Day 14: Saumur to Les Rosiers sur Loire

August 23, 2024

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We arrived at the hotel last evening rather hot and tired, and I was not really aware of where exactly we were. But I sure noticed the "castle" out our window. This morning all was revealed as the castle turned out to be the Saumur city hall.

The hotel block itself is quite impressive, with its large building and restaurants in front.

And look, our bike garage has a view of the chateau.

Just before leaving I had a moment to contemplate the lunch price options at the restaurant of the hotel. First off, the basic daily special is 14.50 euros, which is higher (of course) than we remember from past years, but lower than the 20+ euros we have been seeing. But next we go into the typically French silliness. The basic fact is that the appetiser costs 3.20 and the dessert 3.20. But rather than just list these two items and their price, you get a kind of legalistic three line story. The only true information in these lines is that if you buy all three, you get one euro off. That's it!

The first stop, as we planned yesterday, was the bakery in the main square.

We sent Josh and Evee in to battle with the other clients.

I was glad to see that the large plum pies from yesterday had been joined by more manageable small ones. I called to Josh to add one to our haul.

Leaving Josh with my plum pie request, we took seats in the extensive table area, free of people at this early hour.

Just across the way was the covered market, the Halles St Pierre. A quick check showed this to be empty, except for one fish vendor.

You could learn the French names for a lot of stuff here, if you could actually see the stuff!

Josh came out of the bakery with some great stuff, including 10 well stuffed maccarons. Here below you see my plum pie, and two eclairs. We are growing leery of chocolate eclairs, because the filling on many is little more than chocolate pudding. On the other hand, you can never go wrong with coffee!

Now we set off in ernest, choosing to follow the right bank of the river, toward our not so distant next stop, half way to Anger. Along that way we encountered a couple puzzling over their rear rack, which had fallen apart. The problem was a screw that had backed out and fallen off. In the old days we used to carry a metal tin of miscellaneous screws, but have given up on that in recent trips. However we never give up on zip ties (not to mention tape), so Dodie set to work binding the afflicted rack together.

We could tell the repair materials had found favour with the other riders, since the man asked for some spares to carry along. It's really fun to help out fellow cyclists. We can think of at least two other occasions when we absolutely saved the day for people, by having quick links for broken chains.

The next fun was a giant field of very aromatic marijuana. No way to tell if this was a psychoactive variety or not, as there was no fence and no signage. But it smelled powerful, alright!

We arrived at our spot in Les Rosiers really early, and were much pleased to find three bedrooms, with lots of beds, plus a large open room with wide screen TV and Netflix, plus a full kitchen. We sent Dodie and Josh off to find the large Super U grocery some kms away, while the kids settled in to watch the Super Mario movie. As with most parents, I like this because it keeps the kids totally quiet and hypnotised, leaving me to write the blog here in peace!

Super Mario magic! on the right, while blog gets written on the left.

KIDS' TAKE

Joe:

goble goble ps.im sorry i couid only get 1photo.

An epilog from Steve on butterflies. Yesterday Bill Shaneyfeld identified the Peacock Butterfly on the butterfly bushes. Here are a couple more of the same:

But now, on the same bushes we see this one. ID?

Today's ride: 30 km (19 miles)
Total: 315 km (196 miles)

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Gregory GarceauNo offense intended, Steve, but I'm sure going to miss the grandkids' comments and pictures after you move on without them. I think they (especially Joe) have the potential to be Cycleblaze superstars in a decade or so.
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1 month ago

Steve Miller/GrampiesTo Gregory GarceauYou got great smiles and laughs from the kids, but Steve was less enthused. Dodie
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1 month ago