Birdlady42
Today was the day to get down to where we left off last time, Orléans. It’s a beautiful town, so we decided to take the train down mid-day and spend some time here again. There’s a train from Gare Austerlitz nearly every hour on the weekdays. So, we took our time over breakfast at our favorite brasserie by the hotel, after enjoying lovely hot showers after all the traveling the day before. We re-packed all our panniers and discovered we only barely have enough room. We didn’t have that problem last time, so what happened? Well, we needed more warm clothes this time, so I have a couple sweaters in my street clothes bag, as well as some wool in my riding clothes bag. Brian brought more tech this time, including his full size camera with a couple lenses and his drone.
In the end, we got it all squeezed in and made our way to the station just under 3 miles away. But it was 3 miles through Paris. Even with bicycle lanes, traveling through Paris is just a series of close calls and cutoffs. I thought I saw the worst of it when a woman turned to the right in front of Brian. I got clear and thought I had seen the worst of it. What I didn’t realize was that when she had to stop suddenly anyway for pedestrians on the street she was turning onto, Brian had to walk his bike around her, still straddling it. While he was behind her, she let off the clutch and rolled backwards into him! Fortunately all she hit was his over-stuffed pannier, but yikes! And the locals don’t wear helmets at all – I guess once you’re better at reading the traffic flow it might be safer, but we are not urban cyclists in any way.
We got to the train in plenty of time and were able to enjoy our “jambon-buerre” sandwiches we had picked up near the hotel. Once the train was at the platform and ready to board, we had no trouble finding a car with the bicycle symbol on it and had ample time to get our luggage pulled off the bikes, loaded in the luggage racks in the car and the bikes on their designated racks. The train ride was relaxing. I played my Renaud Laisse Beton album on my phone and soaked up the views. 
Getting off the train went equally smoothly. Then we were able to easily find the route to the B&B, but on the way, we wanted to find the bike shop, easily found on the route. We needed more water bottles and we decided to finally take the plunge and get one set of front panniers. We had been tossing it around for a couple years. The way things were packed, we barely had room to carry our sandwiches with us, let alone anything else we may acquire along the way. We got super lucky because the shop we found had exactly the front bags that match Brian’s rear ones AND the required front rack to mount them to.
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| New panniers and my wine holder |
While Brian got to work mounting the new equipment, I walked down the ally to the next street over in search of coffee for me and an Orangina for him. I walked right into an awesome market. There were butchers, vintners, cheese shops (insert Monty Python cheese shop sketch reference here – “It’s certainly uncontaminated by cheese.”) and fish mongers. I found a local bottle of wine for later, a coffee and Brian’s Orangina. I even have a carrier for the wine, which is good, because we didn’t get to it tonight after a long dinner.
The B&B – Le Patio – is lovely, with very nice hosts a beautiful garden with a place inside the gates for our bikes. We rode our bikes back into town after settling in since we weren’t trail-weary today. On the way, Brian got some awesome drone footage of the town along the Loire river (check our YouTube channel later for the footage he’s uploading from today including the drone footage.)
We found the town square, complete with a statue of Joan of Arc, a fountain, and a Jules Verne-themed 2-story carousel. We enjoyed a beer since the restaurant there only served meals at mid-day. Then just down the street was a restaurant we ate at last time, Le Brin de Zinc. I got a local sausage, which was just a bit too rustic for my taste, but the local mustard they served with it was so good, we bought a jar – you know, now that we have all that extra storage space. Brian got a roasted chicken dish that was amazing. Coming back in the dark was the first time we’ve used our headlights on a tour, I believe. The traffic was minimal and the ride back across the river was as perfect as you could imagine.
Sometimes I still have to pinch myself that we are riding bikes…in France. If I could go back to my 13 year old self and tell her she would get to reignite her passion for cycling AND do it in France, I would have thought it was a mean prank. This really, for me, is the culmination of so many childhood dreams. And we are just getting underway for this trip.
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| Idyllic street where we had dinner |
Just… Wow.
🥰