Piscine and dinner with Jacques’ brother

Hotels and other accommodation places here are really strict on check out times. Our apartment check out time is 10am and we are finishing packing at around that time when there is a knock at the door. 

“Cleaning team,” says the guy standing outside the door. It seems odd that he’s speaking English to us.

He keeps talking, and soon admits that he isn’t actually the cleaning team but the apartment owner and is checking to make sure people aren’t overstaying. He owns several apartments here.

He then keeps talking to us for a full 15 minutes, nixing any chance that we are going to leave on time.

When he’s gone I finish packing and I’m just heading out the door when there’s another knock. This time it’s a severe-looking woman. “Cleaning team,” she says, and I think it’s for real this time; the owner told us his wife has a cleaning business.

I tell her we will be gone in a few minutes. “Usually we charge 10 euro for 15 minutes,” she says. Given that her husband held us up for a good 15 minutes talking, I’m not going to engage. “Sorry.” I shrug with my very best imitation of a French shrug, and walk off.

When I get back with the bikes Neil is outside on the footpath with all our stuff and the apartment door is firmly closed. We need to get better at getting out on time.

Today we’re heading to Chaingy, which is very close to Orléans, but a little off the EV6 route. We’ve booked into Jacques’ brother’s B&B. We’ve not met Phillipe, but via Jacques he has said he will be making dinner for us, so that’s something to look forward to.

It’s a 50-ish km ride, so not too far, and there is a swimming pool to look forward to!

We cross the river to the right bank to leave Blois and find ourselves on a pleasant, hard-pack gravel path that leads us out of town. Only a few kilometres out we come across a beautiful structure that turns out to be the remnants of Viaduc des Nöels (Christmas Viaduct) which used to extend across the river but was destroyed during WW2.

Beyond this we bowl along a levee, passing through farming fields. There are some really convenient information signs along here with maps that really help give an overview of where we are. 

As we weren’t able to get any kind of lunch from the boulangeries in Blois (too early for filled baguettes and other lunchish food) we decide to eat lunch in a restaurant today and randomly choose the town of Beaugency. It’s about another 20km away and that would leave us with less than 20km to Chaingy and the pool.

We ride into Beaugency and quickly find a creperie. Galettes for lunch would be just grand! 

But no! We have walked into the restaurant at roughly one minute past two. “No,” they say. “You cannot eat here now. We are closed.” They close at two. There were other people who sat down only minutes before and had their order taken. Not only at check-out times strict. Restaurant serving hours are equally so.

French people don’t seem to really eat breakfast, if anything it is a coffee and croissant or (yummy) bread. We’re used to bigger breakfasts. When riding, a croissant lasts about 5km energy-wise, so we need topping up during the day. If we’re lucky we can pick up a filled baguette or a quiche at a boulangerie, but those items aren’t always ready at the time we are leaving a town. If we want to eat lunch at a restaurant or cafe we might miss the times as happened today, or we might just land into one of the lunchtime ghost-towns where everybody has just gone to ground for a couple of hours. Or we might arrive a few minutes too late to eat.

For people who don’t operate under strict routine, it’s hard to become accustomed to the routines and rules of this country.

We end up sitting by the river eating food from a boulangerie that, suprisingly, is open.

Not far after Beaugency we depart EV6 as it crosses the river for the approach to Orléans and we keep going toward Chaingy. The road becomes busier as we get closer to town and we divert into a smaller street but have to do battle on the bike paths with seemingly hundreds of tiny children zipping home from school on their scooters. They’re very unpredictable! 

We arrive at Les Gabions, set in suburban Chaingy around 4:30. Philippe’s partner Gregory greets us and shows us around and I head for the pool immediately. It is just so lovely to sink into the water after yet another hot and dusty day on the road.

We’ve arrived early enough to relax and enjoy our surroundings, and when Philippe gets home we spend a lovely evening with him, Gregory and a foster-child who is staying with them. Philippe manages an Italian restaurant and I get some beautiful pasta for from the restaurant for dinner while the others eat steak. I feel so lucky! Philippe and Gregory are both in the catering/hospitality business and they won’t let us into the kitchen to help.

Philippe is so much like Jacques, not so much in looks but in character and mannerisms. We have a great evening, and to top things off Philippe refuses to take payment from us for our room. That’s such a generous gesture to people he has never met before. 

Stats for today:

• Distance: 56.06km
• Climb: 99m
• Average speed: 15.4km/h
• Average temperature: C
• Moving time: 3:37:58
• See our ride on Strava

The beer picture

At the end of a day’s ride, our tradition is to enjoy a beer, and to photograph it for posterity. Today’s beer didn’t happen because we were staying at Jacques’ brother Phillipe’s place which was nowhere near a bar or a shop. However, we shared a lovely dinner and bottle of wine with Philippe, his partner Gregory and their foster son.

Along the way today: