Day 67: Pornic to Nantes

April 13, 2024

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Just as we were leaving the Brit Hotel, I noticed the book pictured below on their shelf. It covers the fisheries of the coast we have been cycling. I flipped it open and quickly found the chapter called "how does fishing with the carrelet work?" . A quick scan revealed that in all cases, the net once raised is emptied with a long handled fishing net. Ok, I guess so, but we dreamed up lots of more efficient ways during our time of ignorance.

One other thing I quickly noted was that in the Loire estuary, anyway, the species that come up in the net include mullet, sole, eel, sea bass, smelt, whiting, and even conger eels. I was surprised that I did not see shrimp in the list, but Dodie was waiting outside, and it was time to go!

Just saying that it was time to go did not mean it was time to leave town. Our big plan for today was to take a shortcut to Nantes, ending on its "Machine Island". I guess the island - which sits in the Loire right at Nantes, is really called Ile de Nantes, and it has a lot on it. But the most iconic thing is the unique workshop that turns out mechanical giant animals, the most famous of which is a water snorting elephant. Our business on the machine island this time was to visit a bike shop that we hoped would replace our drive trains, and also a bike rental place, that we hoped would outfit our coming grandkids' expedition with bikes.

The shortcut to Nantes avoids looping around by St Michel Chef - Chef, St Nazaire, and all that - along EV6 - and just getting on with it. To do that, we put it to cycle.travel - just get us there! The resulting track we sent to Michel, and he resolved to leave Ste Luce where he lives (beyond Nantes) and to meet us half way, around noon, by the church at Port Saint Pere. That gave us a comfortable margin, so we headed first to the port at Pornic, for a further peek.

Tucking in one street behind the waterfront, revealed Pornic to be a fairly plain town, of white buildings.

and peeking in the back door of the bakery, the flour storage may or may not be hygienic, depending on your attitude.

We were a little concerned that our shortcut track would lead us onto big roads, since we were no longer relying on Eurovelo. But no, we found ourselves in a network of small roads, with almost no cars. We almost went so far as to decide that it was all too quiet. But it also encouraged us in thinking about more free form wandering around France.

Quiet small roads like this predominated.

The first big excitement on the route came as we passed a herd of Normande cattle. These are so pretty and sweet. They have characteristic splotches around the eyes.

We also saw that we were passing near the town of St Hilaire de Chaleons, and we decided to go in, just for fun. Probably my number two idea of "fun in France", second to biking to a bakery in the early morning for fresh bread, is biking through a "standard" French small town. This will have a central square, with a church, city hall, bakery, butcher, restaurant, and bank, with some benches for eating the goodies obtained at the bakery.

St. Hilaire did not quite fit the model, because it actually lacked the square. But it did have a very nice old church, and a short distance away, a super bakery.

Just beside the church was a maybe abandoned heritage type house that also may have been for rent. This triggered our usual fantasy of buying or renting a place. One thing, a bunch of Jackdaws were making nests in the chimney. We would have to evict them. But for now we were content to record their activities.

Jackdaws have grey heads, unlike rooks or crows.

Shortly after leaving St Hilaire, Dodie spied a familiar sight - Michel and his trike! Michel had had to abandon the Port St Pere church plan, because he got basically kicked out. He was kicked out by a very unlikely thing, a major (in the sense that the whole town would come out) soap box race! Ground zero for the race was the front of our intended meetup and possible lunch stop church.

We are again following the classic profile. From the back you can not see the legs pumping, so the trike looks like a miniature car.

We were glad to see orange and not yellow vested people. Note, the sign says "sauf riverains". Riverains are residents - that's us?! So with a kind word to the orange vests, we blew by.

Michel can be very nimble with that trike.

In front of "our" church, straw bales prepare to bounce the speeding boxes.

We took to the road, followed Michel, and found a shady table, somewhere else.

The gap in photos here, from Port Saint Pere to the Machine Island comes because we were busy trying to keep up with Michel. With its low centre of gravity, that trike is awfully fast on downhills! And Michel is very agile in negotiating all the barriers and turns that are found on any route.

We finally got on the Machine Island, and I was surprised at how large it is, and consequently how many twists and turns it took to finally arrive at the giant elephant. I only got this one shot, before Michel and Dodie were off again.

We arrived at one of Michel's favourite bike shops, Sardines a Velo. The name is a play on words that two people have tried to explain to me, and I still don't get. Part of it is that the owner is a cycle tourist and takes sardines on the trips. But the rest of it?

