Heart

0

Comment

0

Link

Log in to comment or reply

Heart

0

Comment

0

Link

Log in to comment or reply

We awoke in good shape to face another beautiful day. We had arranged to meet-up with Ludger again, at 10am. I took a poorly-executed picture of him and we set off in a north-easterly direction along D911 towards Condé-sur-Noireau. There followed an attractive, rolling ride in the morning sunshine, during the course of which we passed, coming in the opposite direction, two other touring cyclists one of whom was pulling a BOB trailer, a rare site in Europe. We stopped in Tinchebray for pastries and coffee. We were now in the department of Orne [61]. There was no problem finding a pâtisserie but a café to sit outside at, was nowhere to be found. 'The next village,' we said to each other. Continuing along D9111, at Montsecret there was a small bar, evidently in the sluggish throes of reconstruction, but with no coffee machine. We moved on to St. Pierre d'Entremont. A shop, which might also have contained a café, didn't. It was getting close to lunchtime now. This was messing up the café-au-lait schedule. Nevertheless, we pulled off the road in Condé-sur-Noireau and after re-arranging the furniture outside a café to keep us out of the, by now, hot sun, ordered coffee while the staff served lunch to a group of office workers. Ours would come later. For now, I had bought rhubarb tarts [yes, more rhubarb] in Tinchebray. They were superb.

Condé-sur-Noireau marks the start of the region known as La Suisse Normande, [Norman Switzerland] I'm sure you can guess why it is so called. We took a quiet back route which followed the river and departmental boundary to Pont d'Ouilly. As in the valley of the Seé the day before, there was evidence of a fairly recent industrial past. We were largely shaded from the sun, by the wooded valley side, this was the prettiest section of the day's ride. We crossed the river into Pont d'Ouilly and the department of Calvados[14], home of the eponymous apple brandy.

It was now our lunch time and we found a seat in the shade by the river bank. The nearby supermarket was still closed for lunch, so we had to wait a few minutes for fresh, cold mineral water and again, an icy beer for me. As we ate, we watched a series of canoeists negotiating a break in the weir to continue their journey downstream. It was a very pleasant spot to spend an hour or two and rather stupidly, neither of us thought to take a picture. On first meeting Ludger, I had thought he had a slightly melancholic look about him and as we sat and talked over lunch we found out why that might be so. It's his story, so I won't be telling it here, but it's certainly sad.

We were now due a long climb out of the river valley. Ludger and Barbara and I were soon to separate. Our route would be towards Le Pont de Normandie, near Le Havre and Ludger's towards Amiens. We still had this long and in places, steep climb along D511 until our turning onto D43 for Tréprel.. We all found it hard. At St. Germain Langot we stopped for cold drinks and then at a tangled junction in the village of Ussy, we said our goodbyes. We would miss Ludger's good nature, his understated enthusiasm for being out and about on a bike.

By way of metaphor, the landscape changed immediately, from the gentle wooded hills and villages into a harsher, wider, more industrialised agricultural landscape with towns and villages of little charm. Bye-bye Switzerland. And Ludger.

At 5pm in Potigny, which boasts a hotel listed in our guide, we stopped again for coffee. Barbara did not fancy staying there, as for me, ca m'est égal as they say here in France. I took out the logis guide and my mobile phone. I called all the hotels on our route, which in Barbara's opinion, might be more picturesquely located than the one in Potigny. They were all small places with few rooms and already booked out, including Le Cheval Blanc in Crèvecoeur-en-Auge, 'That's Heartbreak Hotel,' I, rather bleakly, said to Barbara. I had to explain : Crèvecoeur* = Heartbreak. She looked bleak. We set off, crossing N158, again on back roads, towards Mézidon-Canon.

