Nantes- Angers

2nd - 6th September

The first train to leave for Nantes after the 7.43am was the 16.44, so we had almost a whole day to do our packing, have a last meal with Romain and Julie, Nelly and Hubert, post the blog update and be ready to go. Hubert kindly led us on his scooter from the house to the station, easy enough when you are familiar with the streets, less so for the uninitiated, so we were grateful for that. The queue at the station for a ticket, considering it was a Monday afternoon, took a long time but we had factored that in and still had time for a last drink with Hubert. 

The train trip on the TER was very quick at 50 minutes and only one stop and we went straight out of Nantes, though it would have been quicker if we had known to take the south entrance to exit for the Loire cycle track. Signage for the Loire à Vélo starts about 2 kilometres after I would like it to.

We easily reached the camping ground we had worked out - but couldn't quite believe how long the queue took to clear - more than 30 minutes for maybe 5 people!  It is a lovely camping ground about 7km out of Nantes, with a very large area for walkers and bikers- no cars allowed, tables to sit at, and close to facilities. Belle Rivière at St Luce. The people running it offer a complimentary drink and aperitif snacks to cyclists and we were also able to buy some bread and pâté to complement the fruit and veges we had got from the growers en route. Fairly unheard of at that hour of the day. A good selection of local beer and Breton cider made our day. Oh, and toilet paper. Those of you who have travelled in camping grounds here will appreciate this bonus!

Floods!

Next morning we got away easily, having been able to satisfy our yearning for coffee and croissants right there in the camping ground. We stopped for photos and an early lunch, yesterday's leftovers, only to find we had to wait until 2pm for the castle (at Oudon) to open. What else can one do other than find a bar and pass the time? The bar we found - to have our coffees in - please note coffee and don't ask about the patisseries we had with it) - had two NZers from Queenstown - on day 2 of their tandem ride along the Loire, so there was heaps to talk about!

Oudon is one of the many castles on the borders of Brittany, a strategic location In medieval times. Although it is built like a fortress, it was also the main home of the seigneur, and has common rooms, bedrooms, kitchen, fireplaces, window seats, toilets, good  windows for lighting. They also fitted rooms into the thickness of the walls - wardrobes, guardrooms and a back staircase. Each floor has been set up with an audio-visual and/or interactive exhibition to illustrate some aspect of the castle or the Loire - you move through it at your leisure. The tour of the castle took over an hour and it was after 3.30 before we left there, making it to the Ancenis camping ground by 4.30. This is one of the fancy ones, with a swimming pool and it looked so inviting I actually had a swim!

We had a look around Ancenis the following morning, another Gateway to Brittany, though the castle was closed for renovation. It was a very prosperous town in its heyday and much of the money was invested in housing. There are some really lovely houses from wealthy wine traders and such, dating from the 16th to 19th centuries. One of the 15th century  houses is now the Maison des Vins, where wines from the region can be tasted. No doubt bought as well! Wasn't open when we went past.

It took a while to find a bar where we could get ourselves some coffee and they didn't sell croissants - the plus for this is that if they don't sell them they don't mind you going to the bakery to get your own. The guy told me where I would find some. In the end I bought pains au raisin because they looked so good - and were. This is the place where I resisted some fantastic looking glasses (verrines) of various mousses with layered toppings, merely because it was too early in the day. I probably won't make that mistake again. They still haunt me! On the other hand, I asked her to box me up a chocolate tart so that we could have it later. That was an excellent decision, as between the pastry and the chocolate was an extra layer of something crunchy-possibly hazelnuts. Very yummy.

At St-Florent-le-Vieil we stopped to visit a a former abbey. It was quite a push to get up there but the view was splendid. Another casualty to the Normans and later the revolution and the Vendée wars. Today the church is open - and in behind the former abbey gates, on a Wednesday afternoon, locals gather to play local bowls - Angevin style, with large wooden (now plastic) bowls, on a smallish court, in what appeared to be a very aggressive style ( anyone for croquet?). The bowls are a lot like English bowls, with a bias, and are typically played on a smooth surface, but not at the abbey, anyway.