Our mechanic at Sardines is Josephine. We found her to be on the ball, and also very patient and pleasant. In the plan to replace our drive trains, the needed 38 tooth front chainrings could not be found around town. So the existing ones will get reversed, in hopes of squeezing more wear from them. We are also asking Josephine to disassemble and re-lube the rear Nexus hubs entirely. This will cost 70 euros each, but after 20,000 trouble free km, we figure they have earned it.

Michel looks on, having introduced Dodie and Josephine. As per established policy, we negotiate for what we need in our broken French. This is deemed more effective than using the native speaker Michel.

Sardines has two locations - one the workshop and one the store. We dropped by the store to say hi, before going on to our next objective.

Our next objective was a bike rental place, called l'Ilot Famille. This is where we hoped to rent bikes for our planned grandkids cycle tour, in August. Michel left us to try out our broken French at this place as well. Tomorrow we will rejoin Michel for more fun.

The man at L'ilot Familles, Pierre, struck us as a gentle soul, who would earnestly try to fix us up for the proposed trip.

Dodie and Pierre go into a lockup for a look at the available bikes.

L'ilot rents a lot of tandems and cargo bikes, like the one in the foreground.

Pierre describes the way to the train station, where we need to verify the details of bikes on trains up and down the Loire. When we know our dates and needs better, we will contact Pierre to reserve some equipment. Sardines also gave us the name of another rental outfit, and we are not beyond bringing certain bikes and stuff from Canada. The work is still in progress. We are actually not yet sure we can do it, given that our dates will be right around the Paris Olympics.

One of the machines of the Machine Island is this big carousel, which has strange marine creatures to ride.

We made our way to our chosen hotel, just off the island, and called the Appart'City. It earns the name with a bit of a kitchenette. This time Dodie went in to introduce ourselves to reception. She wanted to properly handle a 250 euro deposit demanded by the property. They want this by credit card and not cash. The problem is that if we hand them a Canadian card, and they actually take the money, only to refund it the next day, the credit card company could gleefully skim 8% or more from the implied currency exchanges.

After quite a while, Dodie emerged, with her head spinning. The reception lady was an exceptionally fast French talker, and Dodie had made little progress in understanding what would or could happen with our 250 euros. I got sent in, not to straighten this out, but to decipher the arrangement with the various keys, cards, and secret codes, needed to get into the parking garage, the bicycle lockup, the room, the building after hours, and yes, the elevator.

I got it all straight except for one - the elevator. So here I present an elevator story as a companion to Scott's today. I took some of our panniers, and went to the elevator, pressing the "up" button, and waited patiently, as one does. But after a while I pressed again, as one does. I thought it suspicious that the buttons did not light, but still, I tried the "down" button, as one will do, then waited patiently again. Finally I was forced to go to Mrs. Fast Talker and inquire about the lack of elevator buttons lighting up. "I told you", she said with exasperation, "You have to pass your secret card over the secret reader before pressing any buttons", "Oh, come with me!". She used her universal secret card on the secret reader, and soon sent me up and away. How could she know that in the village where I come from, they not only do not speak French, but they have no elevators, with secret card readers or otherwise.

Once in the room, we realized that we had not much food in stock. I got sent out to look for some, as I had spotted a Carrefour Express not too far away. Out in the street, I took a photo of where I was coming from, in case somehow my GPS would fail me and I would walk the streets of Nantes all night. The photo show it to be a pretty grim place, just off the quay.

Before I got to Carrefour, I ran into a Donner Kebab place, and this seemed like a good solution. I asked the man to make up a plate of chicken, salad, and fries. While this cooked, we exchanged UQs. He learned about us coming up through Spain and Portugal, and I learned that he was from Algeria. Algeria, of course, was a former colony of France, often viewed as part of France, much like Russia and Ukraine. Algerians, then, speak French, and are natural immigrants here. The man and I ended by fondly musing about tagines, which we agreed were heavenly around Bordeaux.

I carried my chicken, salad, fries treasure home, and they got a good reception, together with the Orangina that I had also picked up. Now we can sleep and rest up for more fun with Michel tomorrow.

Not such a lovely spot, but it's my street.

Notre Dame de Bon Port church, on the way to the Donner Kebab place.

Today's ride: 65 km (40 miles)
Total: 3,313 km (2,057 miles)

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