D914, then D239 took us through the quiet villages of Quilly-le-Tesson, Rouvres, Maizières, Condé-sur-Ifs and Vieux-Fumé to the western end of Mézidon-Canon. For a small town it was very long, we rode about 3km from there to the Railway station, where we found L'Hotel de la Gare. It was full. My initial, unkind, sweaty thought was, who the f*ck would want to stay here? Apart from us, that is. On the way out, following our noses in a north-easterly direction, we found another hotel, a large building, situated diagonally across the corner of a road junction, in the style of an English suburban pub. It appeared to have rooms to throw away. It too, was full. 'Who the f*ck would want to stay here?' I said to Barbara. It was now about 7pm. I looked at the map and the hotel guide again. There were two hotels listed for Lisieux, 30km distant. I phoned the Hotel de la Terrace, the wrong choice, as it happened and booked a room. I estimated to the hotel reception that we would be there around 8-30pm. Barbara pointed out a road sign for Lisieux, so we took off in that direction. There was a steep climb out of town, after which the countryside softened up. We were now riding past stud farms with lush green pasture, expensive looking horses and homes. After 8km or so we arrived at a road junction on the edge of Crèvecoeur-en-Auge and followed the signing for Lisieux. We passed the Cheval Blanc, 'Heartbreak Hotel,' then shortly arrived at the the T- junction with RN13, the main road from Caen to Paris, Lisieux to the right. I got off the bike, Barbara caught up. She looked dismayed. 'Are we going to have to ride on that main road? She asked. 'We're not supposed to be here,' I said. 'So yes, we're going to have to ride on the Route Nationale.' I checked the map. From Mézidon-Canon, I had intended that we should follow D47 then D511, it seemed the obvious route. I had put too much faith in that road sign. I showed Barbara the map, 'We should have been on that,' I said, pointing out the intended route.

It was cooler now, a pleasantly warm evening, made less pleasant by the prospect of having to share a main road with HGVs. Nevertheless we had to press on and a ride which might have been fraught, earlier in the day, turned out to be tolerable in the thinned out traffic. It was a rolling ride with long, easily graded ups and downs. The last and longest of these, left us close to Lisieux's by-pass road. Barbara was tired by now and I had a long wait at the top of this last hill, in the company of a ferocious, slavering dog, guarding a used car lot, only prevented from tearing me to shreds by a chain-link fence. From here across a roundabout, was a welcome, long, fast and traffic-free descent into Lisieux. It was now about 8-30pm and we witnessed an unexpected, spectacular light show, as the reflected rays of the setting sun glowed a fierce orange on the windows of an office building downtown. I waited for Barbara at the bottom of the hill. We crossed the river and I asked directions for the hotel. From the town centre we had a final climb of 500m up l'Avenue Ste. Thérèse to the Hotel de la Terrasse.

The hotel man was friendly and helpful. We were asked, initially, to leave the bikes in the garden which flanked the road, until dinner was over, after which we could move them to the dining room overnight. We locked them. We checked in and went up to our room. A monochrome image of St. Theresa beatifically supervised the shabby stairway. The hotel had seen better days; the first two weeks in August, 1935, I would say. Barbara was evidently descending into despondency, a condition little improved by first sight of the room. It was gloomy, badly lit and well worn. The mildly threatening bulk of a dark-veneered wardrobe provided space for clothes. The bathroom was in a similar state of dilapidation, with cracked tiles and lime-scale stains. 'I want to move,' said Barbara. 'It's too late, ' I said, 'It's only for one night, it may worn-out, but at least it's clean and it doesn't smell.'

We both had hot baths, so the plumbing was OK and of necessity, ate dinner as the last customers, in the hotel restaurant. The food was mediocre. For what it's worth, we both had melon for starters. I had chicken in cider, Barbara, salmon escalope and for afters we both chose calvados sorbet.

After dinner, we walked down the hill into the town centre and found a lively bar, the Victoria Pub. Our young host from the hotel arrived not long behind us, he gave us a friendly greeting. More young people followed, possibly staff off shift, from other hotels or restaurants. A persistent drunk tried to persuade Barbara to dance with him. He eventually, begrudgingly, took no for an answer. Other than that, we spent an enjoyable hour or so, drinking beer and listening to a variety of loud pop music. Then we were back up the hill to bed.

* The French verb crever is one to note for the touring cyclist: J'ai crèvé means I've had a puncture. Je suis crèvé means I'm knackered.