Day 11- Saumur to Poitiers- 114 kms

24 Jun

After another good night of sleep ( possibly due to the 2 glasses of wine over dinner) we awoke to a beautiful morning with a wind in the direction of our ride. I must admit we have been very lucky as the past 4 days we have had favourable wind conditions. It would not be pleasant with a strong headwind on the open farm land we have been travelling through overthrow past few days. I guess the wind gods have been smiling on us!!!

We set off at about 8.00 am and I was “chief navigator “ for the day!

My start was not good as we took time to find our way out of Saumur.... we returned to the hotel twice to reset our start. So much for my navigation skills

Any after our normal hour to exit Saumur we were heading through wine growing country with the roads going over rolling hills... all very pretty. As we progressed there were several lovely villages .... but none with a coffee and balongarie . We finally found a shop which was a delightful break. The timing was excellent to catch up with Robyn and the news from home... the dees lost against Port Adelaide and the weather in Melbourne is freezing... far cry here in France where the weather is a very nice 24- 26 degrees

Then back on the bikes we were looking to have lunch at the approximate half way point at Loudun... well it seems the master of navigation missed the town and we had to try for a cafe in a small village. As luck would have it Chris saw a group of people near what we thought was a cafe only to find it was a private function... as we were a bit tired we took some time to rest and replan lunch options when the chefs for the function spoke to us and after much guessing it seems they were offering to share some of the function fare with us....it was a god send and the veal with champignons was gobbled down quick smart. It made us both feel a bit humble to be welcomed by our new French friends

After thank yous it was on our way again

Fortunately the lack of navigation worked in our favour as we traveled on a fairly major road in towards Poitiers

With the wind behind we made gout one reaching speeds at times over 45 Kms/ hr for long stretches

We made a couple of stops along the way to have water a soft drink and some fresh fruits

We also found a lovely balongari and could not go past a sweet tart!!!

Finally we arrived in Poitiers and navigated our way to the youth hostel ... the time of arriving was about 6.30 pm about half an hour after the 6.00pm curfew all due to poor navigation on my part!!

The youth hostel seems ok and we met a lady from Holland who is walking to Spain and doing 2600 kms!!!

She has this wheelie contraption which contains all her clothing and personal items .... she has walked so far over 900 kms!

We decided rather than go to a cafe downtown we would “stay in” and use the hostel kitchen

Chris went shopping at the local supermarket whilst I organised the washing and he came back with a veritable feast of beer and nuts/ chips followed by ham salad .... a great feast fit for a couple of old buggers riding through France

Today has been particularly tiring for me and we both think we might have a day of rest tomorrow.... all a bit of a mystery but isn’t that what holidays are for

View of the Loire from the bridge