September 14, 2021
Rest day: Belle Époque
It would have been fantastic to make it to Mont St. Michel without a zero day. That's the stuff of daydreams. Reality is much more interesting. We got a little rain, but no thunderstorms. I'm going to read the forecasts with a grain of salt from now on. It's not cold, and we're going to Brittany, with weather patterns that are an awful lot like Seattle's. I think we'll push forward as long as we're still having fun. There's an opportunity to take a shortcut later on, and it's intriguing: the V8 route from Yffiniac to Saint-Gonnery. We'll see. If we skip it and later get hypothermia, I can always shout with deep regret, "I could've had a V8!" (I watched a lot of television as a kid).
The halfway-decent weather allowed us to explore the resort town of Bagnoles de l'Orne at our leisure. Our appetites are picking up, which meant that our first priority was to shop for the next three meals. We visited a small farmer's market for fresh vegetables, a small grocery for rice, cheese, and beer, and a patisserie for some trademark French desserts. In other words, we went a little overboard.
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If I were a location scout for a French film version of Thomas Mann's Der Zauberberg, this place would fit the bill. First we met with an imposing white-walled sanitarium-turned-hospital. Then came the equally impressive 19th-century hotel buildings forming a horseshoe around a picturesque lake. Behind them on one side were smaller but still ornately-detailed manor homes.
One building stood out in contrast to the rest. I instantly fell in love with its proud art deco defiance:
There were a few tourists, all seemingly French couples in their sixties, mixed with obvious locals. Waiters sat around, looking bored or dejected. Notwithstanding the fact that we visited on a cloudy Tuesday in September during a pandemic shortly after Brexit, I couldn't help but feel that the hotel rooms are never full here, and that even the casino and the hot springs wouldn't draw enough business to keep this place bustling the way it must have at one time. I mean, look at this:
These days, in a country that has ample train service, you have to take a bus just to get here if you want to use public transportation. I'm not saying the town is dead, but it's sleepy. It's perfect. We enjoyed it so much that we returned there for our after-dinner walk.
The Veloscenie would have taken us down the main boulevard, but knowing us, if we rode through mid-day, we may have stopped here for five minutes to take a photo or two, and that would've been it. Instead, we had the opportunity to feel the rhythm of daily life in Bagnoles de L'orne. I feel grateful for that.
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Rgds, Lyle & Kirsten
2 years ago