Day 48. 84km (85887kms 8yrs)
I got to meet my host Corine properly over breakfast; her story is an inspiration, but it’s not my story to tell here. Suffice it to say it was a privilege to meet such a woman.
Today I was heading for La Rochelle, and if like me you studied middle school French from Tricolore textbooks, you too will know La Rochelle as that mythical place Jean-Paul would gruffly order his sandwich jambon. So I’ve been waiting 30+ years to visit La Rochelle and was very eager to arrive and spend the afternoon there, but fate had other plans. The wind from the east had picked up fiercely so the battle through the flat landscape was a tedious one, spent mostly with my head down. Following Eurolvelo 1, the path was scratchy in parts, and I wobbled about in the wind atop dykes doing my best not to topple into the canals.
At last I could turn around the bay, leaving the eurovelo on its circuitous canal route to head instead straight into town, with the wind now behind me. I got concerningly close to the waterfront before anything became beautiful or interesting and I began to worry the La Rochelle was not everything my childhood French textbook had built it up to be. But once I reached the canal and followed it to the harbour I was instantly reassured; this truly was an absolutely gorgeous town. I learned later from my host Thierry that La Rochelle’s grandeur is thanks in large part to the port’s instrumental role in France’s slave trade. But for now in blissful ignorance I marvelled in its beauty, scooting around the harbour taking in as many sights as I could before our designated meeting time. I was amazed at the numbers of cyclists, joggers, apéritif-drinkers out on a weekday afternoon; the place was jam-packed with folk enjoying the sunshine.
After a dinner of crepes (containing a curiously rippled sausage which I enjoyed very much and learned after the fact is made of stomach) Thierry took me for a walk around the town. A rare treat to see a city at night La Rochelle is especially beautiful at this time of day, its arcades and steeples lit up now even more beautiful under there black sky than they’d been during the day.
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4 Comments
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What a battle, uphills would have been more easy!
Oh that wind! 🌬️ I would love to visit La Rochelle. 🫶🏼 Glad you made it safe and sound. 😊
Wild day on the bike and some nice gravel track 🚴