I took it easy on my rest day in Reims – or I couldn’t call it a rest day . I looked around town and in the afternoon, I did a champagne tour at Landon Champagne House.
I’m not much into champagne, but when in Rome … (Eat pizza ?) The tour was really informative for a champagne novice like me and I got to taste two of them at the end. Very nice. I also met a really great english couple from St. Albans. They’d been to a Ducati festival in Italy. They were so nice to talk to, and we had a great laugh. (The next morning on my way to breakfast in the hotel, the lift doors opened and there they were – I was so surprised, I was speechless. An amazing coincidence).
On the day I left, I woke to thunderstorms but knew they wouldn’t last much past 10am. By then, I was itching to get moving.
I got the food for the day from just over the road while it was still raining and left just as it was ending. It was just a few sprinkles and that was it for the day. Getting out of Reims was pretty easy, but it involved lugging the bike up and over a pedestrian bridge across the railway line. They’d put in a metal strip to allow you to push your bike up, with the same on the other side. On the down side of the bridge, because it was wet, the bike just slid and I couldn’t stop it. I ended up running down a flight of stairs as quickly as I could with an out-of-control loaded bike. I was so lucky not to crash. For the next flight of stairs, I carried it. Much easier.
Another complication was a well flooded (about 400mm deep) bike path under a busy road. It’s no problem when you wear bike sandals. I carried the bike through and dried off over the next kilometre.
In Muizon, Komoot directed me along a fairly busy road. There was no alternative and it was a bit of fun to get onto. There was roadwork, so I had to wait for a break in the traffic then lift the bike over the barriers and pedal like crazy. It was an ugly road, but there was a shoulder and it was pretty safe. I got off it in a few kilometres.
In Jonchery-sur-Vesle, I had to rejoin the busy road. Again, alternatives didn’t look great, so I followed Komoot’s directions for a few hundred metres until the Gendarmerie put their sirens on and pulled me over.
No Velo !
Why ?
No Velo !
Why, is it a freeway ?
N O V E L O !!
With their gritted teeth, the message was loud and clear.
Ok how do I get off the road, ride ?
You must walk
So I walked until they were out of sight. It wasn’t a freeway, there was no signage preventing me, and I was entitled to be there. It was an N road. Busy, but still, those over officious idiots who don’t know their own laws ! (And I only had a few kms to go !)
I rerouted a few times during the afternoon, and in the end, I’m so glad I didn’t take the busy road. Sure, it was harder, but I was on farm roads, rocky, gravel roads and minor roads that took me though small villages. Thankyou french police ! You made my day memorable even though you were wrong.
Well, I was really happy with the way the day unfolded after that. Some of the roads looked impassable but rerouting fixed that. Komoot is hopeless in some parts of Europe and this is one of those areas.
Today was one of those days where it would be easy to get annoyed and carry that thought the day. But I simply can’t get annoyed here. Actually , I’ve found it hard to be in a bad mood since I started this trip.It’s beautiful here, it’s stark, it’s rural and it’s so nice to simple be here and experience it. Again, it’s an area that I would never have visited, had I not been travelling by bike.
(As I wind down the European leg of this trip, part of me wants to keep it going but I know I need a break from packing up my life every morning. Let’s see how long the break lasts. My money is on six months )
Most of the villages I went through were kept scrupulously clean and the houses were impeccably maintained.
I arrived in Soissons and went straight to the excellent Municipal campground. It’s quiet, well kept and just put of town. And that’s where I went for some supplies. The campground had a microwave, so I went for spaghetti bolognaise followed by a salad then an early night. Well, sort of early. It doesn’t get dark here until nearly 10 or 10:30pm.
