Paris - Brest - Paris 1200 and a bit more: 13 to 27th August 2019 - Part 3 Getting Home

Tiredness was beating me so I left the Northerners shortly after 1pm and rode down to my hotel thinking I'd be able to check in promptly on arrival.

Knowing what I know now I should have gone back under the tree for another snooze and hung around until the evening meal at the Bergerie. I would have come home with two direction signs as well as some other trinkets of the ride and have had what was by all accounts a pretty decent meal at the closing ceremony.

Ramboulliet

Instead I stood in a rabble of knackered cyclists waiting for reception to open and when it did the receptionist had a nightmare with everyone in the queue, the first was actually cancelling their room, the second had lost his booking from the previous evening and was hoping the room was still available and then I ended up paying for another guests booking as well as my one. Trying to get a refund for the incorrect check in then proved to be a nightmare as they couldn't refund to card and my UK bank account details were of course useless.
It seems while the rest of the world it appears uses BIC and IBAN numbers, British exceptionalism means I had no access to the details they needed.

Finally in my room I emptied the contents of my Carradice onto the bed and then had what I intended to be a "brief lie down" between the bits and pieces it was hardly 5pm.
I woke at 2am, hungry and with no hope of getting anything to eat, I decided to sort the stuff on the bed into piles for packing and washing before finally having a shower for the first time in four and a half days.  An hour later, washed, with now damp clothes hung up around me room, I went back to bed and woke at 0935, missing breakfast by minutes.

Dissapointed at losing the 7 euros worth of breakfast, I decided to leave off the bike for the day and walked to the shopping mall nearby to see if there were any Cafés there and at least get something from Carefour if not.  As it turned out the Carefour Café was still serving breakfasts and I had a reasonable enough Croissaint, Pain Au Chocolat and bottle of coca for less than the hotel price.
On further exploration of the mall there were at least 3 other better looking cafés on site.

Amphibious vehicle and Hotel De Ville

I arranged to meet Robbie and Élaina after lunch, and started working out the bus system in town, it was reasonably simple and frequent running every 15 minutes from the bus stop just up the road from the hotel.  All I needed to do was buy a time limited ticket for travel throughout the commune from the driver for the heady sum of €2. On arriving in town, I took to the Café by the Caroussel, the previous weekend it, along with the rest of the town was hoaching with cyclists but now only a handful lingered. The lunch menu was reasonable and I had a burger sans-fromage before Robbie and Élaina arrived for a drink, we decided tea would be a good idea in the evening and took different paths of tourism round the town.

I went into the park for a look around, dodging the heat of the sun under the trees as I needed before braving the sun as I walked round the Chateau and into the car park in front of the Hotel De Ville where a collection of French and American vehicles from the Liberation were parked up, it was 75 years and 2 days since the town was liberated from the Nazis and a car club had been touring Northern France with their WWII era vehicles.
It was only once I carried on my wander round the town that I realized the trucks and even the amphibious vehicle were doing passenger rides, so I missed out on the chance for a birl and to sniff the fumes of low octane petrol and Castrol R. [http://www.univem-paris.com/en/75th-anniversary-of-the-liberation-of-rambouillet/]

Citroen

I headed back to my hotel while Robbie and Élaina visited the model railway and saw other bits of the town I'd seen in the rain on the Saturday after bike check.  We decided on an option for tea over messenger and then discovered it was shut for August, Robbie booked a table at the the back up option with a menu I had said was "limited"; unfortunately I hadn't explained what I meant by "limited" to Robbie at the time, it wasn't that I didn't like the fact there was only 3 options for each course on the menu, it was actually that I meant it usually means the chef is good and also they're not over ordering and freezing.
Chez Martin was fantastic but I have to say I would have been utterly dependent on Google Translate being accurate (and when is it ever accurate) if it wasn't for Robbie's ability to translate nouns and Élaina's first language being French.
I got on a bus late in the evening well fed and looking forward to the next days ride north to Evreux.


We met at the post office, my Carradice hadn't been quite as easy to pack as I'd hoped and on discovering Robbie had room left in a pre-paid postage box, I quickly changed my plan to carry everything, all those extra little trinkets I'd collected needed to go along with my warmers and night glasses which I stuffed into the water bottle and drink cup..
As I waited for him to return from inside the post office, a group of Kiwi riders pulled up at the bike stand and started faffing with their luggage to carry out a similar task. After the Kiwi's had gone some locals started to talk to me about Paris-Brest in Broken English, it turned out they'd missed that the event had been and gone despite the banners and the electronic information signs which I only realized when they started offering me Bon Route and Bon Courage.

