Tuesday 22nd May. Le Pellerin (4) to La Roche - sur -Yonne.(5)
53.5 miles 4hrs 29mins riding time. Average speed: 11.9mph Total: 211 miles
The morning dawned cloudy but dry so I packed my ‘waterproofs’ away and tempted fate. As the hotel’s only overnight guest, breakfast was served not in the restaurant but at the family’s table next to the kitchen. I had no sooner sat down when Max exploded through the door ‘fresh’ from his constitutional paddle on the muddy Loire foreshore, he skidded across the room and hit the deck with a sound not dissimilar to a large cow-pat landing on a tiled dairy floor. The stench was so strong it was very nearly visible. After a necessarily rushed breakfast Madame filled my water bottles with chilled water and helpfully insisted on ringing around a few cheap hotels for me in La Roche eventually booking me into the Hotel France. She wished me “Bon courage” for the rest of my trip. I silently wished her “Bon courage” too – she has to live with Max!
I headed south east on minor roads towards Paulx and had a brief fall out
with Jane when she directed me down a rutted muddy farm track. I had to
revert to the good old Michelin map before going on a bit of a diversion
and ending up on the fairly busy D13 through Touvois. The riding today was
generally through pleasant undulating countryside but I struggled to find
a village that still had an open functioning café for a coffee until
I reached la Poiré-sur-Vie in the early afternoon.
I joined the Coex to La Roche voie verte near la Genétouze for the
last 6 or 7 miles into la Roche. This ex-railway line predictably led me
right to the railway station in the town centre from where I could see my
hotel. The Hotel France is a typical ‘En face de la gare’ (facing
the station) hotel i.e. cheap and not very cheerful for the desperate traveller
on a tight budget – that’ll be me then! It is serving its purpose
though; my room’s OK and the patron has kindly stowed my bike away
in the former kitchens.
La Roche-sur-Yon is a town with some history. From little more than a small
hamlet it was built into a new town in 1804 by Napoléon and had a
further kick-start with the arrival of the railways in the late 1800s. Today
it’s a pleasant enough town with a large square dominated by an equestrian
statue of the emperor Napoléon.
The choice of restaurants in the town seems limited though; there’s
either Michelin-starred gourmet establishments or fast food type bars. Tonight
I dined Italian (again!) with a goat’s cheese salad followed by a
fruits de mer pizza.
Madame, the waitress, was trying hard to find an acceptable radio station
for the restaurant’s background music - flitting from channel to channel
and song to song. When Nirvana’s “Rape me” rocked across
the restaurant she dashed over to the radio and swiftly changed channel
to a song from the fey Mika. She either doesn’t like ‘grunge’
music or her grasp of English is better than I imagined.
Tomorrow’s ride takes me through an accommodation no-mans-land; I’ll ask my hotel patron to ring ahead and book for me. If my chosen hotel isn’t available then I’ll either have to ride a big distance to somewhere affordable or bite the bullet and stay somewhere convenient but expensive.
5 Wednesday 23rd May. La Roche-sur-Yon (5) to Aigrefeuille-d’Aunis (6)