July 29, 2019
Escape from the ward
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I don’t know how many times Ive been in Tours, but that’s where I am. I’m here mostly because its the farthest away from Gevrey that I can get in one day. When I started these tours in my adopted country, I first went to places near enough to where I live that I could go there and back in one day by bike. That stretched to two days, then three, then I began to take the train to a start pont and train back. Eventually these concentric journeys reached the limits of what I could reach in a single day, and now I know that I will have to take at least two days to reach new territory. So here I am, between trains, waiting’s for the real tour to start. I am in a nice hotel, while I wait, so there is that. The journey here was relatively uneventful, an easy ride into Dijon to catch the train to Nevers, change for Bourges, change again for Tours. I had a two hour layover in Bourges, so I now know that one lap of the center is approximately 4 kilometers. The train from Bourges to Tours was packed with cyclists, but in typical SNCF fashion, there were more bicycles than places, so we were stacked up in the baggage spaces. Something is afoot in the SNCF about bicycles. I know this because a young man with a badge was asking all the cyclists if they would use a trucking service to transport their cycles if such was available. I answered NON! of course. Who would entrust their expensive ride to a service that may or may not arrive on time, and would surely be slower than the train? The couple seated opposite me were of the same opinion, but I fear for the future of travelling with a bike on the SNCF. The railway clearly doesn’t want then hassle of dealing with cyclists.
The thought of losing the train service being too hard to contemplate, I consoled myself with a good supper of fois gras, seared tuna steak with blackened sesame seeds and purée of squash, and a baba rum for desert, accompanied by a half bottle of the local wine.
Today's ride: 21 km (13 miles)
Total: 21 km (13 miles)
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| Comment on this entry | Comment | 3 |
It’s a LOT cooler in Brittany than elsewhere. I emerged from the a.c. just a couple of times during the heat wave. Now we need rain at home.
Cheers,
Keith
4 years ago
Now I get the chance to critique "Part 2" a few chapters at a time. I did sneak a look ahead at a couple of pages and saw some amazing food, so I can't wait to read the rest.
I don't know enough about the truck transport they were offering for bikes, but I might not have been so dismissive of the idea--assuming the truck follows the train fairly closely. If, on the other hand, the truck goes to a terminal, and then they transfer the bikes to another terminal and then to another terminal, and your bike shows up three days later, well, that just would not do.
4 years ago