Breakfast in the Restotel-Valet wasn't too bad, but the Gents toilet was of the footprint variety and as I personally specify comfort for my morning evacuation, I switched to the Ladies. Sorry girls. A discussion of French breakfasts, among other less appetising topics will be pursued later in this account. There's something to look forward to. Out of the frying pan into the bower of Paradise. Am I exaggerating? Of course. We set off down the road south, in spite of my brave, solo attempt to lead us off down the wrong road to somewhere else. Close to the village of Guiscard , Chris and I became separated once more, eventually finding each other at the correct tangled road junction. This was the start of the first climb of any length, maybe 3km. which led us up through woods and then down into a pretty side valley of the "suisse"* variety. That is to say, there were sloping fields of the deepest green grass, inhabited by cows of the warmest brown, surrounded by trees of the most correct proportions. We were approaching the valley of the Oise, the next of the big rivers. The Oise rises in the foothills of the Ardennes in Belgium and joins the Seine to the north-west of Paris. We crossed it between Noyon and Chauny at the village of Arpuly. We climbed through woods for 3 or 4 ks and then about 15 kilometres of high prairie before the descent into the next valley, that of the Aisne.

A political geography paragraph for those who are interested: French departments, approximate equivalents of English counties are often named after rivers, sometimes two rivers. For example the department we had just entered is named Aisne (02), the one we just left, Oise [60] and the one in which we spent the night, Somme(80). In addition the départements are listed alphabetically and accordingly given a number, which is used for post codes and car number plates, [plaques d'immatriculation, the last two digits], but not for phone numbers. This system was introduced at the time of Napoléon Bonaparte. Unlike in Britain, but similar to the USA, the owner of a car is legally obliged to change his car number if he moves to another department. The departmental government is known as Le Conseil Général and sits in the Préfecture or county town.

We arrived in Vic-sur-Aisne and in its pleasant, cobbled market square is a small self-service shop. Chris, as had by now, become the custom, bought the day's picnic. Of course we had to climb out of this new valley now and it was getting warmer. In fact between here and Sézanne the terrain, without being alpine has considerable up and down. Any strictly lazy, leisure cyclist would find another venue. Out of the valley and feeling hot and tired we ate our lunch under a tree near a school playground. There was no-one around.. We finished eating, started packing away and the village came back to life as the children were delivered to school, for the afternoon session. This reminded me of my son's work experience in a school in Brittany last spring, during which he was asked by the inquisitive mini-Bretons, if it was true that English pigs said wank-wank.

This was mixed-up country now, from our saddle-borne perspective, woods at the lower levels and dry pastures and fields of arable at the higher. We were closing in on a bed for the night in Chateau Thierry. To get there we had, unavoidably, to negotiate 7 kilometres of the busy Route Départementale 1, a red road, [for those of you have been paying attention], a motorway junction and a fast curvy descent into the valley of the river Marne and the département of , still Aisne , sorry, it doesn't always work. I waited for Chris at a roundabout near the bottom of the hill before entering the town. On arrival, he looked quite shaken. The traffic and in particular the trucks had shivered his timbers. My thought was, that he should never have given up riding to work. There's nothing like the London rush-hour for steadying the nerves. We dropped on down towards the centre of the town , found a scruffy looking bar with cheap rooms but it was closed, so we moved on to the tourist information and Chris picked up a list of accommodation. The nearest hotel-restaurant was closed on, would you believe, Friday nights, so we set off out of town and found a modern motel-style place backing onto the river and fronting onto a hypermarket. It was reasonably priced, comfortable, and evidently hospitable, so we were in.

Cycle campers can ignore this bit. The poet Laurie Lee wrote in his book 'As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning' , about his travels on foot through Spain in the 1930s, of his feeling of 'dry panic' as evening fell in a strange town, when he needed to find a bed for the night. That observation hits the spot with me too, particularly when cycle touring. On a previous trip through Northern France, to take in the total eclipse of the sun in 1999, my wife, my son and I, not carrying camping gear, spent the night, in our clothes in a park in Amiens, because there was no room at the inn. A northerly wind blew all night. It was very cold and uncomfortable. Usually, though, things work out alright in the end, as we shall see.

Chris took the first shower, while I went out looking for a cold beer, this too became another of our routines. This time though, I was lured into the gastronomic cornucopia that is the French hypermarket. Instead of cold beer, which you cannot buy in the larger food stores in France, I came out with a litre bottle of blood orange juice. I had drunk it all in the short time it took me to walk back to the room. This evening then, because of ease of availability, we had an evening picnic on the right bank of the sluggish, green Marne, as the sun headed home. Dîner sur l'Herbe. I phoned home, barely resisting the temptation to gloat. We binned our rubbish and wandered into town, in search of beer. First pitch was a Pari-Mutuel bar, a combination of English-style betting shop and pub. We were there in time to catch the 10-30 from Chantilly on one of the several TV sets. Some people might be moved to suggest that this package of easily available drinking and gambling can only lead to tears and torn-up betting slips. Not so our friend, Tim, a man both big of heart and big of bone, a type not disinclined to resist a wager, who, not long before our departure, advised us that the Pari-Mutuel bar was the place to find a drink. That's where the lads hang out he said., implying the prospect of bonhomie and conviviality. Well, neither of us felt truly capable or inclined to discuss the intricacies of the totalisator, so we drank a litre each and left, but not before a loser on the night, was given a short lecture by the senior barman on the wisdom of payment before consumption. We found another uninspiring bar, drank a couple more beers and went back to the motel.

Heart

0

Comment

0

Link

Log in to comment or reply