August 15, 2013
Pontivy to Josselin: Ascension Day
There were three lots of cycle tourists at the hotel last night. One of the other two had a dear little dog. They said that he had rather ambivalent views towards cycle touring. Quite a bit of the time he would run along beside them, then he would retire to has chariot and have a luxurious ride, sounds good to me.
Today was along the canal all day. I have of course now been told that the part of the canal that we were on yesterday became inoperable when the Gueriedan Dam was built in 1923 and flooded many of the locks. However after Pontivy it is perfectly navigateable though somewhat to our surprise we didn’t see a moving boat all day. To start with out of Portivy the canal rises steeply, at times with locks that were less than 100m apart so the riding was not nearly as easy as we had imagined it would be. After some time however it started to go down and all became easy again. Our coffee stop was at Rohan were we met two English ladies who have lived in France for 20 years and Suzie has a business selling real estate to English people. I took their card as we have been talking about our next possible obsession. May be we could buy a house in France and spend New Zealand winters here? Why not Brittany?
We seem to have an absolute talent for picking towns that are in the midst of some sort of Fete. Today we decided to stop at Josselin where they are having Mudone des Motards. This is a ride through Brittany of regular motorbikes (where are you Dick and Dianna, many are two up) and it finishes here in Josselin today with a ‘Benediction des Motos’ . About 1000 bikes take part which explains the shocked look the lady in the Information de Tourisme gave me when I asked about accommodation. All this mass of activity is because it is Ascension Day. A day where everything seems to be shut and which we well recall from two years ago when we were on the Loire and frantically looking for replacement tires after a side wall blow out. Susie in Rohan told us that it is devoted to eating and drinking and generally having a good time. We did see a church in action with a massive feast laid out for the end of the service and last night when we strayed into a service we were amazed at the number of people and the beautiful music, organ and voice. It must have been because of Ascension Day.
The views of the lock houses today are best described by that overworked term eye candy. I will let the photos tell the story.
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Today's ride: 57 km (35 miles)
Total: 1,021 km (634 miles)
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