The start of a routing error

The first day's ride back was to be an easy 80km to Evreux, by riding back up to Houdan through a route I'd scoped in Google Street View on the hard pack dirt and tarmaced roads of the forest of Ramboulliet, all however was not quite what it seemed, after making decent progress one of the had packed roads turned to rough gravel and then to sand, and for 2km we hauled the bikes through that sand cursing my route planning.  I look back at the route we took and in street view and can only surmise that I accidentally altered or failed to save the route, as what I described to Robbie of a short hard pack section then tar paths is exactly what GSV shows.

The dots are the tarmaced cycle track, the blue line is the sand trap

Houdan

After the sand trap we rode into Houdan irritated, hot, dusty, sandy, thirsty and concerned about the time of day as well as our chains. The first Tabac we poked our noses into was shutting for lunch.
We rode on past the cathedral and through onto the cobbled streets of the centre where we found a Creperie busy inside but had some free tables outside where we could watch the bikes as we ate.  I scoured the menu for a Cheeseless option that wasn't a desert, just as I was feeling beaten and starting to consider Nutella and Banana to be a suitable lunch Robbie pointed out the cheese free option.


We set off again and found that most of the rest of the town was deserted. The forest gave way to fields and the afternoon sun started beating down on us. I was struggling with the heat and using up water fast, at Anet only 18km on from Houdan we stopped at a café for a drink and top up of water which was enough to just get me to Evreux.

I'd spent some time trying to find a route into the Evreux Motel that we had booked while avoid riding on the busy main roads that intersect on the edge of town, I didn't manage to avoid them but did find a route in through a series of roundabouts that would do the job; while riding out of one of these roundabouts my foot felt rather loose in my emergency purchase shoes, as the buckle bolt had come loose enough to fall off.

On the road

The hotel was one whose format we had been advised was great for cyclists, the rooms were accessed from an outer walkway rather than corridors where we were able to hang clothes up to dry after washing them and the evening meal would be a good spread of a buffet.
However once again things weren't plain sailing at the hotel, to start with check in wasn't too easy as the receptionist only spoke slightly more English than I speak French (Robbie again saving the day), then we were given the key card for a room with a faulty lock, however we didn't find this out until we had hauled our bikes up the narrow twisting staircase.

When we got hungry we crossed to the restaurant and discovered that we were half an hour early for food, despite the buffet being set out ready.  Further to this the menu showed kitchen cooked options that could be added to the meal, but we were told this wasn't available; with the hotel clearly busy I thought the restaurant would be too but as we grazed over a buffet of sliced cold meats, fruit, veg and skewers of meat to cook on the grill at the buffet only 2 other guests arrived to eat.
This seemed all rather odd to me but I got a good feed in none the less.

We felt the breakfast option at the hotel was overpriced so heading into Évreux the next morning we were looking for a Patisierie for breakfast, we found one next to the a square with a view of the centre piece cathedral and got ourselves ready for the day ahead.

Évreux

This was to be the longer day, around 140km to the ferry port and once again it was looking like a scorcher.  I'd failed to use a zip tie to hold the buckle strap in place on my shoe so had simply lashed it to the lower velcro straps and hoped I'd be able to hold them tight enough to ride in which thankfully proved to be the case.  The one way system took us through the historic sights of the city and spat us out onto a busy road which I'd set the route up to avoid as soon as possible; this took us on the cycle path up to the hospital before cutting across into Parvile which the main road bypassed, after this I had spotted an old road through a field in the satellite mapping but the farmer had long since reclaimed the land by swamping the tarmac with dirt.

We were back out in the fields again passing through small villages and the occasional town, I'd designed the return route to be north of the outbound route so that we got different scenery and towns. Beaumont-Le-Roger and Serquingy proved to not have anything worth stopping for on a Sunday morning and it wasn't until Bernay that we stopped for lunch at the only place open, the Super U Express.  We'd caught the shop just in time as no sooner were we sitting outside with our lunches than the staff locked the entrance door and took in the seats we hadn't occupied.  Thankfully they let us sit and eat before taking them in too and locking up for the day.

Wheeler Dealer Mayor?

