Biking Day 36
- Length ridden: 111 km
- Ascent: 250 meters
- Rating: 7.0 out of 10 - the riding was not that nice in this weather
- Highlights: Saint-Jean Church, plus the friendly biker
- Lowlight: Yucky weather
- Map of day to the ferry
- Map of day from the ferry
If the weather was dull the previous day, it got a notch worse on my second-last riding day, even drizzling at times. My Timeline tells me I left only at 9:30 (ah yes, now I remember, a not-so-glorious breakfast was included in the room). Apparently not much happened that morning, as the first picture was taken only at noon, at Rochefort.
There I had lunch at a Vietnamese restaurant - no luck with getting good food. I found the downtown to be mildly interesting, next to it, a small fruit and vegetable market was in progress. However, it is neither the downtown, nor the market that the town is well-known for (and definitely not the Vietnamese restaurant), but the Arsenal, consisting of a Naval Dockyard and the "Corderie Royale", founded in 1665. The king commissioned the longest building in Europe to be built, where cordage for the ships was produced - next to ships being built.
Leaving town, I got to two bridges - an very old one and a very new one. The old one was similar to the one I had seen in Bilbao - called a transporter bridge (built in 1900) consisting of two pillars, these being connected by a moving platform.
The operator of the bridge was taking a break till 2 pm and as I saw a "real" bridge across the river, I went for that. That bridge was pretty new, having been built just a year before I got there.
Later in the afternoon, I rode on some very quiet roads and got to Saint-Jean-Baptiste Church at Saint-Jean-d'Angle. The church is almost 1,000 years old, it was "born" is 1047. Yet again, a jewel there, all by itself.
There was a brown sign and I went for it - it lead to the Church of Saint-Symphorien, from the 12th century. However, it was closed, so I could only admire it from the outside.
Somewhere in the middle of nowhere, I met an older French biker, we chatted for about half an hour. He was really very nice, coming from the opposite direction, giving me advice where to ride, what to see and where to sleep. He was talking to a 90-year-old lady over a fence, he introduced me to her.
At around 7 pm, I got to Royan. On the road into downtown, already in the city, I rode by a house with a fence, behind the fence a husky . When the dog saw me, it started dancing out of joy, here the expression "the tail wagging the dog" applied. It then started howling at me, so loud, that pedestrians stopped and the owner came out of the house, smiling. When I told her I was from Hungary, she got excited, as she had been to my county, she was a musician. Talking about music, she told me there would be a jazz festival that was to be held at the local beach later that evening, I thought of staying there.
Royan was hit by WWII bombings pretty heavily and most of the town, including its cathedral, were destroyed, with hundreds of locals lost. The town was rebuilt as part of an urban development program in the 1950s, and is representative of the Modernist architecture of the period.
I studied my map a bit and saw that I had the option of riding more or less straight south to Bordeaux on the mainland, or crossing with a ferry over Gironde, Europe's largest estuary, to a peninsula and continuing towards the south there. There was a ferry departing soon after 8 pm, so I decided not to go to the jazz concert, but make the crossing. Before the ferry ride, I found a supermarket still open, so bought some groceries and got to the terminal on time.
The ferry ride was just about 20 minutes and it started drizzling for a few minutes after arrival. This peninsula was (and most probably, still is) beautiful. There is hardly any traffic on it and there was a broad and well-maintained bike path, which, as I found out later, would lead all the way to Bordeaux.
At the beginning of the peninsula, the bike path lead next to the tracks of a small tourist train, within a pine forest, it was quite romantic, despite the fact it was getting dark. Wow, did I just arrive to an uninhabited peninsula - or at least one where there are hardly any towns? Of course not, I cut soon over to the ocean, and found the first town, called Soulac-sur-Mer. There I found a small replica of the Statue of Liberty and then saw that indeed there was life, with people strolling about.
Here, close to the end of the day, Google thought it would play a little trick on me, it lead me deep into a forest - which was fine, as I have a strong light on my bike and carry an extra head-lamp, however, the ground was nothing but sand. When I realized this, it was too late to turn around (plus I dislike back-tracking), so I thought I would continue onward (have had a similar experience a couple of days ago, when crossing a riverbed - but this was a lot worse!). Oh my - this was quite taxing. It was no longer possible to ride, as the bike kept sinking into the sand - and the situation did not improve even when I got off the saddle. It was very confusing as to which direction I should continue, there were multiple paths crossing - it was then that I heard some fading music. That became my north-star, so I pushed and shoved towards the sound and finally, after about half an hour of suffering, I got out of the woods.
By now, it was dark - so time to look for a place to sleep. I found not a camping, but a place where camper cars stay for the night. I asked a German guy if he knew who would be in charge, he winked at me and suggested I cross a soccer field towards the ocean and I just pitch my tent for free there. It seemed like a swell idea, so I actually found a bit of a grassy spot and camped there for the night. After a little walk, next to an abandoned building, I found a hose with fresh water, so I was even able to do some basic cleaning.
It was about 111 kilometers that I rode that day.