Our hotel last night, the Beaux Arts, came up with quite a credible breakfast, for France. We were able to make some nice sandwiches for the road, and then in a cheeky move, I went and asked if we could take some fruit. They most graciously said certainly.
We took a miss on looking around Compiegne, eager to get going along the Oise. The Oise is rather famous with us, because it joins the Seine near Paris, at Conflans. We have been at Conflans, and anyway anything related to the Seine and Paris is special for us (not that we are bothering to go near the place this time around).
Before long it became clear that today's ride would not be as fine as yesterday's. Rather than passing by nice villages, with farms in between, it was all sort of nondescript housing, all the way.
But the thing that bugs me the most in cycle touring is riding the dotted white line on the right (no shoulder) on narrow roads. A sort of macabre activity in such cases is watching the suicide passing that results, as drivers can not wait for a second until the opposite lane is clear, so they roar around us and duck back in, missing oncoming cars by usually no more than a second.
We had rather hoped that we were done with military cemeteries, but no. At Catenoy there was another one. We noticed some differently shaped stones among the crosses and had a look. They were Australian and British. It seemed all had died in 1915. We don't know enough to guess what part of the battles had filled this cemetery.
On this Australian stone is a message from the soldier's parents: "In memory of our darling Les. Beautiful memories of our darling Les." Interestingly, Les was a pilot.
After hours of somewhat stressful line riding, we stumbled onto a bike way. Remarkably, it was called the Trans Oise, and was part of the London to Paris route. Hooray!
As we cycled on our east-west trajectory, north of Paris, we sent a Whatsapp to our friend Didier, who lives just north of the city. We just said thinking of you as we swoop by, 70 km north. Didier responded by jumping in his car, with his friend Maria, and tracking us down. Here they are, about 5 km outside of Beauvais.
Dodie and Didier mount the steps of Beauvais cathedral. Dodie likes those walking sticks, but is not desperate for a mobility miracle, as at Lourdes in 2017, before the knee surgeries.
Beauvais cathedral has several great things to look at. The stained glass is extremely beautiful. There is a very fancy astronomical clock. And there are attractive cloisters, and art exhibitions in the crypt.
The astronomical clock came with a rather long video presentation, going over all its many features. It combines the clocks and dials dealing with phases of the moon, and suchlike, with many animated figures that appear through doors, much like a cuckoo clock.
Didier and Maria (behind the camera here) really enjoyed touring the cathedral together. We then repaired to a Brasserie-Tea House for a "drink". A place selling beer and tea seems a little odd to us, but it is a common category here. We chose hot chocolate.
Walking back to our Hotel de la Cathedrale, we noted the remains of the city walls. There used to be 18 towers, in a 1.4 km wall around the town in the 4th century. The photo shows a remaining bit.
