Day 33: Paris to Nantes, France: Do Not Try This at Home

June 21, 2012

After a day at the Didier school of Paris driving, we felt ready to fight our way downtown and over to the Montparnasse station. The principles we had learned, once again, were don't let yourself get pushed around but concede gracefully when you are outplayed or outgunned. In short 'take it easy, but take it'.

Mixing it up with French drivers. Do not try this at home - we are professionals!

Our final driving exam came when we entered the Arc de Triomphe roundabout. As mentioned yesterday, there are about six lanes circling the monument and about 13 streets entering/exiting the flow. While the general "current" of the cars is a circular motion, there are streams and eddies within it. So, if some cars that were circling in some inner lanes now decide to spin to an outer ring and exit at some street, they will cut across the flow of traffic and head for the exit. If you are on a bicycle, circling on the right hand side (the outermost lane) then suddenly a flow of cars will be crossing in front of you from the left. Are you going to let them go, thereby stopping in the middle of your lane, or are you going to force them to stop, thereby exposing themselves to traffic flow on their right hand sides? Anyway, it's like this.

Dodie, in the lead, did extremely well dealing with the tough decisions, and doing it in an elegant Parisian way. That is, until a limousine load of African diplomats swept in to the roundabout from a side street and cut her off. What she shouted after them was not so elegant.

We did make it downtown and to the park behind the Eiffel Tower.

The classical shot in front of the Eiffel Tower.

I briefly became more popular than the Eiffel Tower when a gaggle of oriental tourists surrounded me, eager to have their photo taken with the weird white guy with a beard and dressed in lycra.

From the Eiffel Tower we proceeded quite easily to the station. The station was not so easy to deal with because there are very few benches and very many travellers.

The apartment I want in Paris is for rent. Unfortunately we have to leave now!

It's quite a crowded scene at the station

After fighting it out for a chair with this lady, Dodie and she became good friends. The lady turned out to be 86 and no doubt deserved the seat.

However, all in all the train voyage was quite easy. There was a compartment for us where our loaded bikes could stand and where we had seats with a table. We then off loaded at Nantes, two hours later, without drama and exited the station by way of a ramp. All super easy.

The TGV is like an airplane in that you get on and in no time you get off in a very far away place. So here we were in yet another completely new city.

We stashed our bikes at our friend Aurel's house and set out for a quick look around. First off was a very nearby church.

Our local church near Aurel's house. It's large, but Nantes has larger!

We continued our walk an very soon came to the very major Cathedral of Nantes.

Beyond the cathedral a street festival was in progress. Naturally we joined in. The following photos are from the cathedral and festival. It's now 2 a.m. and I'm afraid bed is calling. You could have a peek at the photos and I will explain what they are about... tomorrow!

Aha, so now it's the next morning. Our friend Aurel has already been to the bakery and returned with top quality bread and croissants. This, plus two espressos and I am ready to finish the description of yesterday:

Like every other town in Europe, Nantes is an ancient city. We could see this as we passed through a gate that was obviously part of the original town:

On the other side of the gate was to be found the famous cathedral, which was built beginning in 1434. I guess every "cathedral" is famous, else it would just be the abbey or church. But this one really is large and elaborate. It has the necessary carving everywhere, and super high vaulted ceilings. There is a large central chamber and on either side of this, additional large chambers. Then, off the additional chambers are perhaps six "chapels". In short, there is tons of space in this cathedral.

Some of the carved figures standing around in the cathedral

Each chapel is devoted to a saint, or has some other special purpose or designation. The one that caught our attention contained the tomb of Francois II. This had carved white marble throughout, centred on the resting figures of Francois and his wife.

Shades of Harry Potter, though that is clearly not Voldemort in the back.

The quality of the carving was extraordinary, and a plaque indicated that the carver was 85 years old when he received the commission.

We left the cathedral and strolled into what must be downtown. As has happened on some of our other cycle tours, we found that they were throwing a street party "for us". There were people everywhere, and as the evening grew later, the narrow streets filled more and more.

There were three or four boulangeries in the immediate downtown

After a while we began to look for a place to eat. Restaurants here, as in the rest of France, I think, post their menus out front. However, that does not necessarily mean that we understand what they are serving. French cuisine seems to have a lot of items with special names that are not part of our everyday understanding of the language. So we tried to scope out what was on offer by peeking at what others were eating.

We settled on a place that specialized in potatoes. Yes, potatoes in many different forms. Still we could not understand the details of how they would be prepared or what was coming with them. Pictured below is what we ended up with. The round thing on my plate is sort of bacon on top, then a layer of cooked carrot cubes, then scalloped potatoes in cheese and/or cream. Aurel later told us that this is regional food of Savoie (French Alps). This is really what you eat to fortify yourself against the snows and cold. Oh well, maybe cycling is similar, as far as your body knows.

We hesitated outside the restaurant because the menu had terminology and ingredients we did not understand. In the end we just said "give me what that man is having".

The crowds grew thicker, until in spots it was impossible to walk.

The idea of the music festival is that anyone can come out and set up a performance.

Another thing pointed out by Aurel is that we are in Brittany. That would explain why there were just as many crepes restaurants as bakeries in town. In Quebec when you go for crepes it is always called Crepes Brettonnes. But now since we are actually in Brittany, the crepes are not called Brittany crepes, they are just crepes!

Coffee came up again, as I ordered one with the crepes. Sooner or later I will realize that there is no Tim Horton's here. so once again my attempt to order just plain coffee came out as a small espresso.

Again, I figured that for the "bargain" price of 1.8 euros I would get a large regular coffee. Not so. As I am slowly learning, a regular coffee is an espresso and things go up from there.

Today's ride: 20 km (12 miles)
Total: 1,053 km (654 miles)

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