One of the levées

Moving right on ( after panoramic views and a beer), we followed the levées along the Loire (1845-50) and duly arrived in Montjean-sur-Loire where the camping ground is just by the river and also connected to the town by a small back-road. A supermarket  on the edge of town provided our meal and from here we were able to ride up,to the top of the promontory, where are found both the church and the mansions of the rich, from more prosperous times (mid-19th century) when the Loire was a main cargo route to and from the Atlantic. Montjean was one of the main ports and also active industrially, producing mostly coal and lime, in lime kilns which no doubt used at least some of the coal. This is the same lime that was transported to Brittany using the Nantes-Brest canal. One of the lime kilns stayed active until 1962 but most seem to have finished before the beginning of the 20th century, when the coal-mining stopped.

Montjean

From Montjean, the cycle track is particularly interesting, taking us throughout three lovely little places (la Possonière, Savenniers, Behuard - on an island near Savenniers) before arriving at the confluence of the Maine with the Loire, at which point the whole area from there to Angers is some kind of reserve/leisure area and the cycle path is just one small part of the whole. There's a camping ground out there too but it is fairly overpriced and too far out of town and we continued on past it.

Suddenly, there you are, with the great castle before you, and you are in Angers. The piste cyclable takes you right up past the castle and almost into the tourist information centre-which was lucky for us, as the small hotel I wanted to go to, where I have stayed twice before, was full because the festival was due to start.  Luckily the tourist office found us another one close by and we were very happy with our accommodation. With the festival about to start, we checked the program - all free - and decided we'd stay the next day as well!

There was a lot of music on offer and we wandered around the river bank taking in the shows - Jeff Zima (USA) with the Blues - New Orleans style, some acrobatic young men using a seesaw and a cushion pad to do summersaults and twists with a bit of humour, and Raggalendo, 4 (girl) cousins, singing in a Breton accent, wearing traditional coiffes, with a mixture of rap and hip-hop that has a Breton feel to it. "Bringing the feel of the Breton culture of their grandmother into the 21st century." They were very popular and we watched them for a long time. In the evening we went out to a very modern play, Far West 2037, which deals with survival, really. It involved the audience moving around to be able to see more of the action from different angles, and had large props moving around the space. Interesting and enjoyable.

Behuard

Behuard

For the record, we also took the tour of Angers by le petit train (the little train), something we hadn't done last time we were there. It was a fun trip, and we were glad to have spent the time that way. We'd already done the essential last time in Angers - the castle with its fabulous tapestry of the Apocalypse (14th century).

Nantes, Cholet

28 August - 2 September

The morning train got us to Nantes with time to see the castle before the evening train to Cholet. Good planning or foresight on the part of the administration means that we could leave our bikes and all our gear in safety - a big plus for the cycle-tourist. The castle is set up to tell its own history and that of Nantes, as you go from room to room.  The outside is all fortress, with moat, huge walls and sentry towers, as required when Nantes needed to defend its territory. The inner courtyard has a much more residential Renaissance palace, started in the 15th century and added to in subsequent centuries. This is where the museum is located.

Visitors follow the development of the city in a walk from the basement up. From Gallo-Romain times, to wars and defending boundaries, to an important ocean and river port, importing and exporting and linking up-river. Nantes became a major port of the slave trade. A very large proportion of slaves came through Nantes, possibly because its ships had the fastest times, so fewer slaves died en route. 

During the industrial revolution Nantes flourished, with a public transport system as early as 1926. LU biscuits, still a favourite here, was founded in 1846, LU coming from the family names of the founder (Lefèvre) and his wife and partner (Utile). The museum looks at the modern and possible developments of Nantes too. The new Nantes tramway system opened in 1985, reversing the trend of shutting down tramways and becoming the first of the tramway systems which are now running and expanding all over France. 

The recent restoration of the chateau has made it a major tourist attraction and a place where the local and tourists can sit in the old moat area and picnic, or just enjoy the space in the centre of the town.

The train from Nantes to Cholet was a fast, modern commuter train with very few stops, especially for the last part of the journey. Lovely to see Hubert's smiling face, when he met us at the station. He'd come on his scooter (the motorised variety), so that we could follow him home easily. What a blessing! specially with the one-way system to negotiate. Hubert is a cyclist, the sort that polishes off 120km on a Sunday morning. So his garage, apart from not having a problem storing our bikes, is also a place where you can easily clean and fix them, and - bonus - has a compressor to inflate the tyres. We took advantage of all facilities.

