Day 22: Flers to Caen

August 31, 2024

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We predicted a rough day today, because we would be crossing the hilly region known as the Suisse Normande. A good breakfast would be important for making the grade, and fortunately Ibis Styles came through with flying colours. They had a fresh orange juice squeezer, four kinds of cheese, fresh fruit salad, boiled eggs, two kinds of meat, viennoiserie, and so forth. There is such a gulf between the bottom and the top for breakfast offerings in France!

One of the first things we noticed after starting off was that this area is either big on hydrangea or is super well suited to growing them. They were everywhere.

Normandy, oddly enough, has Norman style churches - distinguished by the lack of a tall steeple.

Another feature of this area is shrubbery. Hedges are everywhere. Some are a bit raggedy, as below:

Dodie is so good on spotting birds, but she is rotten on hedges. So when I exclaimed here "look at that ruler straight hedge!", she denied knowing what I was talking about.

We saw many Buzzards like this along the way.

La Carneille was a town with a lot of history. It's a story we only read about because we pulled into a shelter opposite its grocery and in front of its church.

The church of St Peter and St Paul in Carneille

Some facts about Carneille: Its chateau was built in the 11th century. In the 14th century it probably reached its peak of influence over the surrounding region. In 1353 the chateau was burned by the English in the 100 years' was. The English stayed until 1453. The 16th century brought the wars of religion, and the church was burned down. Also 16th century, construction of a new chateau.

At the time of the Revolution, the town had a famous guy - l'Hodiesniere. The part I like about his story is that he was exiled to Belgium. Belgium just does not have a great reputation in France. But we will soon exile ourselves to Belgium!

A feature they like about the church here is the new stained glass, from 1942. It is rather attractive.

This polychrome virgin was obtained in 1704 but wrecked in the Revolution. She was restored in 1801.

We think we may have the same angle as the old photo here.

So many buildings in this region have this great stonework appearance.

At Bréel, we found a memorial for the crew of a crashed British bomber.

We began to climb, and to get some vistas over the surrounding land. We knew we were really into the "Swiss Normandy" when we arrived the Roche d'Oetre, which is a steep escarpment where you can look down, and if brave do various hikes.

The Roche area has this nice cafe, and other retail. But we knew we had to get on with it - so no ice cream!

This is one of those shots where you try to show a steep hill, but it looks like nothing. But this is still a bookmark, marking a point where we really began to get into trouble. Dodie found she could not pedal up many of the hills, and our battery charges began to nose dive.

That's Dodie pushing up, way down there. Our road turns left here and goes up up again!

And the buildings remain quaint. But by this point it was becoming clear that our bikes were not going to make it to Caen, and if our bodies held up, we could be pushing into town in the dark.

But wait, just exactly as we were calculating that we had no hope, from out of nowhere popped a rail trail. A rail trail that covered all remaining 41 km to Caen!! We were saved, and the relief was great!

There are cliffs all around, but the rail trail follows the river Orne, and heads on through.

"You are here" at the bottom, and you are goin' north!

This is apparently a famous photo angle on what was a bandage factory from 1860. In 1940 it was apparently making 70,000 bandages a day.

This riverside industry was a "grilling oven" which concentrated iron ore before it was taken to Caen, on the train whose right of way we are riding right now.

The trail continued with this perfect surface all the way.

We ran into an example of the rail-bicycles that run on sections of track left in place beside the rail trail. They seemed quite heavy, so you would definitely need both pedalling seats to be occupied.

The Orne river runs through Caen and must be a big part of its existence. We plotted the turn to reach our hotel by its being after the fourth bridge coming up.

Caen is a port town, connected to the Channel by the river and by a basin. Maybe that's why we spotted this large but young Herring Gull.

Our hotel in Caen has the distinction of being a 5 storey walk up. We drew a room on the fourth floor. Dragging all the gear up there was a real aerobic workout. But at this height our window is catching the breeze, so it's quite pleasant.

Breakfast here is 8 euros each for the basic French nothing, and they start way late, at 8:15, so we gave it a miss. No worries, tomorrow may be an easier day and we do have some spare food in the bag. It will be Sunday, though, making food a little hard to find. It will be fine!

Today's ride: 85 km (53 miles)
Total: 737 km (458 miles)

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Scott AndersonHey, you’re staying at the Hotel Astrid! That’s where we meet up with Susan in a few weeks. You made it in record time - we’re going to spend 4 days plus a layover in Clecy riding from Caen to Laval, and you did it in 2-1/2!
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