Day 0: Home to the South coast
I travelled to work as usual (cycle to the station, then take the train to Altrincham); only this day my noble steed came with me as far as Stockport, and I have panier bags brimming with holiday. After a day at work spent mostly making sure that my projects weren't going to run off anywhere, I hot-footed to the station and took the train south. Destination: Brighton. It seemed appropriate to stay in the home of green on the night before the European elections and our epic eco-holiday en France. Plus an advance fare to Newhaven Town from London via Brighton was risibly cheap.
Day 1: Newhaven to Forges-les-Eaux
This was one of those days where you seem to have three days in one. An earlyish start. I woke up wishing I had had less to drink the night before, then realised I had had nothing at all to drink the night before, and I was probably just a bit dehydrated. Trained it to Newhaven Town, where I met up with comrades Leah and Alison, who were both at the ferry port each unbeknownst to the other.
We spent four hours on the ferry, arriving Dieppe at local time 3pm. After grabbing a baguette, some stinky cheese, and a big tomato, we started our 35 mile cycle to the first night halt, the town of Forges-les-Eaux. The countryside of Normandy was very pleasant in the late afternoon light, and we pootled along on the old railway track gradually clocking up the miles.
By about 7:30pm we had reached our two-thirds point, Neufchatel-en-Bray, where the only open pitstop we could find was a MacDonalds in a more industrial part of the town. Rejuvenated by ice cream, chips and coke, we struggled onwards to the will o' the wisp that was Forges-les-Eaux. Descending through woodland where the railway path ends (the actual railway starts just before Forges-les-Eaux), we hit the centre of the town and reached our hotel for the night around 9:50pm. The French, having closed basic amenities like cafés and supermarkets way before 7:30pm, were probably tucked up in bed at the point - and the hotel was, worryingly in total darkness. Cue a hasty and slightly delirious phonecall in broken French: 'Bonswa, je suis dans la rue, j'ai une réservation.' There was the added complication that I accidentally booked the room under the name Mr Hovard (languages degree, schlanguages schmegree), but luckily the unquestioning hotelier opened his back door and showed us to a room which was ours for the night.
This is where, usually in Howardville, you'd have a nice cup of tea and then probably head to bed; but we hadn't eaten properly (I was determined that ice cream should not be my evening meal) so we set out in search of food at 10pm. We instantly caught sight of a pizza takeaway, which would have ticked the hunger box at this late hour. But as we entered, the guy behind the counter tapped his watch and said something which equated to 'fermé.' He told us that the only place we would find food at this late hour (10pm! Late!) was the casino. I remembered at this point that I had found out through a small amount of googling that Forges-les-Eaux was famous for its casino. Given some rudimentary instructions, we set off into the night to find food - and maybe even fortune.
It was bizarre: while the rest of the town was a sleepy hollow, even eerily quiet, just out of town, rising up in the marble columns of a greek temple, illuminated pink, was the grand casino of Forges-les-Eaux, throbbing with life. We gravitated towards this almost Oceans-like construction, and pledged the maximum amounts we would gamble. First things first: in this strange, highly glossed, polished, and strobe lit world, the only food we could secure was a cheese sandwich and a glass of red wine. Then, on machines which dubiously promised you the fortunes of the greek gods, or krazy kats, or rock legends (they were all identical but mocked up in different stickers) I won €1 but lost €5. Concluding that gambling really was of the devil, and headed back to the hotel to rest our weary limbs.
Day 2: Forges-les-Eaux to Vernon
A less early start. Got up and realised that although we knew what time breakfast started, we had well overshot this time and did not know what time breakfast finished. After quick freshen up, we went for our petit déjeuner and were plied with more empty carbs than you can shake a dodgy diet at. I think the French need to realise that a croissant, while tasty, isn't one of your five (or seven) a day.
After our tea and orange juice, having found out that the speciality of the region is Neufchatel cheese, we set off in the direction of Gournay-en-Bray, our one-third pitstop. This must be one of the legs which felt the longest. We were not just going along winding country lanes; we were experiencing the countryside in 3D as we looped over and around the rolling hills of Normandy. Don't get me wrong, the were beautiful, and it was satisfying to have some downhills, but the speed you clock on the downhill doesn't really make up for the time you spend on the uphill.
