Day 71: Ste Luce to Saint Florent le Vieil

April 17, 2024

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The day started with a bit of a panic for me. We both use wireless ear buds to listen to bed time stories. Although these fit the ear reasonably, they can and do fall out while we are asleep. That would be more for me than for Dodie, because I thrash around in the night, while she lies perfectly still. When an ear bud has fallen out, then it will be found by the pillow, or at least somewhere in the bed. This happened with me this morning, but the missing bud was nowhere to be seen. The room did not have a lot of extra junk in it - just the bed and a couple of furniture pieces, and our personal gear is of necessity quite minimal. So the missing bud would be easy to find. Not! I took the room apart, hopefully helping Jeannette by totally stripping the bed, pulling the duvet from its cover, the pillows from their cases. Nothing! I shook out all my clothes. Nothing. I wondered if Dodie had packed the thing - no, that's not our routine. Finally I had to give up. I took my few warm outer clothes downstairs, leaving the bedroom bare, except for the ear bud that had to be somewhere!

When it was time to leave, I put on my sweater, in the kitchen. Then I turned around, and there was the ear bud lying in the middle of the kitchen floor. Some trickster at work? No, Michel had heard it hit the floor. Through all the shaking out, it had remained in the sweater until the last minute. This was the joyful conclusion of about 45 wasted searching minutes, to start the day.

Michel came out to accompany us up the Loire, at least enough to get us started. Our route did not allow for swinging through the centre of Ste Luce, which one could take to mean -by the church. But we did again pass the bakery, which is the centre for me, anyway. We picked up some essentials, a chocolate eclair and two almond croissants, and were off.

The only thing, we were not quite off. After surviving the test ride at Sardines, and the twelve kilometer ride from Nantes to Ste Luce, my drive train invented the idea of going clunk clunk, and then refusing to have the pedals reliably go forward, or especially backward. Dodie and Michel had to realize I was not with them, and turn around to find me puzzling over the bike on the sidewalk. A lot of shifting up and down, turning assist on and off, and pushing the pedals this way and that ensued. Finally, and I don't know quite what made it happen, the bike started to work again. Well ok, we carried on - for a block - until the problem recurred. So now there were thoughts of not going on up the Loire, but of retreating to Sardines. That would no doubt mean at least one lost day, and another stay at the less than desirable Appart'hotel in Nantes. Faced with that, I tried fiddling again - the bike got going, but failed again. But hey, for no more apparent reason than it had for failing, it then decided to work! And it has worked perfectly since.

The for us classical view of Michel coming along on his trike.

This is a fair representation of the Loire a Velo as it was for us today, except for the bridge crossings.

We seemed to cross over the Loire several times during the day. The bridges were not deadly, but one would certainly choose to push the bikes on the sidewalk, rather than fight and hold up the cars on the roadway.

Michel is always a good source of information about local points of interest. This time he was telling us that when the Loire floods, it fills up ponds near the shore, that are not strictly part of the river. These ponds, or water holes, are called Boires, which maybe stems from them being places where livestock could drink (boire = to drink).

In case we would think Michel was inventing his stories, here we see that a "boire" is a legitimate geographic term.

Somewhere along the route it was time for Michel to leave us and return to Ste Luce. We said a fond goodbye, but it really hurt. There is no telling when we will see this dear dear friend again.

The Loire valley has a lot of gentle, pastoral bits. Later it will present some vibrant historical cities, chateaus, and such, but for now we could just enjoy farm scenes.

Relatively (relative to our place at home!) weed free garlic fields.

I had not realized that there is a breed of Nantes cattle.

One of the first major towns along the way was Oudon. Oudon is distinguished first off by having stone construction and dark roofs. So we are well out of the seaside white houses with orange roofs. Next, Oudon has a great looking bakery. And there is a chateau, from the 15th century.

Oudon buildings. Most are hundreds of years old.

The chateau tower seems still in good repair.

The chateau parts other than the tower seem to be a ruin.

It's a small jump from Oudon to Ancenis. Ancenis also has a chateau, but I only snapped a quick photo as we blew by.

I spent more time talking to a group of brown cows. Funny priorities.

They were not really that great as conversationalists.

We came upon the sign below, near an abbey overlooking the river, close to our destination today of Saint Florent le Vieil. I said to Dodie "looks like work", refering to recording the sign and later trying to figure out what it was all about. Indeed, the story proved very complex, involving counter revolutionary people and the Reign of Terror in the French revolution. The victims described in the sign were religious people who supported the monarch, not favoured folks for the revolutionaries.

From Wikipedia: "The Reign of Terror (French: la Terreur) was a period of the French Revolution when, following the creation of the First Republic, a series of massacres and numerous public executions took place in response to revolutionary fervour, anticlerical sentiment, and accusations of treason by the Committee of Public Safety.

There is disagreement among historians over when exactly "the Terror" began. Some consider it to have begun only in 1793, giving the date as either 5 September, June or March, when the Revolutionary Tribunal came into existence. Others, however, cite the earlier time of the September Massacres in 1792, or even July 1789, when the first killing of the revolution occurred."

The quiet field today, where it all went down.

We did our final crossing of the Loire for the day, opposite our hotel, Le Petit Pecheur. It remained much more comfortable to walk the bikes than to chance the roadway.

This is some kind of traditional Loire boat, but we don't know the exact function.

We arrived at the hotel at about 4, to find that no staff would be there whatever until 6. We remember this about France, and the Loire route specifically. You can arrive at a hotel or restaurant and easily believe that it is out of business. There will be not the slightest sign of life until the exact minute and second when they said they would open.

It's not bad place, once they do open!

Today's ride: 53 km (33 miles)
Total: 3,469 km (2,154 miles)

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Michel FleuranceSteve, Dodie, it was a pleasure to share these privileged moments with with you. Take care and say hello to all the birds you are going to meet.
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