May 15, 2018
Day 50: Parthenay to Montreuil
I began the day by taking a stroll to the back garden of our antique house. Mainly, I was trying to get oriented to where we actually were in the town, or put another way, where the main bits of the town actually were. I did not make much progress with this, but I did notice once again how old the buildings around look, piled up as they are, from ancient stones.
When I made my way out to the garden, Ivan, the owner, had not been around. I correctly surmised that he was off to the bakery. He came back with some good quality baguette and croissant, from a wood fired oven.
We had not realized it, because all had been so quiet, but the house was fully occupied - with ourselves, another couple, and two individual young men. We were first to sit at the table set for us all, and Ivan began by playing the Canadian national anthem from his ipad. He enjoys, and the clients enjoy, playing the anthems from the various countries of origin.
The ipad music setup has another main use. Ivan happens to have a daughter - Anne-Sophie, who is a top rated classical singer. Anne-Sophie has studied in France and Germany and currently lives in Berlin. She has several CDs out, which her proud papa will gladly sell. But we got to listen to Anne-Sophie over the ipad system.
The breakfast table filled up, as we had the two French young men, and then a couple from South Africa. The young men were very personable, but it was the South Africans that seemed to catch our interest. They were in town to buy a house, which would have the effect of giving an address which in turn could be parlayed into a long term European visa. They were pretty serious - actually going to submit an offer on a small house today.
Despite an obvious interest in France and Europe, these two - Bakkies and Ronel - spoke proudly about their home country. First they decried the low status the Africa seems to have in the world, and mentioned that for instance in renting a car they would be charged a surcharge when it was learned they were from Africa. They began their praise of South Africa with the sunshine, which they said was abundant and responsible for putting people generally in a good mood. And they mentioned generally large windows, to let all the light in.
The food meant a lot to Bakkies and Ronel. The quality, they said, was superior to that in France, and by contrast there was more meat and cheaper and better wine. They did feel that French cheese was good, and by way of illustration had brought some Bleu to the table. But Dutch cheese - naw, too bland.
We ended with an invitation to come visit. They are in Wellington, 60 km from Cape Town. Well now, given how good it sounds, maybe one year we will do it!
Ivan came out into the street to see us off. The fact that we could stand out there discussing the route was a good indication of the lack of any traffic in this neighbourhood.
Given that we had never actually figured out where the centre of the town was, but with the likelihood that searching would involve descending and climbing, we just headed for what we assumed was the way out. As it happened that involved descending. We were surprised to quickly come to a place where the cycle path's descent was interrupted by construction digging an even deeper hole! We circumvented this, but soon came to another "route barrée". We know that in 95% of cases, these signs and barriers denote either that the route was being worked on sometime in history, meaning loosely the Revolution to now, or the work is currently in progress, but not really right now, due to lunch or Pentecote, or something! So our policy is to push on through. Usually (the 95%) this works, and so it did this time. We never did figure out why the route had been barrée. But later, as we will come to, route barrée reared its head in a slightly more forceful manner.
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Looking at the map, we saw that one branch of the Sevre rises near Parthenay. So does the Thouet. It makes sense, since we had definitely noticed that we were at a height of land! But the route for us out of Parthenay follows the Thouet, which is a tributary of the Loire, joining that river near Saumur. We assumed that we were in for an easy downhill cruise today.
Ha! Although yes, our route followed the river, it did this by charging up and down hills on the ridges on either side of the valley. It was not quite as hard as yesterday, but it sure was not easy.
We ran through a series of small villages, each pleasantly made of stone and almost none offering any services at all. The landscapes were pleasant, but not spectacular. Here is a small selection of photos that give the idea:
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The major town on our way was Thouars. We had never heard of this before, but boy, somebody did! Thouars featured a giant chateau, church, and lots of atmospheric streets. It looked like this:
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To leave Thouars we had to descend steeply, very steeply. I said to Dodie "Boy, I sure would not like trying to come up this!". So sure enough at the bottom, "Route Barrée".
This one was easy enough to move aside, which we did, following our standard policy. But further on we came to the actual barricade. This was a 6 foot high fence anchored in concrete blocks, and bolstered by signs like "worksite - do not enter". So, I dismantled the fence. Finding it difficult to support my bike on the steep hill, I will also confess to leaving it dismantled. We proceeded on down, and came to an even stronger barricade at the other end. A man on a balcony overlooking the scene began to shout at us. In truth, he was hard to understand. But he was saying stuff like "You can't pass there, it's dangerous, pedestrians are not allowed, don't you see the barrier, hey, quit messing with it". That was in French. Dodie said in English "Can't understand a word, la de da".
We dismantled the lower barrier enough to squeeze by, and arrived at the river and the municipal camping, which people had driven up to along a road below. So any danger or ongoing work must have been between the two barriers we had passed. The thing is, as usual, there was nothing. We will admit, maybe boulders or bricks or something were at risk of rolling down on us from the cliffs above, or maybe not!
We just skittered off on the path, which now satisfyingly followed the river in a fairly level sort of way. Thinking about the incident, our basic position was - the Velo Francette is a bike way supported by seven French departmental governments and at least 25 major towns. It is internationally advertised. If someone is going to block it, they must at least offer a detour route. If not, ruffians like us Western Canadians might come and knock aside their barricades. Hummph.
While the route now was much less demanding, it still had some ups and downs. But overall it offered beautiful pastoral and water scenes.
Montreuil like other towns here is built on a ridge or hill. We circles around it, like invaders looking for a way up and in. We found it, but it was at least a 15% climb. At the top we exited into a street that had at least two creperies. Tempting, but we had stuff from a bakery in Thouars already in our bag. So we reported to our hotel, "Le Splendid". We like this name - it's like the #1 Ladies Detective Agency. The place lived up to its reputation, at least by giving the bikes a luxurious room to spend the night in. Our own room is pretty basic, but it will work for us.
Today's ride: 93 km (58 miles)
Total: 3,352 km (2,082 miles)
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