Believe it or not, today was our very last day of riding along the Loire river and some of its many canals. We rode from the mouth of the river at Saint Nazare to where we are now, Paray-le-Monial. The Loire goes further, but we turn north tomorrow along another canal on our way to Beaune.
This seems like a good time to do a recap, summary, of the trip so far. We have now ridden about 2000 km (about 1250 miles). We have climbed around 5000 m (about 16,500 feet). In just a couple of days we will meet our good friend Jon in Macon, France. He lands in Geneva the day after tomorrow and while we work our way south from Beaune to Macon (via the Jura), he'll work his way west from Geneva to Macon. Then the tough riding really starts -- the Pyrenees!
But let's not get ahead of ourselves. It was pretty hot last night at the campground, but it cooled off a bit as it got dark. And the bugs went to bed. We got a good sleep in our miniature tent and were up as the sun poked over the horizon. We loaded the bike and headed out on our route to Paray-le-Monial, about 90 km away. First, though, we stopped at a boulangerie we'd spotted yesterday in Decize to buy a few goodies for the road.
Today's ride was a delight. We rode beside the Canal Lateral du Loire for much of the way, but here we stair stepped upwardly about once ever 2 km at the dozens of locks. The canal climbs about 250 m over the length we rode - that's about 700 plus feet, so there is a fair bit of up and a lot of locks are needed.
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| One canal or another... |
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| This is definitely another... |
We stopped in Digoin for lunch, but didn't find much. So we grabbed a small quiche and a slice of pizza from an all-but-sold-out boulongerie and sat by the canal and enjoyed a break. It was getting hot and the forecast was for thunder storms.
At Digoin we turned to the north along another canal that goes over a branch of the Loire.
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| A bit of history about this canal-over-river bridge |
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| The result |
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| The "Ziggy B" |
A barge that was flying an American flag was pulling up to the canal when we arrived. The barge, called the Ziggy B, was operated by a couple of Americans. As they approached the part of the canal that went over the river, they were having a loud argument about something and it ended up with the driver, who seemed to kind of know what he was doing, docking the barge port-to just before the canal-over-the-river. The woman on the front was fit to be tied. She then whacked her toe on a bollard and all hell broke loose between them. Nothing but fun on the Ziggy B! It reminded me of watching people dock boats in the bay. Fun!
After a couple dozen more kilometers we made it to Paray-le-Monial, a very small town with an 11th century basilica and a hotel that we're staying in. It was nice to get into our room and take a cold shower to cool down -- the temperature was nearing 33 degrees. Hot. After that we wandered quickly to get a look at the basilica, which is beautiful in its antiquity (and which was preparing for an afternoon wedding).
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| 11th Century |
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| The history of these ancient structures is really interesting |
The town illuminates the basilica at night and it looks very pretty.
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| Paray-le-Monial Basilica |
Tomorrow we journey into Beaujolais, and more specifically, to Beaune. We will stay 2 nights and that will be nice because we're both tired. But we want to get to a Sunday market in Chagny before it closes at 1300 so we need to leave early and ride hard. The weather forecast continues to look a bit sketchy, with thunderstorms forecast, so riding early and fast should be a good thing.
A demain.
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