Business as usual?

From the mountainy middle to the flat NW

Wow, that was a great sleep! We both woke up about 8, another quiet spot, up in the attic room in the Chambers d'Hote du Pont.

Cool lake view from the room's roof window

Brekkie at 8.30, so we just about made it. All the civil service exam candidates had eaten at 7.30 and left, so all clear. Francois and Carolina, especially Carolina, just carried on where they/she left off - she does like a natter that lady! Great breakfast, excellent scrambled eggs, just the start for another long day.

Since it's getting near the last night of the trip (boo and hurray, depending on the moment!) here's an insight into the sort of room filling capability J&J have with them... This is just John's stuff, Jim has the same again! We are thinking of starting a high-speed rock band touring support company...

Half the gear...

And sticking it on the bike!

Nice spot

Off we go... Nice weather to start with, cool but sunny. The roads are just the right kind of bends, dry and grippy, with very little traffic. We're still in a mountainy area, so it's up and down, and forests and lakes and rushing streams over rocks. Many small villages along the way, who lives in them, and how do they live? So many stories, in fact, that's true everywhere isn't it? Behind every door!

We stop for lunch in Eguzon Chantome - there's a restaurant in the centre which appears open. Do they do sandwiches? Do they heck. Grumpy lady patronne can do fried beefsteak with creamed cheesy potatoes... Yeah ok. The beef is tasty but requires careful surgery to prevent unintentional chewing gum. But it's lunch. She still seems grumpy as we pay - maybe it was just too busy today, there were some local pensioners in, there was a big table celebrating a birthday, and it was near the end of service. Somehow we preferred the sandwiches from yesterday, and therein lies the problem, people want to repeat what they liked, so much so that they keep going to MacDonalds, even when it's utter shite, just because the one thing they lust for is always the same. Hmm. better to enjoy today's thing in some aspect, because, let's face it, if we only had some eggs and some bacon, we could have bacon and eggs, right? (© Elizabeth Anne Pearson 2014)

The afternoon gets wetter and wetter, the roads get straighter and straighter (which is actually good given the conditions), the trucks get larger and more frequent. These aren't N roads, but they do have trucks. Eventually we stop for a fag in a supermarket car park outside Montrichard and plug the hotel into the GPS - another 60 miles! Ouch. Then it's a question of keeping going until we finally arrive.

It's always a surprise to see the place - for Jim of course, because he didn't book them, but for John too. Although there are photos on the web booking site, they never look the same and the perspective and angles are different, optimised in fact. This looks interesting though, a hotel on one side of the sideroad and the restaurant on the other. The Mrs is very friendly, speaks nice slow French, is very helpful, has put us in the bigger room for the same price as it's available and she knows we'll have wet gear, and she books us in for dinner. Lovely. There a lots of people in the restaurant, and I think only us in the hotel on a Thursday night, so it's good. The owner is a proper chef, and has a reputation supported by various books and reviews. The Mrs is most solicitous and helpful, without being obsequious or over the top. It's a very nice place, and they obviously care.

And dinner is lovely - it's the last night, so we splash on the 2nd best menu, with a bottle of local wine. Lovely starters, imaginative main meals, super cheese and good desserts. We may return here in September with the other guys, instead of the traditional Hotel de France, if we dare. 

And so to bed. Last day tomorrow, and a long ferry trip before the ride home. Hope it doesn't rain!