The supermarket meal was surprisingly filling and we set out again as we rolled towards Thiberville I spotted a mayors office on a corner in the road at Faverolles-les-mares decked out with the trappings of a used car dealership and old style signage for the tuning of Carburettors of makes now long passed into the history books owned by Dellorto (Weber and Solex).
This amused me, where else would a mayor also be a wheeler dealer of automobiles?
Only the fictional Walford and Erinsborough came to mind.



We were going well on the road when I heard a buzz followed by a splatting between my Casquette and Sun Glasses followed by a sharp pain, I'd been stung.  I eructed a stream of profanities that although not much trouble for the writers of Roger's Profanisaurus would be rather unwelcome in polite company. The pain didn't last long but I could feel the skin swelling up and had to stop to give it a check using my phone's selfie camera and a wash from my bottle of water.
I could see the swelling was going down already so reckoned I'd live and carried on again with the gap between glasses and hat closed.

Lisieux

Carrying along the road two large buildings appeared up on the hill beside us, the first clearly the dome of a Basilica and the second a bell tower of the same though it looked like a brutalist cheese grater to me.

Our road into Lisieux joined the road to the Basilica but we chose to ride into town stopping at the first Tabac we found; finding space for the bikes proved tricky and I never thought to consider the trees so I placed it against the poles of the access ramp.
I stepped into the road in a traffic gap to get a photo and posted it to facebook; within seconds I got a message from a school friend "My friend owns a bar right next to where you are!".  Sadly the bar in question was not the Tabac so any chance of wangling a free coca and ice cream were lost.
The manager stepped outside and rambled something at me in French; Robbie looked at me and told me to put my bike against the tree. The motions to indicate that the poles weren't strong enough showed me the problem after I'd moved the bike, by now Robbie was in discussion with the manager and briefly thought I might be in a bit more trouble, however Robbie told me he was asking about where we were going and why to Ouistream and not Le Havre for the ferry! Robbie didn't translate me response of "Well it was cheaper wasn't it".

There was a sharp climb on a small road out of town through some woods only to lose the height in 2 stages shortly afterwards and then we were back out into the fields for the afternoon, once again with nowhere to hide from the sun I was struggling with the heat and at Le Ham I used up the last of my water though I thankfully knew we weren't far from Troarn where I hoped there'd be another Tabac.

As we rode on a triangle junction with a stone monument appeared, it depicted 3 men tied to a stake in the ground and was provided with a plaque advising of it's dedication.  My lack of French did not prevent me from understanding.

 

Memorial to honour the memory and recognise the sacrifice of the 28 Martyrs of France executed by the Nazis during the battle of Normandy.  Their bodies were found in a muddy bomb hole, 11 unidentified bodies are buried at the foot of the clock tower of the church nearby.

At Troarn I rode into the town square to look for a Café or Tabac, but Robbie had already spotted one and made a beeline for it, a nice steel George Longstaff was leaning against the wall in the sun and its rider, Ian was sitting enjoying an afternoon drink in the shade of the Tabac.
We got talking and discovered that he had been riding back to the coast in the group with Lucy and Dick McTaggart!  He had been split from them due to a mechanical failure on the tandem trike making them decide to travel part of the way to their next stop by train and the sliding doors shut on him as he was the last to attempt to board and so had to ride on.

Robbie and Ian riding to the bridge

We set off together towards Caen, and at Pegasus Bridge Ian said goodbye and carried on to the west.  On the way south I hadn't had a good change to explore the monuments dotted around the east side of the bridge, and found that each one located where one of the three Horsa gliders had crash landed.  On the other side of the road there was signed a monument however it turned out to be a museum with the original bridge and a load of flag poles along with an entrance fee neither of us were willing to pay. I wasn't overly impressed with the manner in which the staff member lowering the flags carried out his duty either.


We crossed the bridge and checked out the restaurants in the area, it was either far to early or far too touristy, the problem was I was getting hangry, thankfully Robbie spotted a Patisserie which recovered me from the perils of hanger and set me up to carry on to the coast.

At the coast we went to find the monuments dotted along the road parallel to the beach which was code named "Sword" for the battle of Normandy where the British commanded forces had landed, the primary memorial sitting the dunes with statues of the operation leaders. The dunes insulated the memorial from the sounds of the beach from the road but as you climbed the steps the sound of the waves and then people enjoying themselves at the beach as you reached the top.
In contrast the battle sites I've visited which usually sit on a bleak muir such as Culloden or Bannockburn it seemed quite strange but also apt tht people are free to enjoy the beach without the rigidity of the fascism that was being fought there.

