Awoke to rain. This was more than our previous mists; real rain. But it stopped as we ate bfast, and just threatened for the rest of the day. We had a very short day planned because we ran into hotel booking troubles. It’s now the beginning of the French Holidays, much of France takes all of August off and goes on vacation. We called a ton of places yesterday via skype but couldn’t find a room in Dinan as it was Saturday night. We did have a room in Dinan for Sunday nite. We finally found a nite in a larger hotel in Plancoet which is about 20Km from Dinan. Dinan is supposed to be one of the best preserved medieval towns in Brittany.
As you can imagine April wasn’t too happy with the prospect of a nondescript larger hotel in some no name town.
Nice country ride again. We’re heading inland, so it was all rolling farmland. Looks a little like the farms/fields of eastern Pennsylvania (Valley Forge et al). As usual huge hedgerows along almost all roads. They love the freaking hedgerows here. I don’t get it. They build up at least a 3 foot hedgerow along the roads. A pretty good one is 5-6 feet, and we’ve seen some monster 10+ footers with all sorts of old tress and roots on them. And some of the roads are even sunken. The field are 3-4 feet above the road. April read something about these sunken roads, but now we can’t find that info.
Btw - We’ve seen all sorts of crops on our ride: corn, wheat, oats, hay, tomatoes, potatoes, onions, cabbages, cauliflower, zucchini, artichokes, peas, peppers. And the farms are very intermingled with the villages. Lots of birds, I think it’s the dove’s that are constantly calling a 6-note song.
Ride was easy, we’re powering up the gradual slopes in a fairly high gear. Two old guys passed us on racing bikes as we were studying the maps, and we almost caught them on the up hill. It’s usually been old guys who are out on the road bikes. A few young guys, but 80% old bucks.
We get to Plancoet and find our hotel and April freaks. It looks shitty, the guy shows us our room, it’s even shittier. Truth is it’s a square, simple room with no character, but large, almost clean and quiet. I give April a lecture on craving and aversions. She goes to look around and I unpack and shower knowing that if I don’t she’ll try to change the room and maybe even the hotel. She comes back pissed that I had moved in. Ha-ha. Ah the games people play.
We walked around town, hit a great Brasserie for lunch. Nothing fancy but the best moules of the trip so far. Not much in this town. Visited a very large antique/junk shop. Then went back to the room to nap. Unfortunately we napped almost to dinner. On these biking trips the body does get tired and worn down so we can usually nap anytime/anywhere.
We had dinner in our hotel because the demi-pension was a good price. But dinner sucked, I had to eat both plates (fish and chicken). Then we hit the sack again. Read and then because we had napped so long and late April couldn’t sleep. And she tossed and turned so much she kept waking me up. Then she read with the headlamp, awfully bright. Then she complained about the window arrangement. Then in the mroning she claimed she got bug bites. Then she complained about bfast price for what we got. Then she declared this wasn’t a three star hotel. I knew I was bad when I complained about the Voies Verte but this was truly world class sniping.
Morale of the story. Let the Tiger pick the hotel and the room!
Now here’s the kicker. We’re staying in this shitbox because it was all we could find at a reasonable price. Then we get a mail from Ethan who blew a wad of cash to fly over from London to Amsterdam for the weekend with his cousin POC.
In his own words, making a guest appearance in this Blog, Ethan....
“ i got upgraded to business class for the flight and then we got upgraded at the hotel from a deluxe room to "the super deluxe sweet". this place is insane, the ceilings are about 25 feet high and everything is designed for rest&relaxation, we are in heaven. they have these huge windows (15-20 feet high) that have a remote control curtain. we just both rolled out of our plush beds and hit the remote to bring in the sun, classic, couple of wangstas livin it up. yesterday we walked around a bunch and hit the spa, we were pretty tired but feel alot better today and are ready to crush out sights. the spa was pretty awesome, nice pool with a "starry sky" over it, 3 different saunas, steam room, hot tub, lounge chairs and a nice rain shower - talk about the ultimate leisure trip. we ate at a decent spanish tapas place and didnt stay out too late, tonight we'll probably go to some bars. having a blast, and free wireless at the hotel!”
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