Last day out.: Beauvais to Burgundy

August 3, 2013

I left Beauvais in the sun, which promised a very warm day. Monday morning traffic in the city wasn't too bad, and for once I didn't get lost leaving town. It was up and down for a bit, but soon I was on a narrow counttry road headed to St. Germer de Fly. A bakery was convieniently located right along my route, so of course I stopped for a croissant and water.

St. Germer has this magnificent abbey church. The larger part, on the left in this photo, was closed for renovation. The lady at the tourist office told me that pigeons had gotten in and had reproduced to numbers sufficient to cause damage. They were being exterminated, which created a hazard to people entering the building. Also, while the pigeons were being removed, it was decided to clean and repair the stonework, a major job in itself. The chapel on the right in the photo, the sainte chappell, had bits of its 13th century glass still in place. I couldn't get any decent photos of it since the remaining bits were all on the north ane east sides shaded by the trees. Ironically, only at night when the building is illuminated from outside can the glass be seen to full effect.

It was while I was in St. Germer that I began to see a significant increase in the number of cyclotourists coming my way. I learned that this was because the town is on a Paris to London cycle route, well marked by yellow arrows. My next destination was Chaumont en Vexin, so I was able to follow the arrows most of the way. At Neuf Marche, I must have missed one of the arrows, because I found myself on a very busy road headed south. I took the first turning onto a route that my map said was a well traveled but not highway type road. Wrong. Although it did lead me back onto the cycle route, it was at the expense of a very steep (but thankfully short) hill up the side of the river valley I was following. I had to get off and push my way up. Back on the plateau, the route wound gently downward to Gisors. I did see a fair number of cyclotourists going the other way, most with red faces and sweat as they were ascending the grade I was going down. In Gisors I stopped at a brasserie for lunch and asked what sort of sandwiches they had. The waitress reeled off three different names, but I only caught the first two. I asked her to repeat and settled on rillettes (scrapings) with cornichons (sour gherkins) and Orangina. Thus fortified I rode the remaining 7 kilometers to Chaumont. I got my card stamped in a pharmacy and rode around the town looking for something to photograph. Nothing caught my eye, and seeing a station I rode in. There was a train for Paris leaving in a few minutes, so I bought a ticket. In a little over an hour and a half, I was at St. Lazare in Paris. Now, all I had to do was negotiate Parisian traffic to the Gare de Bercy to catch the train for Dijon.

Riding in Paris is not too difficult. The bus lanes can be used by cyclists, and there are some dedicated cycle lanes. Sometimes, though, ther is no alternative to duking it out in traffic.

On the train to Dijon at 5:30. Unlike the trip out, this time I got the slow train with free bike carriage.

This is the tail end of the train to Dijon, which would be the head end to Paris were it going the other way. Bikes get on this car, so depending on direction, one is either the first or last to arrive.

Once in Dijon, it was a ten minute wait to board the train to Gevrey Chambertin, where I live. Ten minutes after that, I was home and headed for the showers. A nice little tour, all in all.

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