October 25, 2022
Day 49: Villeroy to Auxerre
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We had arranged breakfast for 7:30, but as usual when I appeared downstairs at 7:28, everything was black and locked tight. However, at 7:30, sure enough, the lights went on, the lady appeared, and she had out baguettes, yogurt, orange juice, and jam in the next minute. I have seen this before in France, where restaurants say they open at 7 p.m. , and appear black and out of business until exactly 7, then bingo!
The lady had her own turn at impatience, when she brought out our omelets. Dodie was outside playing with (loading) the bikes, and the lady, mother like, said "She needs to come in and eat!".
I rather thought the lady looked like Edit Piaf, but maybe it was only the eyebrows. What do you think?
We almost immediately returned to the open environment of green fields and hills that we had been in yesterday. Not that I am fishing for "likes", but the hills did make for some gorgeous photographs:
The main order of the day was in following the river Yonne. The direction of travel was upriver, but the climbing, if any, was gentle. Most exciting, to us, was that at Villeneuve the river side path became a Voie Verte, with silky smooth pavement, stops that offered air and repair tools, and signs that gave the distance to the next towns.
Our surroundings just continued gorgeous, and with the level and smooth cycling surface by the river, this was just the greatest.
You may not be able to quite see it, but below on one of the trailside guides to the region, one of the main things they choose to show is bakeries. e looked at that and thought fine, we'll go look for one of the pictured bakeries. The nearest one was in Armeau, and the GPS quickly gave us the correct left turn off the cycle path. It was just a half block into the town to reach the bakery, but we found it closed on Tuesdays. Oh, sure. Well no problem, there were lots of bakeries still to come on the route.
A really good bakery prospect was Joigny, an attractive looking quite large town on the river. In fact one street we saw contained five bakeries. We headed down that street, and found one after another of the bakeries, all inexplicably closed. Ok, we're cool - there are other towns, y'know.
One other thing at Joigny was that Voie Verte signs pointed us to continue on the smooth path by the river. But our track, which we had dug up while at home, under the name of Tour de Bourgogne, wanted us to sail off on the D-roads. We could see from the signage that the Voie Verte was heading to Migenne, while our track was avoiding the town. Once we have installed a track in the GPS we tend to be very faithful to it, so with a slight twinge of regret we took the track.
The D roads turned out to be OK, and at Charmoy there was another bakery to try. Closed at 1 p.m. on Tuesdays, and closed on Wednesday. Current time? 1:13 p.m., of course.
After Charmoy it was back to the river, but the magic was gone. In fact, gone was any sign of pavement, and now we had rocks and mud. We pushed along in this for about 5 km, looking for a way out and thinking that for yet another time on this tour, the booking we had made in some reasonable but distant place was going to be made unreachable by something about the route.
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We were sullenly pushing along, when a rather jolly rider came bowling up from behind, on his bike that was well adapted to these conditions: Large wheels, strong motor, shocks, no load. No wonder he was rather jolly. As it happened, the rider was also a priest. And he had served two years in a church in Quebec City. I think he was trying to tell me that Alfred Hitchcock had made a film in that same church, but I did not catch the details. It was also the case, that like us, the pedaling priest was heading for Auxerre. His father had recently died, and he had prepared a service, the papers for which were being printed in Auxerre. The service and interment would be in Paris, by his father's request. It's amazing how much you can learn about a person in a few minutes on a bike trail!
We also learned that we need not be concerned, because after a bridge coming soon the trail would revert to pavement. This not only turned out to be the case, but the theoretical Tour de Burgogne showed up, logo and all!
From that point the path was again dead smooth, and we bowled along no longer in any doubt that we would reach Auxerre in good time.
We had booked at Ibis Styles at the edge of town, and it turned out to be up a long hill. The area was studded with Route National type stuff: steak houses, McDonalds, and a giant Decathlon.
Whereas the last time at Ibis Styles we had used the the elevator and stashed the bikes in the room, at this one the elevator was "en panne" . No problem though, they put the bikes in a conference room. One again the bikes had a bigger better space than us.
Because of the failure of our bakery searches, we had only one banana and one apple in our food bag. We would need a restaurant, but were now too tired to search out one on the road. So we dined at Ibis. This will sound a bit "North American" but we did have some quibbles with the dishes. The one that interested Dodie was called in the French menu Poteé Bourginonne. We figured a poteé could be anything, but the English menu listed it as beef stew, so OK. What came definitely had pork slices and something that maybe could be beef, if you were expecting beef. But after a bit it was clear that it was duck. So pork and duck, with potato and carrot and cabbage. Sounds like a kitchen mixup. My choice was nominally a cheeseburger. But since this is France, cheese is not a simple topic. I had a choice of three types I had never heard of. It also came with caramelized onion and some thin tomato slices. I had a long discussion with the waitress about how well done I meant by "well done", having been through the beef "au point" (raw) drill in France before. 22 euros. Should I have snuck over to McDonald's instead?
Epilog: I looked up potée. " Potée is a French culinary term which, in general, refers to any preparation cooked in an earthenware pot. More specifically, it refers to a soup or stew made of pork and vegetables, most frequently, cabbage and potatoes of which choucroute is the most characteristic." That means Dodie got just what the French version of the menu promised. The English version lied.
Today's ride: 73 km (45 miles)
Total: 1,978 km (1,228 miles)
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