Only problem is we are stuck in Newhaven for the afternoon and spend a long evening in the Volunteer B&B and an awful restaurant where you serve yourself processed food pretending to be fresh and have to avoid children running to or from a large bear wandering around the dining rooms.
The wind has died down so it is more pleasant to wait out in the open in a queue for the ferry. Two touring cyclists join us from the previous evening. One is a rock-climbing teacher in the Lake District. They are cycling down to Spain to do some climbing. Their plans are vague and their only route is to go south. It makes us realise how detailed our own plans are (even though it is unusual for us to have booked a restaurant as we have for this evening...). We do this so we don't waste time studying maps or getting onto bigger, more traffic laden roads. Sufficient adventure is provided by the disappearance of roads, the quality of hotels and restaurants and the preponderance (or not) of food shops during the day.
The 7:30 sailing has us in France by 10:40 and by 11am we are out of Dieppe on what would usually be a busy road. (This is Easter Sunday.) Otherwise, we would have left Dieppe via Pourville or Arques. The countryside is lovely despite the cold wind (happily behind us, from the NE) and the flurries of rain which visit us over the lunchtime and early afternoon. A high point is Cleres which is dominated by a 15th century sandstone chateau decorated with motifs in brick and flint. An open air zoo occupies part of the chateau's park. We cycle past a variety of animals but miss seeing any kangaroos. The wooden covered market protects us from a brief shower and allows us to admire this "prettiest village". The countryside reminds me of Perthshire. Lovely spring foliage raises our spirits.
Our entry into Rouen is very quiet, along the Chemin de Cleres, past Graham's former house where he lived in 1979-80 when he was teaching at the Lycée Corneille (Flaubert's school). The Hotel de la Cathedrale (rue Saint-Romain) is perfectly placed and attractive with good sized rooms. On the west door of Saint Maclou we see a wooden engraving of "God before the Creation". I am rather disappointed to see what appears to be an older man with a long white beard reading a parchment while sitting on a pillow of clouds.
La Couronne, founded in 1345, is the oldest inn in France. The tall wooden structure dotted with numerous windows also sports flags from all over the world. This would be a bad sign in Britain but here in France the restaurant is in the Bottin Gourmand and the idea seems to be to keep up or even improve on the reputation of this marvellous place. Fantastic service, an attractive dining room with the most amazingly huge flower display is just one of the many rooms in the building, as we find out later when we are given a tour of the circuitous hallways and some of the private dining rooms far up in the attic where signed photos of famous cyclists decorate the walls. We are offered a menu from the Tour de France 2002 at the end of the personal tour.
The dinner is delicious : black pudding salad (M), fois gras pate (G), stew w/duck and fois gras toast (M), baby pig w/nut cake (G), two perfect Norman cheeses with salad, a very light flavourful apple souffle (M) and "hive (ice cream) w/ bees (apple balls)" (G). Cotes de Bourg wine. Gin/peach liquor and champagne aperitif.
Good quality buffet breakfast in an attractive room overlooking a courtyard delays our start until 9:45. On the outskirts of Rouen we stop to admire what is left of
Flaubert's Pavillion where he wrote Sentimental Education and Madame Bovary. I recall his description of the Seine and even though it is now industrialised, one can still see the open sweep of the river. At Le Val-de-la-Haye we find ourselves along the Quai de Napoleon marked at one point by a monument to Napoleon's ashes which were returned in 1842.
We cross the Seine at Sahurs in a ferry which is free for cyclists, as a waiting motorist points out, and soon find ourselves going up a steep and long ascent. Food is purchased at Bourgtheroulde (only place open in the course of the day so a lucky stop). In Brionne, site of a Donjon, we stop to eat some of the food and admire the antics of a grey wagtail catching insects in the fast flowing river. Giverville is very pretty with a ruined chateau. We are cycling through attractive Norman countryside (i.e. well maintained farms, brick/stone decorated buildings for people and animals, colourful flower gardens). For the last 13 miles we follow a complex route on tiny roads. We turn every half a kilometre and I am glad not to be the map reader. A very steep 10% descent into Lisieux completes this long day.
La Coupe d'Or is modern and nondescript, like most of Lisieux. No dinner served on Easter Monday so we are forced to go to a Brasserie which is (as ever) expensive for what one gets and is not as good as promised. Or maybe I am just too tired to eat. A sign in the window says "Welcome to our liberators", referring to 1944.
