July 30, 2015
Day 9: Pouilly to Verdun, France
The Meuse was misty and beautiful this morning, and I was hoping to see the swan family that had come by yesterday evening. As it was, only two ducks kept us company as we ate our oatmeal. Pouilly is too small to have a bakery, so we would be running on oatmeal for a while. (Ok,ok, there was some bread and cheese in there as well).
Images of the Meuse from this morning
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We started off using the map we had gotten in Mouzon, which allowed us to follow the absolutely smallest roads going. This took us through the smallest towns as well. These were Luzy St Martin, Cesse, and Laneuville, for any cyclists (including our future selves) who may try to recreate this.
This brought us handily into Stenay. Just by its marina. a sign said that the tourist information there would be open in the p.m. and that there was a tourist information open in the a.m. in the centre of town. We really needed tourist information, to get a detailed map which would show us the smallest roads out of Stenay, toward Verdun. As we organized ourselves to head downtown, a nearby cyclist told us that the downtown one was closed. But, but, we said, the sign...Sign notwithstanding, he insisted, they were closed. So, he said, let's go to city hall and bawl them out. We followed him to city hall and Dodie and he headed on in. Just before, I spoke to this cyclist for a bit, and determined that he was from Stenay. He thought it would be good for his city hall to hear from genuine tourists that they were ticked off. Dodie got nowhere, with the lady in city hall first offering to sell her a useless car tourist map, and then insisting that there was someone in the downtown information and all we had to do was to roust her out.
Dodie went over to the tourist information office, around the corner, rang the bell, and knocked. No luck. Now the cyclist, who turned out to be Jean Marie Lafarge, offered to guide us out of town on the best route, and to set us eventually on a straight run into Verdun. That straight run would start 15 km out of Stenay, but no problem, he said, he was recently retired and had at least 4 hours to kill. He asked us to wait while he went to get his road bike, and we used the time to pick up some sandwiches (and almond croissants!) at the bakery across the street.
Jean Marie returned with his bike, water backpack, and clip in shoes. I thought, oh, Jean Marie sees this as a chance for a fun bike ride. I can dig it - I like bike rides too - hey, I guess that's what we are also doing right now! Sometimes what we are doing can feel more like exercise, or general travel, and perhaps one can forget that it is a series of fun bike rides.
So now we three set off. It was much less stressful, because not only did Jean Marie know the roads to choose, but we three had 50% more "presence" on the road, for warding off cars.
During our ride, we got to cover a lot of topics with Jean Marie.His father was from Stenay, but mother from Provence. They met when the war displaced the father to Provence. Before retiring, Jean Marie worked in a factory making carpets for cars on subcontract to major manufacturers.His wife, Corinne, is younger and still working, which limits the amount of play they can do. How Jean Marie was free during the day for bike rides in the region.
We learned lots of other stuff, like about the climate in the region, immigration, attitude to the EU, local churches, local mountains, etc. Jean Marie spoke no English, but he was also patient in listening to us garbling his language and we understood each other ultimately quite well.
After passing through a series of towns east of the D30 and the D964 we crossed the 964 and carried on. some of the main towns we hit were Mouzay, Lion, Milly, and Doulcon. Our straight run from there was mainly on D123.
Jean Marie had assured us that we only had to go straight. But when we came to a sign showing a left turn for Verdun, we fell for it. Quite quickly we realized that this was an evil attempt to get us back on the D964. We are always reluctant to turn back, so we grabbed a dirt track that seemed to run by the Meuse. Wrong. However the track popped back out at the road we would have been on had we not taken the left, so fine.
we were still 20 km from Verdun, and the road began by climbing up into a forest. Half way up, Dodie switched to pushing. We soon noticed that a car had stopped at the top of the slope, and the occupants seemed to be waiting for us. I hopped on theh bike and pedalled up to them. It was Jean Marie and Corinne! They had decided to drive down to Verdun, and coincidentally to take the back roads and see how we were doing. So we had a fun reunion. Jean Marie said he had wondered if we would fall for that left turn. He also reported that he had already checked out our blog. We hope he enjoys seeing his photos in today's posting. He sure was a big help, and very enjoyable to talk to.
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So we continued into Verdun, enjoying the rural ambiance, which was mainly dominated by the baling of oat straw. as we approached Verdun, Dodie mused that it would be good if we could find the hotel we stayed at last year. But we did not have the strength to fire up the tablet and internet and try searching our own blog for the info. I did not remember the hotel or its location, but there was one unforgettable thing - there were two, yes, two bakeries directly across the street.
As we passed into the town, I was in my usual "donkey dose", head down, cranking along, but then WAITAMINUTE! - those are my bakeries. You can put a lot past me, but never a bakery!
The price for our room was €38, a little less than last time, though we think we got the same room. Our reaction to the room was the same - awfully small - but if its bigger than a tent and has an electric outlet, it's fine.
We were really hungry by then (6 p.m.) and asked about a restaurant. They was one next door. The only thing, the evening meal only begins at 7. We set off into the town in search of food, and found that the 7 o'clock rule seemed very widespread. Finally we found a creperie that seemed to be operating so we went to the trouble of finding a place to stash the bikes going in, and finding a place. We had a little trouble at first in understanding the waiter, and understood at first that we could only get food after 7. However, we did ultimately arrange for some savoury crepes, which turned out to be excellent. The crepes were buckwheat based, and had yummy fillings. For dessert, Dodie got a sweet crepe with salted caramel sauce, while I got a chocolate crepe with chocolate sauce. To bolster this a bit, I got them to add a scoop of chocolate ice cream!
The owner cane over to talk to us, and we described our tour.I told him that when we arrived in Nantes, I would try some crepes and compare them in quality to his, since Nantes could be the capital of Bretonne, which is crepes central. He said that we would find his superior, and he should know, because he was from Bretonne! and p.s. Rennes is really the capital of Bretonne!
Then I asked if his restaurant was also offering moules frites (muscles with fries). I mentioned this because moules frites is the other ubiquitous dish in Bretonne. The reply was that he is not offering them, he is selling them. This was indicative of a wry sense of humour that we much enjoyed. Well, I said, often menus here say that the chef is "proposing" some dishes to you. Yes, he replied, proposing to sell.
Anyway, the claim was that he had only the finest Bretonne moules, and this was proven when the fellow went in the back and brought them out in their package to show us. True enough. They were from Mont St Michel.
We discussed a lot of other fun things with the man. I was impressed by his demeanor, and noticed that his waiter and cook gathered around and enjoyed listening in and participating. I thought, this is a very good boss, and the restaurant is a happy place.
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After the quite long slog of the day, we did our usual error and decided to go in search of the cathedral. The cathedral is in the upper town, which means you go up to find it. We did that, and found that we had our hours switched around. Clearly you pray until 7 and then go eat, for the cathedral closed at 7 (when the restaurants opened).
Tomorrow we will probably not climb up again, though there is also a centre for peace studies up there that looked interesting.
We will start off tomorrow by checking out the two bakeries. Our last year's blog also said the hotel here made us coffee and hot chocolate rather cheaply, so we will try asking for that again. After that we will make a run toward Metz, using the safest road we know (D903, I think). We are doing ok with this on road stuff, but we will be glad to get to the Moselle, we we can look forward to much more protected riding.
Today's ride: 70 km (43 miles)
Total: 429 km (266 miles)
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