August 23, 2016
A Chambre d"hote in the hills high above the Loire near Chambles: We have done over 1000km
At breakfast our host kept saying over and over again 'Au'jourdou il fait tres, tres chaud'. I didn't find that very reassuring particularly because we had a killer hill at the end of the day. I kept wishing he would stop saying it.
We left as early as we could manage and we were on easy riding first through the town that was setting up its market(no time to wait) then onto this wonderful wide fertile plaine that the Loire makes before it reaches the gorges. It was easy pleasant riding through small hamlets even too small to be called villages. But they are growing as we were close to St Etienne which probably has a housing problem so like the village of Pokeno where we live which is responding to the needs of Auckland there was developement in a number of these. Crantailles, which is marked in the book as having no services had a a group of buildings which much to our delight included a Boulangerie and Cafe so we stopped to refuel.
St Just St Rambert was a town dating back to the 7th century with an impressive church and a lovely pedestrianised centre. We lingered and enjoyed it and another coffee. After this we knew it was 10 km up hill going from 380m to 660m when we would reach Chambles. For most of the way it was pretty well graded but constant and apart from a bit of a rest about half way up we rode the whole way.
Chambles is described in the book as "A windswept medieval village, clustered round its 14th century church and a 18m siege tower built 3 centuries earlier, seems to huddle against the icy blasts in this isolated spot. The views in all directions here are truly spectacular". BUT today was different there was no wind, the temperature was over 30degrees. We found a restaurant and settled down for a salad and a beer. One of our problems was that we had no idea where our accommodation was. We asked the waitress, then the entire clientel of the restaurant became involved - it was actually in a very much smaller village about 4km up in the hills. We taught the small boy in the next table to count to 10 then set out and explored Chambles and set off to find this place.
I was beginning to fade a bit so made it up the hill to eventually find this. The owner is charming she gave us cold drinks and we settled into the charming room. Ken decided to shave but oh no one problem he had left his back pack back at the restaurant . Only one thing to do he set off on his unloaded bike - he says unloaded bikes fly. The restaurant was still open so he and the back pack were reunited. Tonight our hostess is cooking us a meal and we are looking forward to that
Today's ride: 51 km (32 miles)
Total: 1,010 km (627 miles)
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