Apr 12th 2007 - Gien, France
Well it's been a while since I wrote anything, I'm now in France and have riden up from the east coast to the river Rhone and then up the Rhone Valley to Lyon. On the way I've spent a few days in Nimes and a couple in Lyon then on through St Etienne to the top of the Loire Valley - which I'm now heading down in the general direction of North and towards Paris. Some absolutely amazing roman ruins in some of these places.
Once again I'm pressed for time so I'll direct you to www.whereonearthisjeff.com to see the photos.
Hopefully there are some uploading while I write this... (yep ed.)
After my last mail (lunch near the border) I headed into Perpignan and stumbled across the Youth Hostel en-route to a camping ground. That was the start of an episode I'd rather forget happened, so I wont tell anybody Sshhh. When reaching for my passport to check-in I found that i didn't have it. Mmm The last time I'd used it was two days earlier - as the orchard didn't require it. After a frantic search on the web, and a bit of thanks to google maps - to identify the road of the last camp ground I made a phone call and yes they had it. There were many ways to get it back the the most reliable and hassle free was to hire a car and go get it. So bright and early the next day off i go back to Spain. It was rather strange driving back in a morning the road that I'd spent the past two days riding, i found that I knew so much detail of what was there and what was coming up. You get to learn the landscape, the road, the bends, the hills, and the bumps individually when you do them on a bike. In the car its a flash and it's gone. For the route back to France, once I had the little blue book, was a more leisurely trip via the coast, which I'd missed earlier by border crossing in the hills.
HINT: If riding on a bike, cross in the hills. (I'd made the right choice)
Next day from Perpignan to a bush camp overlooking Sete, then on to Nimes and the Youth Hostel to wash clothes & recharge batteries.
I spent a couple of days in Nimes looking around and doing some sightseeing with some others that I met in the hostel (sightseeing by car).
From Nimes to a camp north of Orange then Orange to Crest, Crest to Hauterives then onto Lyon. The next day out from Lyon was St Etienne, moving from the Rhone Valley (flowing south to the Mediterranean sea) to the Loire valley flowing north then west to the Atlantic. The hills on this stretch weren't as bad as id thought they'd be given what they do to the flow of the rivers. At St Etienne - or 15km out from it - is another Youth Hostel and the surrounds were so nice i stayed an extra day to soak them in. I'm getting slack 2 nights in Lyon, then a days ride and 2 nights in St Etienne... The hostel there is actually set on the Loire so heading down the valley from there was navigational very easy.
Since then I've had some stunning days of cruising down the Loire valley, easy going, very pretty and so typically what i was thinking about France.
Had a minor milestone 2pm yesterday when I rode off my map of southern France, so I feel like I'm getting somewhere..
Jeff
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