September 10, 2016
Chateau Gotier: We leave the Loire
Today we had a change of direction. We started on La Velo Francette, this is a bicycle route that will take you from Caen to La Rochelle. We of course were joining it where it met the Loire at Angers. It was to take us along rivers in France that we hadn't even heard of. For the first two days we would for most of the time be travelling along the 110km tow path beside the Mayenne River. This is actually a suprisingly big river that meets the Loire near Anger. Today's experience of it showed that it is incredibly well used for water sports. The river has been canalised and unlike the canals we had seen earlier there were lots of boats moving and the ecluses keepers were having a busy time. On the Loire all the boats are brown and of a similar traditional design (we wondered if there was some sort of rule about this). Here however they looked much more like the normal canal boats you see though there were no old Dutch barges and most looked like hire boats. The ecluses were interesting. There was a weir and a canal leading to the ecluse and beside each ecluse is an old mill. One of these was actually still functional. There were a lot of people around but unlike the many foreign tourists on the Loire seeking Chateaux and wine these were mainly French and they were having an active time. There were Chateaux along the way but these were more incidental and not overrun by visitors.
Tonight we are staying in Chateau Gotier. It is a small town but by far the biggest we have seen all day. Had trouble getting bread until at one place a man directed Ken to La Machine. It looked a bit like a phone box, Ken put in 1E and out popped a fresh baguette and 5 cents change ! Tomorrow we continue along the canal first to Laval (the place where the recent huge protests about milk prices was) then on to the town of Mayenne.
Today's ride: 66 km (41 miles)
Total: 1,892 km (1,175 miles)
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