Towards 2pm, we arrived at Gournay-en-Bray, feeling like we had been 'nearly there' for hours. We wolfed down some more empty carbs (I had a pain au chocolat and a delicious apple turnover) before hitting the road once again. However, it wasn't so easy. The yellow signs which mark the Avenue Verte had so far been pretty consistent; if there was any room to doubt which direction you should go, bam, there was a yellow sign confirming that you should follow the left fork and not go down the farm track. In Gournay-en-Bray, though, I think someone had been having fun with the signs. We went round and round the same one way system about three times, uncannily finding ourselves cycling back into the town as soon as we thought we had found our escape route. A helpful French guy tried to explain the route to us, but we then caught sight of an English couple who had invested in the Avenue Verte guidebook (I hear it's a thrilling read). The woman was very concerned about whether we'd eaten or not, and when Leah and Alison (if not me) had allayed her fears, we headed off in the direction the guide suggested.
It just so happened that the main road we were begrudgingly taking passed by the train station. Salivating at the prospect of a train ride to our two-thirds point, Gisors (which we had hoped to reach by lunch), we investigated the station and found that a train would be heading to Gisors in about an hour and a half - a perfect lunch break, we thought, and headed back into the town centre of Gournay-en-Bray. Only... we lost Alison! Leah and I had gone back the same way we'd come, along a green lane-cum-promenade, and as soon as we realised Alison wasn't with us, we cycled back the length of the lane. No sign of her at all. I tried to call her, and got a short 'I dropped my glasses' before the call broke up. We quickly made up the theme tune for Alison's serial.
Alison's adventures
in Gournay-en-Bray
first she lost her glasses
then couldn't find the way - hey!
...before realising that she would probably be somewhere obvious in the town centre. When we'd reclaimed our Todd, we all had an avacadoey lunch (we were a bit carbed out) - though we did still have some bread and some delicious Neufchatel cheese.
We did not feel guilty about the train at all. As we watched the kilometres drop off, we knew we still had a long way to cycle - from Gisors, we had a 20-something kilometre long railway path to Bray-en-Lû, which was in turn about 10km away from out night halt, Vernon.
Into the late afternoon sun, we cycled through fields and cuttings, somehow bypassing civilisation. We knew it was going to be a late one, but by the time we got to Bray-en-Lû, Alison and Leah were delirious. As in the rocker was there and they were well and truly off it. We checked out a B&B recommended by a woman at a takeaway pizza van, and knocked on the door. I made the mistake of explaining our situation fully: we have a reservation in Vernon, but we have cycled a long way, and don't think we can make it there. 'But you must go! You must keep your reservation! They are waiting for you! It is not far' (this, followed by about 10 minutes of the B&B owner shooing me and Alison down the road and making sure we were definitely going in the direction of Vernon.)
Needless to say, we didn't make it to Vernon. We'd already decided that we'd try to get to Giverny, where there would be civilisation, we hoped, then we'd find a B&B or hostel with a room for the night. Wild camping might have been easier. We cycled down one road in a village near to Giverny which promised hotels. We found no hotels. In fact, we saw no one and nothing, not even tumbleweed.
Carrying on to Giverny, we inquired at the first hotel we found. It was opposite a pizzeria, which boded well. But they said there was no room at the inn. However, they did know someone who might have a room, could we wait while they gave them a call? With a map drawn out and explained in broken English, we cycled a kilometre or two to le Moulin in Limetz-Villez, arriving around 10pm. It turns out, despite taking a train for a third of the way, we had still cycled 52 miles!
We went inside the old watermill and were shown into a beautiful B&B living room, then led upstairs to two double rooms which connected via the bathroom. As our host, who spoke no English, was about to leave us to our oven devices, I asked if there was somewhere we could get a meal. Again, he tapped his watch, said something along the lines of 'bouf', then said it would be too late for us to cycle back to the pizzeria in Giverny and there was nothing in Limetz-Villez. Alison and Leah described my face as a picture of dispair (it probably wasn't far from Munch's The Scream. Leah went downstairs first on a recce once we had freshened up, and reported that they had put beer and biscuits for us on a table outside. I hastily snaffled some cereal bars and a bag of pumpkin seeds I'd had in reserve, then headed downstairs for 'dinner'.