Further on up the road there is a monument to Piper Bill Millin, a Canadian born Scotsman who lead Lord Lovat's Commando's up the beach in contravention of what Lovat put as "English War Office's" Regulations armed only with a set of Highland bagpipes and a Sgian Dubh.
His survival can be partly put down to the Nazi snipers determination that Millin had gone mad!

Piper Bill Millin

The quality of the eating establishments was considerably better here too and the first we tried was fully booked for the evening.  The second was set up with seats out in a hedge surrounded patio area and we wheeled the bikes in much to the consternation of the garçon who indicated to us that there was a bike rack at the side of the building.  The small wheel bender based device wasn't ideal and was well hidden from our sight but not from the road, it'd have to do. The meal was decent though and it wasn't long before it was time to head for the ferry.

Facilities in the vehicle waiting area at Ouistream were only slightly better than at Portsmouth, it was basically a wide smoking shelter.  A motorbike along with its rider and pillion passenger were already there and not long after we arrived another PBP rider appeared the appropriately named Mr Pain!
We passed the time talking, and checking out the motorbike before we were allowed to board. I had changed my shoes without thinking about the distance to the linkspan's bridge and ended up running up the ramp and onto the ferry.

On board once again the cabins weren't ready but this time we tried to sneak in too early and were on the receiving end of a huff from the crew member doing our corridor.  We slinked off to the bar to pass the time before sneaking back in to find the cabin ready.  After a days riding we were ready to use the shower which was rather impressive and Robbie went straight to bed and sleep while I took in the evening air.  The forecast sea conditions were Smooth to Slight and it proved to be that, I was only woken once by the movement of the ship and was woken for the morning by the Breton wake up call when "Dremmwel "Lans" part N° 4 "Troellenn" is piped into the cabin.

Misty Morning in Portsmouth

From the cabin I could hear and out on deck I could see that we were sailing through a thick fog up the Solent so none of the sights were to be seen.  After disembarkation I forgot that my bike computer wouldn't correct its time until I had connected it to the phone.  We went looking for Cafés and I started getting confused as to why they were all closed at 8am.  Of the few sights to see in Portsmouth none of them are particularly accessible if you've a bike with you either and the historic dockyard an spinnaker tower were out of the question.  Eventually we found the Gregs and Robbie was itching to get back to London to meet friends who were there.  I decided to find something to do until the train we were booked on rather than pay and rode round the coast to the Hayling Ferry and back, I had half forgotten that it was an English bank holiday and unlike in Scotland where most people don't even know when the equivalent local holidays are, most people get the day off so the beach was busy and the food stalls were doing a roaring trade.


I then stood and watched the hovercraft arrive before heading for Old Portsmouth to watch the ferries sail up the Solent and pass the time of day before heading for my train.

Mont St Michel Sails into Portsmouth Harbour

Touristic Road Rat

I caught the train to London and found Robbie and Stan at the Whole Foods in Piccadilly where I had a late lunch consisting of some weird London food, I guess they need to eat healthily to make up for the damage the manky air does.

Two of Robbies other friends arrived and we set off for a bike based cycle tour, sadly I forgot to restart my Wahoo at one point so I've just got a long jump from Picadilly to Tower Bridge recorded, I have no idea where I was or went but Stan was leading and seemed to know where we were going as we hopped from Cycle Super Highway to Alleyways and Courtyards.

Robbie received a text from Serco about our sleeper having a fault in the kitchen, sadly the level of maintenance in the old carriages is clearly as poor as the quality of what they've been delivered in the new ones and it was to be a drinks only service in the lounge car.
So we did as anyone else would in this situation and got a Nando's in for the journey!

In the Lounge car it was was a full house, with travellers for Fort William also using the Aberdeen lounge car until Edinburgh it was a very social affair. I got talking to a German tourist who avoids flying and likes to visit football grounds while on holiday, ideally with West Ham.
Robbie went to bed first but I stayed up talking until I was tired and got another good nights sleep only waking around Crewe and at Edinburgh before waking again somewhere just before Montrose where I decided it was time to get up and sit in the lounge car until Aberdeen.

I'd booked a ticket from Aberdeen back to Dundee to save myself the 5am wake up call, so while Robbie headed home for a shower and a quick blat to work I sat down to a Lorne Roll in the pumpkin Café and waited for my train home.

The End