Loire Valley: The Cradle of the French Language

6/11/10

Orleans, France


At Pere Lachaise Cemetery in Paris; look closely



Pitter-patter pitter-patter pitter-patter... As it has done all day, the rain continues to fall outside (and, due to a rather major leak in the ceiling, which appeared to be merely a skylight that was wide open, inside as well) the hostel in which we have holed up for the night. What followed our arrival to the city of Orleans was little more than a fiasco of lodging in a deluge of precipitation followed by the fine art of using an entire dorm room for drying out clothing, bags, tents, and shoes. But to tell the story of today, I should back up a bit.

We awoke early but, as it turns out, not early enough, at 07:30, which is right around sunrise in these here parts. It takes us almost an hour and a half to get on the road following Sean's watch alarm, depending on what type of breakfast we have for ourselves. With the skies darkening dangerously around 17:30, that gives us 8.5 hours of riding/eating/resting time to eventually reach our destination. With an average riding speed of 25 km/h (this is to make the calculation easy; with hills and wind, which seems to be blowing steadily out of the south in this part of France, the actual average is a bit less), we have a possible range of ~200 km, assuming we do not eat or rest. For reference, we rode 147 km today and dedicated a little more than an hour to getting lost, seeing the Chartres Cathedral, snacking on bread and cheese, and keeping dry. As you can see, we are mainly limited by the amount of daylight as opposed to our energy or will to continue; this is a painful and pressing fact, one that we are running into quite a bit.

Getting back to the day's events, after we took off, we found ourselves in what I believe might be my favorite setting: in a forest with trees already turned fall colors and under a gray sky. Even better is that after we passed through the woods, we encountered half a dozen tiny, ancient villages that retained their stone walls from the days of yore. I wonder how many "outsiders" have been on these roads, as they are in the middle of nowhere, far from the major highways, and do not lead to any particularly interesting places. These facts made our stumbling find all the more exciting and profound and heightened the authenticity in my eyes. In some of the towns, we found ourselves riding alongside a 3 meter high stone wall for the entire length of the town, passing houses made from the same old, mossy stones. Nothing like this exists in America.


Do the French love the Bulls or just DRose?


Throughout the remainder of our ride, we fought the good fight of staying warm and staying dry while the elements had other plans for us, spraying us with mist and rain and blasting us with a constant, fierce headwind. However, our one blessing of the day was the flatness of the land. The fields stretched on for miles devoid of hills, highly reminiscent of any area in the Midwest. It was eerie to be riding on a small country road where the view is limited by the mist and the only thing in sight is farmland; for a second, I thought I was riding home from Indiana (as I am wont to do).

We did pass a number of hunting parties and heard some unsettling though far-off gunshots. I'm not quite sure what they were hunting, but birds and deer alike were seen fleeing these groups en masse. A bit further down the road, an army of windmills materialized out of the mist, spinning with


Say, that's a nice bike.



conviction but also much more silently than those we encountered east of Paris. The only other notable occurrence, other than a signpost that was off by 15 km (this all but crushed our spirits), was the four cars that gave us a (friendly?) double-honk and wave. As this is the first outright sign of encouragement from motorists, this area of France must be very pro-velo. Well the better for us!

Finally, following a full 125 km, we arrived in Orleans, looking for a place to eat and rest our dogs. Ah, but things are never easy, are they? The tourist office was closed but conveniently had some pamphlets outside for our perusal, one of which contained a single auberge de jeunesse. Although it was not in the city center, it claimed to be "15 minutes south." Being on bikes, we thought it was no problema, we'd be there in ten at the most. At this point, it began to rain. We should have seen this as a warning from God or at least an unfortunate coincidence and perhaps sought other lodgings for the night, but we were determined to get some bang for our buck by staying in a hostel. The map we picked up made it seem like an easy and short enough ride, but tourist maps, in my experience, are never to scale (they always draw large, colorful buildings and giant families stomping all around the city). Furthermore, the only road listed exiting the city was a good ol' motorway, which would have been disastrous if not for the bike path running alongside it but hidden from view and devoid of any signage. Again, we figured that the path would be a simple, short stretch to the University and its hostel, but, again, we were entirely wrong. (Another entry, I'll touch on our favorite realization: Everything is another thing's polar opposite). Finding the hostel - in the pouring rain, mind you - added on another 10 km, and getting to a grocery store an extra 5 km, bringing today's total to 147 km. But we're alive and dry! And tomorrow should be an easy, short ride into Blois...