April 29, 2023
St Malo to Medrēac
Feverish train ride and gentle cycling.
My waking disposition is not greatly improved but taking the required drugs helps. We decide that I’m not really up to the distance and so ring our Warmshowers hosts. Genevieve is just wonderful and suggests a train (one change at Rennes) to Montauban ( the Bretagne one), then cycling the pitifully short distance to Mēdrēac.
And so it comes to pass. We leave St Malo about midday and arrive at Rennes fairly quickly. It’s a gare that gives a whole new meaning to ‘flash’. For a start, like Waterloo Station, it has a clear ceiling, curving overhead at great height. As for seating, no cold Brit Rail metal to freeze and mark nether regions. No, here we are privileged to flop down into deck chairs. We saw a few set out in a German railway once, but not on this scale. How long will they last, is there a weight rating, do the multi colours mean anything, whose idea was it anyway? Had to be a committee. Whatever the answers, we have a long wait and pretty soon I doze off.
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Eventually, we’re on our way to Montauban. It’s a short ride, enhanced slightly by a fellow traveller- a well dressed, but off beat, Mexican woman who tells us she used to cycle a lot in the Baja area but now her only exercise is dancing. She’s carrying an enormous amount of luggage and keeps asking if the next station is St Brieuc. Despite telling her that the stations are indicated on the lights above her head, she keeps asking.
At Montauban Ann has the direction on a very quiet road and off we go. It’s a tonic to be out in the green countryside again, and the kilometres pass quickly.
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https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/343021-Anguis-fragilis/browse_photos
11 months ago
At Mēdrēac we find the maison of Benōit and Genevieve who are very welcoming and wonderful to chat with about the usual things- cycling, family and bikes, of which Benoit has quite a collection.
It’s torture for me to decline the offers of saucisson, cheese and drink, but I’m just not up to it and after consuming one of Benoit’s tasty buckwheat galettes, we take a walk and view the Eglise and environs, before returning to chat briefly with our hosts’ friends who have arrived. They are very friendly and interested in New Zealand having heard that it is very beautiful.
An early night is in order though, and we hit the hay. I’m hoping I can last out 10 minutes of my audible book before Elysium descends.
Today's ride: 17 km (11 miles)
Total: 359 km (223 miles)
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11 months ago
11 months ago