30th August (sunny and warm) 63 km

Haw Hee Haw  Bonjour ma liiiittle bloggaarr reedaars….

The morning began for us at 8am, a very late awakening. A bit of tidying up and reorganising our panniers before we wandered downstairs for breakfast, which was costing us twelve euros each. With it not being a full cooked, I was interested to see how comprehensive a continental breakfast could be. The answer on this occasion was extremely…. It had everything from boiled eggs, eggs you could have cooked. All forms of meat and cheese. Cereals and pastries and cake. Figs, dates and nuts, muesli and various yoghurts. Crumpets, baguettes, crepes, bread for toasting with jams of all types. As you may imagine, I was not backward in coming forward.

On the ride out and another very fancy looking

Tried a bit of blogging and uploading photos from last night, but we really didn’t have enough time. It was 10.30am when we packed up and hit the road, a most enjoyable stay in a nice room, close to the city. Just before leaving I stubbed my toe on the most peculiar foot to a bed I have seen, consequently, my toe after a day’s riding was sore and very bruised when I removed my shoe after setting up camp.  (Still, at least it didn’t fall off, eh Dad!).

We packed up the bikes and began negotiating our way out of town and noticed a couple of policemen on bicycles.  They noticed us too and one rode past us and slid his back wheel out as he braked expertly beside his waiting buddy, suggesting to us that this was not a man to mess with as he knew how to ride his bike!  We lumbered past and promptly turned the wrong way up a one way street.

Most overnight stays like to give us a hefty uphill to start our day, so in an effort to circumvent this pattern, we chose our way out of Rouen via the river.  Our ride started beautifully on a smooth flat cycle track alongside the Seine.  It would have been lovely to follow the river all the way to Paris, except that it writhes its way all over the countryside and would have us covering many more kms than we need to.

Peaceful riding alongside the Seine and the
yellow fungi captured our attention.

So eventually we had to leave the safe flatness of the riverside and venture further afield, which inevitably meant a hill or two to climb.  We stopped at a supermarket in Las Damps and soon found a picnic bench by the river where we enjoyed a delicious lunch.  Then we enjoyed some delightful cycling on the voie verte Seine-Eure.  From the looks of the smooth tarseal and paintwork, this is a relatively new bike route along the Seine and even though it was not particularly direct, it was very enjoyable.

We had decided this morning that we simply didn’t have enough time to cycle all the way to our hotel in Paris tomorrow, as we didn’t want to take a chance being late meeting Jimmy off the train from Liverpool.  So today we were aiming to only to get to a campground at Giverny and tomorrow we will catch a train to Paris.

At Aubevoye we found a nice supermarche and picked up our supplies for the night. So tonight… we shall feast….oh sorry, we did that this morning….we shall feast again..!!

We passed many fairytale cottages

Believe it or not, this is somebody's garage!  You have to drive through a curtain of greenery to get out.

Checking directions

Ouch!

After 63kms and the inevitable hills to finish our day’s work, we pulled into our camp for the night, at a place called Saint Marcel, on the outskirts of Vernon. A very nice French lady was interested where we were from and asked questions about the cycling there. She said the drivers here were not good, but every country seems to say that about their own. Set up tent, showered, blogged, but no wifi for tonight so we’ll be uploading our blogs in Paris.

Post feasting, we sat and talked about our day, enjoying the relaxed vibe of this campsite and the twelve euro fee.