Breakfast is the traditional bread and hot drink only so not surprising we are off by 8:45. Another long day is promised by the route. Near St Cyr (the middle of nowhere) a man drives up alongside and asks us what club we are a member of in Britain. He admires our Roberts bikes, which is not surprising as he is from Croydon! He wishes us well and disappears down the empty road.
At Le Sap, when we stop to buy some more food I notice a poster advertising the Paris-Camembert race. A gendarme, some railings and the beginnings of a crowd prompt me to calculate the dates and realise that the race is going to go through this town. Unfortunately, according to the gendarme, not for another two hours, so we don't feel we can wait that long. What a shame - but it is fun to think we are on the same roads which in a few hours time will see much faster cyclists whirling past.
Several high points - St Evroult Notre-Dame-du-Bois is a ruined abbey, founded in the 6th century, rebuilt in the 13th and once again now in ruins. We eat lunch while sitting amongst the ruins, admiring the view of the artificial lake kitted out with orange pedalos. It is clear from the remains how the pillars and walls were constructed. A cat is our only company in this very quiet place. Our next abbey is still functioning. We approach the Abbaye de la Trappe through a forest which shows traces of "slash and burn" and is generally unkempt. This abbey was founded in the 11th century. In the 17th C the Abbé de Rancé introduced the silence commonly associated with Trappist monasteries. The silence at this abbey is broken by the noise from the audio-visual tour. A monk who walks past us says "good weather" rather than the expected "Brother we must die". A French touring cyclist from the North comes up to shake our hands. The forests on the other side of the abbey are extremely well-maintained. The differing shades of green glow in the slanting sunshine. The forests are often fronted by wide open pastures with creamy white cows or furry brown cows munching grass by the fence. Recently born ponies and lambs prance about the fields.
Mortagne-au-Perche is a wonderful find, as is the Tribunal hotel. It is a very pretty, well-preserved, almost Cotswoldian town in an extremely quiet region (even on the big roads there is no traffic). The hotel room is nicely decorated and more in keeping with a three star establishment. A walking tour of the town around our hotel reveals a 15th century church, 16th century cloisters and various 17th and 18th century former private homes.
After a good shower we are ready for what will be one of our best dinners. Salade perche is composed of Norman cheese, ham and salad greens. Black pudding souffle with baked apple is G's starter. Pork cooked in a sweet sauce with apples is very nice as is the apple tart covered in calvados then set alight. I have the equally filling blinis with apples and various homemade ice creams. A good 1997 Cotes de Blaye wine completes the meal.
An easterly wind at 25mph is not welcome as we are heading east today. The best buffet breakfast of the trip is consumed before we head out at 8:30. This is the first day back at school and we are on the main B road out of Mortagne. However, we only see 8 cars between 8:30 and 9:00 and only 15 cars by the time we reach Longny. Plus the road has a nice smooth surface (unlike the previous day). There are lots of hills until we reach the Eure-et-Loir department, but the gradients are fine and we go through some attractive forests. In one of them, at the top of a hill, we come across a cycle club from the Perche region. We pass them but I keep thinking they will catch us up, especially as we have a natural break (Tour de France euphemism!). However, it takes some time before two of them finally catch up with us, just before they turn off, and ask us where we are going, how far we are going, etc. It is good practice for my French as the conversation is about something other than food!
Soon afterward, we are crossing the Beauce plain for the second time (last time we were going to Chartres, which is only 20 kilometres away at one point) and once again a very strong wind is against us. The road surface becomes rough and the numerous rape fields become a bit dull. But soon we are in the Yvelines region and the landscape becomes more varied. We enter the Rambouillet forest just as a very large cycle club passes us over a 20 minute period (i.e. in total six considerable packs of riders going at different speeds, more or less divided by age). They are colourful as well as friendly.
In the forest we get onto a path which reminds me of the Landes. The path ends at the D936, which is the first busy road we have seen all day. The protected bike lane makes it a very easy entry into this small town. The hotel is just a few hundred yards from the end of the path. The Saint Charles (rue de Groussay) is a modern motel but the rooms are a good size and quiet so it is fine. We have a view of the barracks which are there to protect the many Heads of State who visit this "summer home" of the President. We walk past the chateau on our way to La Poste restaurant (having found the Le Cheval Rouge - Bottin Gourmand - closed).
Salad is followed by "two fish in a sauce" while G has a lamb dish with aubergine and a large potato casserole. The town reminds us of an English cathedral town with its extremes of wealth and poverty. Lots of very nice food shops interspersed with pubs where alcoholics are more visible than usual. We are fairly close to Paris.
