Trip Day 3 (Bike day 1) – Perfect Day? St. Malo to Mont St. Michel

We started out with a spirited discussion of how many clothes to take, how much raingear, then finally left for a good tour of the walled city of St. Malo, (completely intentionally of course) riding around the interior trying to find the way to one of the two entrances…  First stop was to a hardware store to pick up a missing wrench, but without good GPS it entailed some back and forth, and then Etienne discovered he still had the keys to the garage door for the hotel in his jersey, so we split up and armed with a paper map I sallied forth to the hardware store and then Lidl (grocery store) to pick up lunch while he whizzed back to deliver them.  Then we were truly on our way, finally onto the designated route…

Riding around the rolling back roads in the French countryside on a sunny day, little traffic, flowers everywhere, fertile fields…..  THIS IS AWESOME!!!!

The longer route for today included a side trip to Cancale – pretty seaside town with huge oyster farms, great  place for lunch – then continuing through lush farmland onto a seaside road, coffee at the top of a hill passing by lovely well tended gardens – what is not to like???  We pedalled in sunshine but breezey enough not to be too hot, and the last 10 km on packed gravel through the woods.  We turned a corner into the open, and suddenly there was Mont St. Michel – the last few km along the dyke pedalling directly towards it were spectacular.  Our hotel was the last on the strip, i.e. closest to the Mont, and afforded a spectacular view of it from the balcony (which was also big enough to house our bikes, and to tell the truth, probably as big as our last hotel room…. definite step up here!).  Directly across from the hotel was a sign posted “Le grand depart” of the Tour de France 2016.

After the obligatory shower and laundry done for the following day, draping of previous days’ laundry over everything, we set out on the km. walk to the monument in a brisk headwind.  We noted an exodus of people both walking and on the free shuttle bus (no cars allowed on the promenade) and found out that the Abbey closed at 5 p.m., so likely the cause; we had quiet conditions to wander around the city – we were a bit surprised by all the tacky souvenir shops and restaurants on the lower levels though, given it is a world heritage site.  We conclude that this was the inspiration for “gondor” in “lord of the rings”…..

An amazing several course dinner in a restaurant past the tourist strip, a 2 hour affair, concluded an amazing day (love the french cuisine and cheeses) then back to our luxurious room to crash.  Surprisingly tired for only 65 km on the road with not a lot of hills.  Outstanding memories of the day?  Getting into a field for a “break naturale” and fortunately curtailing before squatting with the realization it was covered in nettles….  Swaths of wild poppies in amongst the hay.

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