Day 64: L'Aiguillon-sur- Mer to Les Sables d'Olonne

April 10, 2024

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"Blink", In Malcolm Gladwell's 2005 book is the coming to instant decisions, based on very little information. Sometimes these can be horribly wrong, and sometimes they really stand the test of time. We decided we really liked the hosts of La Maison Salee in one second, and now a day later we are still looking back fondly on our stay .

Our room opened to a secure patio, but the bikes spent the night inside another room anyway.

Once we are dealing in aphorisms, like "blink", we'll add "What a difference a day makes", or more specifically what a difference a little sunshine and no wind makes. We stepped onto the calm and windless street of L'Aiguillon-sur- Mer and the world looked and felt so different from yesterday in the wind and rain.

The central square also had a "new" appearance from towns we have been passing through. It was low rise and spaced out. We would soon see a general architectural change, on this part of the coast, with low rise usually white buildings with orange tile roofs - similar to Portugal but not quite the same.

See the glass smooth no wind water of the harbour!

That boat on the side had a lot of character.

On a passerelle at the harbour, the plaque below attests that it is not always calm here. We would later find other info panels about the cyclone Xynthia. Xynthia smashed a sea wall just near here, and overwhelmed a mobile home park. The sea wall was about 200 years old, built in the time of Napoleon.

Dodie is good at spotting distant birds, and also mail boxes. Watch for your letters, grandkids.

We set off down "the path", following the EV 1 (Velodysee) signs. The signage has been excellent, with only a few spots where we had to rely on the GPS to resolve tricky situations. The path itself was quite different now, compared to when we came through the great pine forests. Now we had a mixture of paved path by meadows, such as in the photo below, gravel or packed sand path in forest, or marked bike lanes on regular roads. Some of these were better or worse, but none was a problem. So it was only yesterday, of the ten or so days so far on Velodysee, that the surface stood out as a problem.

Here was an unusual bird spotting - a pheasant sitting in a tree.

This was the day when we really began to notice what we take to be a seaside style of houses -white walls, orange tile roof, and blue shutters. The house just below shows all these features well. But we noticed a pile of similar ones, some of whose photos follow.

A fancier style than usual, but the "correct" blue for the shutters.

Our route touched the ocean at some points, such as near Les Conches. We found very long stretches of perfect beach, and lots of people doing surfing. It was disconcerting to watch them, because we were still bundled up in some of our warmest clothing.

I think this girl at least has some form of wetsuit, or long sleeved suit.

We are also now seeing more yellow fields of rapeseed. These can be a big feature of Spring trips in some regions of Germany and France.

We had been seeing signs for the house of Georges Clemenceau, and when the time came, we took the short detour, down to the ocean where he had had his cottage. Clemenceau had been president of France for 1906 to 1909, and again critically from 1917 to 1920. He was a big advocate of total defeat for the Germans, and helped negotiate the harsh Treaty of Versailles. The significance of his cottage here at St Vincent sur Jard is his interest in gardening, and his friendship with fellow gardener Monet.

Clemenceau was noteworthy as someone born in this region. I am not sure where he got the title "Father of the Nation".

I don't seem to have a photo of the Clemenceau cottage area as you see it today, but what you are faced with is a dull buff windowless building, that houses the ticket office and giftshop, and a solid fence around the whole property that defeats even a peek at the actual cottage. This is what we faced last time we were here, and I think I tried a shot through a crack in the fence, because the place was closed. This time we were glad to see the ticket office door open. We had arrived about 11:40. But when we went in, we were told, sorry, they were closing for lunch. Lunch (this is France, eh) is 12:00 until 2:00, but they also have a rule about no admissions within 45 minutes of closing. So that makes lunch de facto 11:15 to 2:00. And we came 11:40?? Desolee! (p.s. they open at 10:00, so there is only an hour and a quarter window for people to arrive in.)

However, since their door was open, I asked if I could look in the gift shop, and got the ok. The shop had really a lot of books about Clemenceau, and I took out my camera to document that positive fact. This triggered both sales ladies (they apparently need two - but clearly not to spell each other off for lunch time!) to jump on me with a "no photos" declaration. This always annoys me so much that I have taken to demanding an explanation, though commonly the photo censor person will just quote some vague "rules". In this case I said to them "What could be so confidential and sensitive about the cover of some books?" I am not sure, in French, what their answer was, but it still triggered my internal universal translator "nonsense" alarm. Anyway, he is my one, illegal, shot.

One thing they could not manage to hide was a bust of Clemenceau sticking above the tough fence. Here also is my shot of that.

We could see why Clemenceau liked this little spot. Just by the cottage is a very nice stretch of beach. We took a seat by the beach, to eat our (wait for it!) lunch. This took us only 1/2 hour, during which I also disassembled and readjusted my front brakes and fender. During that 1/2 hour, perversely, the ticket office remained open. The ladies only actually packed it in after 12;30. Go figure.

We were still not totally sealed out of Clemenceau lore, for in the street was a Clemenceau info station. Here is what we found there:

Had we gotten in to the grounds, the fee was going to be 9 euros each, so we saved 18 euros. We have reinvested that in buffet breakfast for tomorrow at our hotel. We'll see how the tradeoff worked out, in the morning.

Just down the street from Clemenceau's is this fine looking hotel. This would be a nice place to stay, because that beach really is grand.

Eglise St Radegond, seen I think, as we passed by Jard sur Mer

We repeatedly ran into these signs, which are for a 28 km cycle route featuring Richard the Lion Hearted, usually as just sort of a symbol of his times. There are 9 info panels on the route, but Richard was actually only directly involved in founding Lieu Dieu Abbey in Jard sur Mer, and strengthening Talmont Castle. 12th century Richard was actually most famous for the 3rd Crusade. Our own involvement with Richard was last year when we visited Chalus (south of Limoges - nowhere near here), where he died. At that time I got a Richard flag, which I still have at home!

We next entered some interesting marshland, which had been configured in a kind of comb shaped arrangement of water basins and grassland. These produced both salt and fish. The info panel shows the pattern of the ponds, while also shoving Richard Lionheart in at the side.

The orderly marshands:

Yes, they talk about producing salt in the marsh, and slip in more Richard stuff.

This building, built in the 50's, was for salt storage. It's slanted walls, it is said, made it better able to resist the outward pressure of the stored salt.

We continued through a lot more marsh, finding it lovely and interesting.

Our track shows the pattern of water we were passing through.

We reached Cayola Bay, almost at Sables d'Olonne, and were surprised to find not sand but rock.

However the sand part did soon appear. As well we can now see the city in the distance. I had forgotten that it is such a big place.

The road ran by a bit of a lagoon, on the inland side, and this was full of frolicking gulls.

It was had to get their attention, because they were being idiots about it:

But we could see that they were Black Backed Gulls

With a Herring Gull occasionally joining the party.

Drawing closer to town, we could see quite a mixture of stylish (old) and plain (newer) buildings.

It seemed the "sands" extended right around the city.

Look how much fun these kids are having.

Along the beach front, there was bike path

Here we see it all - the bike way, old and new buildings, and beach supplies.

Our (quite new) hotel is on the left, with very quaint old buildings just nearby.

From our window, it looks like the city is still rather traditional, with all the tile roofs.

The white buildings, and some blue shutters. (from our window).

We are at the 6th floor of this hotel, with a large sliding window you could jump out of (if your stocks crashed). Our bikes are in a good lockup in the back alley. We signed on for the buffet breakfast with our Clemenceau savings - quite looking forward to it!

Today's ride: 58 km (36 miles)
Total: 3,106 km (1,929 miles)

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