A boring and fairly expensive breakfast served by a woman wearing male aftershave but it is another lovely day and we are soon on the cycle path out of Rambouillet. The woods full of mature trees are beautiful on this sunny morning. 17 degrees but heating up quickly. The path meanders and soon we are in copses full of young bushy trees. Lots of bird song. Good signposting, though we are slightly alarmed by the signs which show the distance increasing rather than decreasing. As we leave the forest path we just miss two bus loads of children (age 10?) heading off into the woods on their bikes.
It is very quiet, even on the roads. Montfort is a pretty town on a steep hilltop with a castle, popular with Parisians. A local woman tells us that in the summer it's like living in Disneyland. A vegetable and fruit stall is more pleasant and colourful than the Intermarché on the edge of town. We stop in Montchauvet at a former washhouse for breakfast. Unusually, we have a bench and a litter bin at this attractive site. St Illiers church has a covered porch which offers us some protection from the hot sun. We read about a pilgrimage that will leave from this church and three others to an even older church. Cicadas and lizards come out in the heat.
A wide open plain ending in abrupt hills marks our return to the Seine. Giverny is full of tourists, even on this weekday. The stationmaster at Bonnieres had told us that the irises were coming out and that we were lucky not to be going to Giverny on the weekend. It is so full of tourist shops plus a Disneyesque Monet house and gardens that it is hard to get a sense of what the original village was like. We climb out of Giverny up a steep hill and then across field after field for over 20 kilometres until we enjoy a 2 kilometre descent into Les Andelys.
We are returning to La Chaine d'Or, an extremely posh hotel. Our room this time is even better and we spend the rest of the day trying out the furniture in our bedroom/suite and enjoying the views over the Seine in the late afternoon sunshine. The marble fireplace has a massive mirror which reflects the chandelier and 18th century wooden armoire. A small island is positioned across from us, as promised by the copy of a 1750 Cassini map G has brought along. We read about the fortress, just around the bend of the river, built by Richard Lionheart in 1196. In 1203, the French Philippe-Auguste mounts an attack via the latrines and defeats the English. A nice twist. We are also interested in a fountain where Clotilde, wife of Clovis, founded a monastery in the 6th century. The well of the fountain supposedly flowed with wine for the workmen during the building of the monastery. It then turned to water which was supposed to be curative. Attempts to stop pilgrims during the Revolution failed. The renting of rooms about the fountain so that men could watch women bathing didn't stop the faithful. The death of children with fever who were dunked in the water didn't stop others from trying the cure. It is now appears to be under reconstruction.
Dinner begins with an avocado mousse, pieces of onion tart and cheese twists hot from the oven. St Emilion wine from 1997 (St Georges) is very good. Red tuna salad is followed by a beef steak and vegetables, Norman cheese with salad, Bavarois with pineapple and sorbet. Delicious meal and excellent service. Reasonable price for the quality of food.
Breakfast is good and varied but rather claustrophobic in a small dark room with several other British couples. Not much traffic despite the size of the town. A slight morning chill on this cloudy day. We cycle through very pretty woods and soon arrive in Lyons-la-Foret, full of half-timbered houses, a large covered market place and lots of attractive shops and houses (so not surprising it is another "prettiest village"). We also go through Vascoeuil, where one can visit a 14th - 16th century chateau made famous by Michelet who used to spend time here and wrote many of his works.
Next we cycle into Ry, which, since the 19th century has been seen as the model for the town where Flaubert's Madame Bovary takes place. It is not as touristy as expected and is an interesting town in its own right. Very long, straight main street, as in Flaubert's fictitious Yonville. The Tourist Office is open and we are given various brochures to describe a variety of "Madame Bovary" sites in the valleys we go through on our way to my favorite "pays de Bray" (not just because we always seem to have a strong wind behind us when we go through this region). A few miles before Dieppe, we suddenly see a clutch of giant wigwams and a herd of buffalo (a Canadian wildlife park).
We arrive in Dieppe an hour earlier than expected due to the wind and check into the Hotel Windsor (as in 2001) with views of the sea. Cloud and rain descend just as we return to the hotel from a shopping trip and we enjoy our final, very delicious meal in France, looking out to the sun setting over the English Channel.
Saturday: Ferry leaves a few minutes late at 11:15am and we are soon back on British Rail trying to return home. Many hours later than expected (due to train cancellations) we are home to simpler food and a washing machine. A great trip, though too brief.
Cost: 910 Euros for food and accomodation, so, £73 for two people per day.
With transport @ £116.00, the daily cost over 8 days becomes £96 pounds for two people per day.