Ride Day 13, Pays de la Loire and Guerande

A gloriously short day today. We both needed that. From Redon, which we both found preferable to its much larger Bretagne neighbor, Rennes, to the medieval walled village of Guerande (supposed to be an accent aigu over the first e, but I can't figure out in this system how to do that. Sorry, Francophiles...).

We rode on small country roads under bright sunshine and temperatures approaching 90 degrees. Still no complaints about being too hot. We had a nice mid-morning coffee in some village that has a name that we couldn't figure out. We saw very few cars for the first couple of hours.

Sunday morning in France; time for church

 

 Bells were pealing...

A typical road that we rode today

 

In planning our route, I tried to walk a balance between riding on some roads that I thought were too busy, and dirt roads that were too rough for Lorie's lame arm. It went well to a point, and then the dirt roads got a lot rougher and it all came apart when we came upon a single track that horses were riding on.

Maybe we should re-route?

 The equestrians flat out thought "what the heck?" I tried to explain that we were trying to avoid the fast roads into Guerande, but that seemed lost on them. We pushed the bike for about 100 m but when we got to a marshy area we turned back and headed out to the fast road. In truth, it wasn't that bad and the drivers were as courteous as ever.

In no time at all we rode through the ancient gates into Guerande. This is a village that is completely encircled by a wall to keep the Huns (actually, the Spanish) out. It was a prosperous village because it is very near the salt marshes of the mouth of the Loire and salt was a very big and valuable thing in the 9th century (and later). Lots of fighting about salt, and about who's God said that they owned it. The typical stuff that still goes on today. But the village lived on through it all (even if its townfolk didn't, always) and it is now a tourist destination.

The main gate

Inside

 

Of course there's a moat!

We wandered around town, had a beer / wine,

And then rode down to the salt marshes (since we were too early to check into our room).

Commercial salt production these days

After stowing away our bike stuff, it was time for dinner and we went back into town (inside the walls) and had a very nice meal. Lorie had sardines and I had a galette with onions and some cheese.

Sardines, from near the salt marshes

Galette sarine; made with buckwheat

Lorie's dessert. Caramel and a crepe.

Guerande's take on frangipane.

Making it to Guerande was a big accomplishment for us. We have about 800 miles under our wheels and we are feeling pretty good. The weather is definitely getting summerish. And tomorrow we ride from Saint Nazarre at the mouth of the Loire to Nantes. Our trip upstream on the Loire has officially begun.