely spaced and filled with underbrush that it seem more like riding through a forest than between fields. One really can't see anything to either side but the hedges. The tunnel effect is striking in places. This is interesting at first, but in the end makes for a rather monotone ride.
It was going on lunch time when I got to Beuvron en Auge, which is cited as one of the prettiest villages in France, and at first glance looks it, but the entire town has been given over to tourism. The old market hall has been converted into pricy shops and restaurants catering to the up- market tourist, and the rest of the buildings around the central place are likewise put to use. I ate lunch in the only place that had reasonable prices, a snack shop, where I got a slice of pizza and a salad for 6€. Leaving Beuvron the country opened up into a marais, or marshland. The marsh has been drained for centuries and is mostly pasture now, but there are no hedges to block the view. As I rolled across it, my rear derailleur began to act up, missing shifts, and generally acting wierd. I thought at first that I had finally worn out the ratchet in the shifter (it's only been 40,000 km) and continued to fiddle with it as the road slowly rose into a broad prairie wheat land. Finally in the little village of Conteville, where I stopped to consult my maps having got slightly off track, the derailleur stopped working all together and began to make a nasty racket. Looking closely I saw that the screw holding one of the jockey wheels had backed out and the chain was now between the jockey wheel and the cage of the derailleur. Fortunately, the screw was held in by the body of the derailleur, but one of the bearing caps was missing. I went back to the place where I had stopped to look at the maps, and there was the missing cap. Everything off the bike, turn the bike over and reinstall the screw, and in ten minutes I was back on the road, everything working perfectly once again.
It was only a few more kilometers to Caen, and from Bourguebus to Caen there was a cycle path paralleling the route. I stopped at the first hotel I came to and booked myself in. This being August, the hotel restaurant was closed. The closest alternative was a pizza joint, so I got pizza (again) a salad, and a bottle of rosé and ate in my room. Two glasses of wine, seven of the eight pieces of pizza, and the salad gone, I lay down on the bed and fell into a deep sleep, only waking to answer natur'e's call, take my evening pills, and get undressed before falling back asleep.
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Today's ride: 80 km (50 miles)
Total: 702 km (436 miles)
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