Deja Vu All Over Again: Day 2 - Paimbouef -> St. Brevin -> St. Luce sur Loire - Get It While It Lasts... A Big Loop Through Europe 2017

August 9, 2017

Deja Vu All Over Again: Day 2 - Paimbouef -> St. Brevin -> St. Luce sur Loire

We managed to sleep in until 8:30 (where's the jet lag??) which meant the only restaurant in Paimboeuf was open for breakfast. A cup of coffee with bread and Jam (confituere) set us off down the road with a mental note to get to a market and pick up some more substantial breakfast fare!

We were about 20 km from St Brevin which is the official start of Eurovelo 6 and it was a very pleasant cycle. The town itself is a nice little fishing / tourist town on the south side of the outlet of the Loire. On the north side is the larger and more industrial St. Nazaire (just read a news report that M. Marcon was making noises in the last few days about nationalizing the shipyard in St. Nazaire ... will be interesting to see how that turns out!).

We poked around the town, went to the supermarket (snacks and emergency food supplies now in hand) and had a nice lunch overlooking the Atlantic. We then set off to beat a retreat back to Nantes.

While we were riding back we had a conversation about a forum topic that was posted on CGOAB a little while ago - basically, when touring do you stop and talk to other cycle tourists?

Kirsten and I are definitely in the stop-and-talk camp .... when in North America. If we did that here we would never move. Our first estimate was that we would see 50-60 other cycle tourers each day. To test this theory we started a count. We stopped the count after hitting 70 in about an hour and a half!

This is August, prime holiday time in France and this is a very popular spot, but the number of folks out touring is astounding. There is also every age, gender, bike type, group size etc than you can imagine. Probably the most common group is 'family of four, with city bikes, mom with two rear panniers and a wire front basket with a day pack in it, two kids on small mtb's and minimal gear, and dad with a city bike with two panniers and a trailer loaded with all things imaginable!'. Everyone is smiling and having a great time!

We made it another 20 km past Nantes to a campground at St. Luce, which is more or less a suburb of Nantes. We were preceded by a pretty nasty looking storm but luckily it was moving away from us so we didn't get rained on. We set up camp, showered and then set off to get something to eat. Warning... rant coming ... checked Google and saw that there were several Restaurants in St Luce about 3-5 km away, all listed as being open. After the fourth attempt we found a place that was actually open.

I know it's August, and most of France goes on holiday then, and we've experienced this before when we've travelled here, but it was still pretty frustrating after a reasonably long day of cycling. To top it off, the campground WiFi and electrical access to recharge things (Garmin in particular) was essentially non functional (same thing for last night in Paimbouef).

On the plus side, we received an e-mail from one of our friends who unbeknownst to us is now living in Budapest! Looking forward to that in September!

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Song of the day:

S.O.B. by Nathaniel Rateliff and the Night Sweats

I was pretty grumpy by the time I sat down for dinner and I just wanted a beer!

Spotted this after a few minutes of leaving Nantes. I don't think it's going to be the last!

The Loire is emptying into the Atlantic. This is the bridge linking St. Brevin to St. Nazaire. There is a shuttle service to take bikers over the bridge should you want to go.

Posing by the Atlantic. Very refreshing to be by the sea. The next time this will happen is several months and several thousand km's away

A long look down the beach. The large structure on the left on the far side of the bay is a MASSIVE cruise ship under construction in St. Nazaire

Today's ride: 93 km (58 miles)
Total: 139 km (86 miles)

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