Biking Day 32

• Length ridden: 132 km
• Ascent: 550 meters
• Rating: 8.5 out of 10 - good ride to Nantes
• Highlights: The bridge; despite not being a big fan of bike paths, the Loire bike path; the free ferry crossing
• Lowlight: not lowlight, low tide 😉 - would have preferred high tide for swimming - and a bit more sun...and better guidance of Google
• Map of the day - to St. Nazaire
• Map of the day - bridge crossing (as Google does not allow bikes to cross)
• Map of the day - crossing to hotel

I slept rather long and it was only at 8 am that I got ready to set sail (or pedal) for the day. In Pénestin, I had a nice beach in front of me, but it was still rather cool to go in for a swim. There was a sign prohibiting wild camping, a biker family had set up their tent right next to it.

Even though my phone was fully charged, Google was in a strange mood, it sending me on kinds of goose chases, through patches of forest or having to cross some fields on a bumpy ride. There was a funny story - I was rolling slowly on such a forest road, talking to my Mum on the phone. A tree was in the middle of the path and I started contemplating as to riding past it on its left or the right. The tree got closer and I still hadn`t made up my mind, but I also stopped pedaling. Inertia is the force that keeps a bike going and this is gained by exerting force on the pedals - in the absence of which acrobatic skills are required to stay upright. Those that know me are aware that I lack such skills, so now I could decide whether to fall left or right. I opted for the right side - did not really hurt myself, instead, my mum did not notice anything about this mishap, she kept on talking, despite the phone having hit the ground before me. So I continued talking to her, laying on the ground, my one half being covered by the bike, the rest by dust. Needless to say, on this otherwise completely deserted road a biker showed up out of the nowhere, he looked quizzingly at me, being in this rather awkward position. With a nod of my head, I signaled I was fine, just taking a small rest, so he rode on. The silver lining is that this was the worst mishap of the entire 6 weeks.

I have pasted so many churches that I will now share a couple of nice regular houses - they were quite beautiful ones.

Wow, I had been riding close to the ocean without going in for a couple of days - so I applied for one more 2-hour vacation, at Pornichet. This was not the best spot and also not the best weather. It was a bit chilly, which did not bother me all too much, worse was that due to the low tide, there were some dangerous cliffs full of shells - and if a wave would crash me on one such rock, that would not be a pretty sight. So uncharacteristically of me, I did not venture all too far from shore; still, I was one of the only ones in the water.

At around 3:30 pm, I reached St. Nazaire, which the touristic website itself claims as "not the most attractive city". The low tide made this an understatement - what I saw was outright ugly.

Still, there was something quite interesting there - and this was is the German WWII submarine base, a huge concrete structure right in the middle of the city. This used to be the headquarter for the German Navy, the Kriegsmarine. In modern-day St. Nazaire, shipbuilding is a major source of income, Queen Mary was built there - plus Airbus has a facility there as well.

The submarine base, thanks to its 10-meter (!) thick roof was not destroyed and now it is not only a memorabilia of the war, but has been turned into a cultural center, housing exhibitions and art shows. On the roof, there is a project aimed at growing plants (out of 10m thick concrete...?)

There was an Office de Tourisme located within the submarine base, they informed me of my possible options. No matter what my ultimate destination was that day, they strongly advised me against riding on the bridge, with the rather unimaginative name St. Nazaire Bridge, spanning the mouth of the Loire river; them explaining how dangerous it is and that there was a free taxi for cyclists, quoting heavy traffic and strong winds as the reason. In reality, I had spotted the bridge earlier and could hardly wait to make the crossing, as it looked rather cool from the far.

Getting to the bridge itself was the larger challenge. Google also did not want me crossing the bridge, so it did not even offer this option, so I was back to the traditional methods of asking for directions. Yes, it is indeed in industrial town and there were workers everywhere, none of whom spoke either French or English - and they lacked the local knowledge of getting around. Someone told me to go left, another to go right, the third never understood the question itself. In the meanwhile, a large ship under construction was towering over me.

Finally I found the correct road - and even spoke to the bike-taxi driver, who was busy loading a group of riders. It looked rather cumbersome - unload all your luggage, load the bike, get it secured, and do the opposite on the other side - not to mention how cool the bridge looked, so I went for it.

I will admit this much, crossing the bridge was a bit tougher than I thought, my palms started sweating quite a bit, it is quite a steep climb uphill - and, needless to say, a major roll downhill, with a strong side wind, the height (some 60 meters, about 20 floors above the water) and the heavy traffic - but it was not extreme. Pretty cool was stopping at the highest point, getting off the bike and looking around - try that with a car...no, better not.

I made it to the other side all right, and this was the end of my visit to Brittany (well, more or less, you will see why a bit later), which turned out to be my favorite region of France. The king is dead, long live the king - I entered into the region called Loire-Atlantique. Here I found a wonderful bike path, mostly paved, following the Loire, leading to my ultimate destination that day - and I picked this to be Nantes. It was 5 pm and I had still 55 kilometers or so ahead of me.

The first interesting sight was still close to the bridge I had just crossed and this was an array of narrow, wobbly passageways leading from the shore to fishing huts. There huts have nets spun, and these are lowered - with the hope of being full of fish when raised. Quite an old technology - even though there were many of these, I did not spot a single person actively fishing.

I switched on the rockets, oh well, better to say, I gained quite a good pace and was eating up the kilometers, for a while, I was riding together and chatting with a sympathetic French biker. The bike path was pretty, well maintained and there were quite a few riders getting out of Nantes, heading the opposite direction, towards the west.

At Saint Jean de Boiseau, I was only 20 kilometers short of Nantes and thought, it being close to 8 pm, it might be a good idea to find a place to sleep. My strategy was to reach Nantes, explore it in the evening, sleep at a place and then explore more the next day. Sounds easy. I was glad to have found a hotel at a reasonable price, but when I started patting myself on the back, I realized that I had actually made a mistake. The hotel, as it turned out, was on the opposite bank of the Loire towards the north and without a bridge prior to Nantes, I would have to ride remaining 20 kilometers to the city, cross the river there on a bridge and then have to back-track some 12 kilometers to the hotel, so suddenly I was not 20, but over 30 kilometers away. Darn. Anyhow, I started riding, a bit frustrated at how stupid I could have been at not checking the location of the hotel.

It was then that I saw a sign, a bit confusing to me, showing two directions for Nantes, one continuing straight, the other showing some sort of a detour, towards the river. I found a "living person" to ask (there is a story to this expression, but too long to tell here) and was told there was a ferry crossing ahead. Ah yes, an hour or so earlier, I recalled seeing a ferry, proudly proclaiming the usage was free of charge.

I would have readily paid a couple of euros for the crossing, that was not the point, the question was whether the ferry was still running and if so, when. Yes, it was indeed running and it was less than 10 minutes by the time boarding took place - next to me were two other cars that joined this free-of-charge service. Vive la France! This ferry was a real savior - it brought me to the other side of the Loire, where I just need to ride a couple of kilometers north and be at my hotel - with one small disadvantage - not sightseeing in Nantes that evening.

A little after 9 pm, I was on the other side, with the accommodation being just half an hour away. Near the ferry landing, I heard live music coming from a bar. With the room having been booked, I now had all the time in the world - it was then that I heard some live music from a bar, so I took a table at the terrasse ordered a beer and a good-tasting (YES!) gazpacho soup and some dessert and listened to the pleasant Brazilian music.

It was already dark by the time I had reached the hotel - a not so first-class Premiere Classe Nantes Ouest hotel. As always, the greeting was friendly - the room was soso-lala, but clean. Having ridden about 132 kilometers, I was quite tired.