Hubert and Nelly at Romain and Julie's place

Romain (who has been my pen-friend for about 15 years - he's now 29) called in after work - we were really pleased to see him, and to spend time with him and his partner, Julie. They now have their own house, not too far from Cholet and we were able to catch up with them a number of times during our stay, and even go out to see their house. 

We spent time just chilling out while Nelly and Hubert were at work. Time to catch up ever so slightly with the blog, we biked to the supermarket several times, also into the town centre several times. This was when we were really glad to have spent a lot of money on our bike locks. The local police decided, for reasons unknown to us, that we shouldn't have 'parked' our bikes where they were (in full view from Romain's work, luckily) and brought extra-large metal cutters to cut our locks and the lock of the other bicycle similarly secured. The other bike lock cut through like cheese. Meanwhile, ours resisted, and Romain rushed over to delay any further damage, and called us on the phone. By the time we arrived, the police had duly taken away the other bike (we passed them in the street) and ours were still secure. There were a few nicks in the rubber or plastic coating but no damage to the steel. Now we know why it pays to have a good lock. We may never have got them back off the police otherwise! 

We managed to find a leg of lamb in the local supermarket, to cook Nelly and Hubert a New Zealand dish - since vegetables to roast were few and far between we made a ratatouille to go with the roast lamb. Silver Fern is the brand our niece and husband supply to, so that was a nice story to add to the meal. The French in general can't really imagine 5000 sheep. 50 is quite a good-sized mob. (For cows, 25-30 seems to be the number we came across most.)

Sunday night we all went out to a local restaurant La Pataterie which specialised in potato dishes but offered other alternatives too. I took the potato option before I realised that the potatoes were absolutely HUGE!! I worked my way valiantly through what I could, but didn't quite make it!

Hubert, who is a hairdresser, saw to my hair, and Nelly, a beautician, did my eyebrows, one of the staff saw to Rodney's, so it was quite a different pair who left Cholet!  Monday lunchtime (a day off for many French who have worked on Saturday), we had a lovely barbecue outside in the warmth of the early September sun. Our train left later in the afternoon. Many thanks, all.

Fouesnant, Concarneau, Quimper

25 - 27 August

Fouesnant is a smallish town not far from the sea and a very good walk is to be had from Françoise and Keith's through the forest to the sea, around the coast and back through some walking tracks to the town. Very varied, very pleasant even passed kiwi-fruit growing beside the track. It was interesting to walk around the vast mud flats in the morning, then to come down for a swim in the evening with the tide almost in and no sign of anything resembling a mud-flat.

It was hard to realise it was the same place. Everybody went swimming in the cold water, except for me. Everybody agreed it was very cold. But it was nice sitting on the beach and we had fun with tunnels and the tide on the hard sand. Françoise, Keith and the girls made us feel very welcome, and Django the dog, who Chris looked after in Wellington for a while many years ago, is still active and interested in life, though not the same ball of energy any more!

Another day Keith took us to nearby Concarneau, which  is a short drive around the coast. Nowadays Concarneau's main attraction is the fact that it is a walled city. We walked right around the ramparts and up the middle, stopping to buy a few of the tasty offerings of 'the best chocolatier in France'. The same selection as at Auray, so I knew what I was getting, to take back to Françoise and the girls. 

This chocolate shop had amazing creations made of chocolate - like sculptures, some of them. There was a summer attraction of various musicians in the first courtyard, and lots of visitors!

We also visited Quimper, the largest town in the area, from where we were to take a train the following day. We only had a short time there and walked around some of the streets of the town, dating from medieval times, with the characteristic wooden framing visible from the outside and visiting the cathedral.

The ride from Fouesnant to Quimper, along smallish roads with not too much traffic, was much quicker than we had envisaged, possibly due to a goodly amount of downhill riding. We even had time for a drink in the sun before catching our train to Nantes. 

