St Giles le Croix to Sable d’Olonne
Tuesday 13th October.
On leaving town we had a very easy morning’s ride along the coast. Yet more sandy tracks and pine trees until we came to some open coast line at La Sauzaie. Here were proper Atlantic rollers with a lot of surfers having a great time riding the waves. They were all pretty professional and had obviously spent much time perfecting the art. Alec wondered why they weren’t all at work! Again not many girls so they obviously are all at work. We have found out where the females are. They are all postmen or work in the boulangerie.
After watching the antics of the surfers we had worked up quite a thirst so had to try some local wine. We are now in Sauvignon Blanc country, (having been in Muscadet). We went through more marshes and saw some Swallows going over - think they will be the last, and arrived at Les Sables D’Ollonne by about 6 and booked in to a little B and B in a clos on the edge of the marsh. We dumped our bags and biked off to the Port to see these famous sands in the sunset. I think the town must have been flattened in the War as it is almost entirely 1960’s high rise blocks on the front. However the beach is huge and the inner harbor was full of fairly impressive boats. For anyone who is not a sailor, this is where the last Vendee Globe Yacht race started from, which was subsequently won by a French man so much around the town refers to it. We found a very small restaurant on the inner harbor where the owner/chef/ barman cooked us up a feast of sardines, and the lightest warm chocolate gateau I have ever tasted. The restaurant was full of athletic looking sailing types (who demonstrated France’s complete disregard of the smoking ban but they did ask if we minded before lighting up!) so lots to look at. We had such a jolly evening we could not remember where we lived so took hours getting back.
We have now done 800 miles, but looking at the map have hardly made much of an impression on France, and there is still a long way to the Spanish border.
Tuesday 13th October.
On leaving town we had a very easy morning’s ride along the coast. Yet more sandy tracks and pine trees until we came to some open coast line at La Sauzaie. Here were proper Atlantic rollers with a lot of surfers having a great time riding the waves. They were all pretty professional and had obviously spent much time perfecting the art. Alec wondered why they weren’t all at work! Again not many girls so they obviously are all at work. We have found out where the females are. They are all postmen or work in the boulangerie.
After watching the antics of the surfers we had worked up quite a thirst so had to try some local wine. We are now in Sauvignon Blanc country, (having been in Muscadet). We went through more marshes and saw some Swallows going over - think they will be the last, and arrived at Les Sables D’Ollonne by about 6 and booked in to a little B and B in a clos on the edge of the marsh. We dumped our bags and biked off to the Port to see these famous sands in the sunset. I think the town must have been flattened in the War as it is almost entirely 1960’s high rise blocks on the front. However the beach is huge and the inner harbor was full of fairly impressive boats. For anyone who is not a sailor, this is where the last Vendee Globe Yacht race started from, which was subsequently won by a French man so much around the town refers to it. We found a very small restaurant on the inner harbor where the owner/chef/ barman cooked us up a feast of sardines, and the lightest warm chocolate gateau I have ever tasted. The restaurant was full of athletic looking sailing types (who demonstrated France’s complete disregard of the smoking ban but they did ask if we minded before lighting up!) so lots to look at. We had such a jolly evening we could not remember where we lived so took hours getting back.
We have now done 800 miles, but looking at the map have hardly made much of an impression on France, and there is still a long way to the Spanish border.
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