Day 3: Limetz-Villez to Paris
Slept really well. The room was ideal, dressed up in tasteful French style with a hint of Goldilocks and the the three bears' cottage. There were some nice touches: I had a soft toy goose on my bed, and Leah and Alison had a large antique wash jug and bowl on their sideboard.
We went downstairs in time for breakfast, and found the breakfast table laid with everything you could want. There were the expected empty carbs (croissants, bread and jam) but also fruit muesli! Boiled eggs! Yoghurt! Fruit juice! And proper loose leaf English Breakfast tea served in a glass teapot with a tea strainer (we discussed the English word for this with the B&B host; the French, passoire is more special and used for tea and tea alone). Needless to say, we breakfasted handsomely, and stocked up our fat reserves for the hard day of cycling ahead.
First off, though, we wanted to visit Monet's garden at Giverny. Famous for its lily pads and Japanese style arched bridges, the garden was definitely worth the visit. Everything was in bloom and full of colour, to an almost excessive degree. The only thing that would have made it better was to visit when there weren't quite so many tourists about. In the water garden, it was impossible to take a photo without getting at least one tourist in the frame.
When we left Monet's garden, we decided to head to Vernon, where we could assess which trains we could catch in the direction of Paris, so we could hop out at, say, Mantes-la-Jolie or Poissy, then cycle the remaining 30-something kilometres into Paris and to the Eiffel(!) Tower(!)
Ascertaining that we could catch a train in just over an hour to Poissy changing at Mantes-la-Jolie, we went and had lunch at a proper French restaurant. The sort of place where there are escargots on the menu not because it's trying to be French but because - why wouldn't you have snails on the menu? We had the most wonderful decarb, and I had a huge salad with some eggs. I only had one piece of bread. In vegetable ecstasy, we then headed across the road to a beautiful confiserie, and ai picked out a white chocolate macaron (to see if it would make me rethink my position on macarons. It did not), a pain au chocolat, and a delicious choux/brioche/melty sweet thing, covered with a mouthwatering freeze-dry strawberry crumble thing, filled with crème patissière and fresh strawberries, and topped with a chocolate button branded with the name of the confiserie. A delight and a definite winner!
When we got back to Vernon station, things didn't go quite according to plan. The girl at the station had sold us tickets and bike reservations for a train which turned out to be a bus: a bus which would take us twice as long to get to Mantes-la-Jolie, and which wouldn't accept bikes. The girl at the ticket office assured us we could take the next train, which would give us about 4 minutes to change to the Poissy train. While we were on the train to Mantes-la-Jolie, it started to rain; when we got off the train to change platform we got soaked, couldn't work the lift and had to haul our three bikes and luggage up and over the station bridge, across three platforms, the train sitting waiting below.
The end destination of the train to Poissy was Paris St Lazare. A guilty look at the map told us that this was significantly closer to where we wanted to be than Poissy. The pleasant countryside and rolling hills of Normandy were gradually being replaced with the less salubrious tower blocks and graffitied walls of the banlieux, and strange people were wandering back and forth down the train, evidently not looking for a seat (the carriages were nearly empty). The rain we had hit at Mantes-la-Jolie seemed to be following us, and we didn't have much of an idea of a route from Poissy to Paris, apart from a very vague map which suggested the Avenue Verte might be somewhere around there. To be honest, everything was pointing towards us staying on that train, but it was only as we were passing through Poissy and none of us got up to get off the train that I conceded: you have to know your limits!
We cycled and walked the final few miles through Paris. A prophetic sun came out from behind heady rainclouds just as we reached the base of the Eiffel Tower: with blood, sweat, and a healthy dose of adventure, we had made it!
We cycled onwards to our apartment, to hot showers, homemade meals, and free wifi. A few nights in Paris to balance our cycle, wine by the Seine or by the Sacré-Cœur: the rest, chers lecteurs, is a story for another time.
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