Bon Repos to Carhaix and Fouesnant

23 August

The last stretch for us on the Nantes-Brest canal was from Bon Repos to Carhaix, which is about 55km of very varied countryside. There are very few stops on this section and it was good that we had stocked up with food for lunch, as there just wasn't anywhere to buy anything without leaving the track for a good few kilometres. It was very pretty, heading upstream (at first), with weir, lock and floodgates at regular intervals.

Interestingly, since this part of the canal isn't used any more by barges or pleasure boats, many of the locks have only one gate but they have a waterslide that rubber boats or canoes use to come down the canal. You can hire these boats in various spots and it looks like a lot of fun. 

There is a rare (on this canal) double-lock that makes a huge leap uphill (we were going uphill too). 

Famous, or infamous, is the Great Trench, 3km long, 100m wide, 23 m deep dug out of schist over a 9 year period by prisoners during the 1820s, doing forced labour. 3 million cubic metres dug by carried out by wheelbarrow, cart or on men 's shoulders. This is the highest point on the canal and perhaps the lowest for mankind. Hot summers, freezing winters. There were many deaths from disease -  a cholera epidemic put paid to the forced labour and the work was finished by locals.

From here, for us, it was all downhill for a while - quite exhilarating when the locks are so close together - there were 19 in a row in one section, then another 20 or so in the last 12km. But reality catches up. To get to Carhaix we had to leave the track and take the Voie Verte 7 into the town. Or at least, so we thought. That was all the information we could find, and of course, Carhaix being just over the border from one district to the other, there was no possibility of getting a map of Carhaix until we got into Carhaix. 

Google maps tell you where you are but not how to get to where you want to go on a bike track. We didn't check it out by bike, but on our map of Carhaix it looks as if we could have simply followed the river (not the canal) around to where the camping ground is, without having to climb all the way up to Carhaix, along an old train track and quiet roads, which added a number of km to the end of the trip. 

Typical of many houses here

As we'd already done the climb up, we decided to stay in a recommended hotel in Carhaix, as we wanted to wander around the town after we had settled in, showered and had a thirst-quenching cider. There is even part of a Roman aqueduct  in Carhaix - quite small part but interesting all the same. Local pancakes called again - they are all reasonably priced in central Brittany. 9€ for a fixed menu of one savoury galette, one sweet crêpe and cider to accompany. This hotel had an excellent shower - and even a bath - but no plug…

Before we left the following morning we walked across town to where the Roman remains are, past the open-air market, to the boulangerie, where we stocked up for lunch and bought a couple of patisseries for breakfast. They were called 'allumettes' but not all like present day matches, being larger and squarer, roughly the size of a croissant. The woman in the bakery said that it was an old family recipe, that her grandmother used to visit every 6 months and they would make a batch, store them in a tin and they would last 6 months…flakey pastry on the bottom half and meringue on the top half. Very very light.

24 August

The route from Carhaix followed the Voie Verte 7, an old railway line (1896-1967), climbing up gradually, with a small amount of 'down' just to make us think that the 'up' had finished! The track was mostly shaded and very pleasant. We passed a few former stations and after a fairly gruelling (=never-ending) climb of X (unknown) km, stopped at a converted railway station for a restorative drink of non-alcoholic beer in the cafe. 

The station also had a museum section, sold books, had an exhibition of the history of the Breton railroads and had cute seats in the shape of a railway track, which I didn't take a photo of, unfortunately. The good news is that from there on it was more-or-less downhill to the end of the railway line, ending in a place called Rosporden. From there there was fantastic signage getting us out of Rosporden onto another route with LOTS of downhill, until we passed under the motorway and eventually came out on the main road. 

It wasn't far from there to Fouesnant but we were already nearing 70km for the day and the hills were long and the traffic relatively heavy, as it was a Sunday near the end of the holidays, so it felt quite a lot further than it was. Fortunately I still remembered how to get to Françoise and Keith's once I reached a crucial spot in Fouesnant, and it was with great pleasure that we arrived. We knew F and K wouldn't be there but they had left us instructions and we quickly settled in to their newly renovated set of rooms which double as teaching space and living quarters for visitors. It is light and spacious, with a sleeping loft, kitchen area and bathroom. Really lovely. Sigh. How lucky we are!