Ok, so I’m a couple of days behind on posting stuff to here. Mainly due to the fact that whilst hotels advertise “Free WiFi” there is nothing to say that the wifi then connects to anything like a decent internet connection. In many cases it doesn’t and my online time has been fairly limited. I tend to upload photos over wifi only…
Leaving St Malo I decided to head for the shops. I’d only 48 miles planned for the day so figured I could hang around town until midday without impacting my schedule too much. Having clean dry clothes to change into at the end of the day is so important on these trips. I can live with smelling like the back end of a garbage truck whilst I’m out in the middle of nowhere on the bike, but in the evenings it’s different.
So it wasn’t until early afternoon when I headed off into the rolling countryside between St Malo and Saint Brieuc. The riding at first was lovely, rolling along country lanes and through pretty French villages, with the wind being only a minor annoyance at this time.
i had only been on the road a short time though when the wind began to pick up and a sudden drop in temperature and amassed grey clouds persuaded me that lunch could be a good move. I stopped at a pretty French village on an inlet of sea overlooking a disheveled ruin of a castle and tucked into a delicious meal of Kidneys. The local mayor (or of similar office – I never really did get to the bottom of it) helped to translate for me before demanding repayment in the form of an Anglo-French discussion on Brexit and the French presidential elections. Only about my 6th compulsory Brexit chat this week…
After lunch it wasn’t long before google maps decided to play a card and take me for some off road adventures. With no desperate need for putting miles behind me, I was quite happy to play along for the most part, but even so, this represented a challenge;
The wind by the time I left the shelter of the woods was quite horrific, driving me backwards and sideways across the road. The final session of riding into Saint Brieuc was a bit of a battle, but I made it in good time and checked into my basic (very basic) hotel in time for a wander round town in the evening.
It happened that France were playing Spain at football that evening, so the town was quite lively. I sat and half watched the game in a bar whilst picking up some new French vocabulary. The main one which sticks was the huge Breton at the end of the bar who shouted “Putain” whoever a French player lost the ball or missed a shot…I’ll leave you to Google the translation.
Some photos;
