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.