Amy: When did hills become a part of our daily ride ? We left Dieppe this morning and headed towards Paris. The first 50K of our ride was a long gradual climb on a great designated bike trail. I guess I shouldn’t have complained about the climb as the last 30K had much steeper hills. I was wishing I could decline the downhills as they were immediately followed by long steep uphills. Oh well, we are 80 K closer to Paris and we were able to get this far travelling on very quiet roads. Not to mention that I am consoling myself with Belgium chocolate. We are in Gourney-en-Bray and are at a hotel because there is no tent camping here (darn). We also managed to get a free internet signal which is an added bonus. We have gone about 1,030 K on our bikes so far and probably have about another 100 K to Paris. We have booked a one room cabin at a campground just outside of Paris (thanks Jana) and we plan to stay there a few days and do some day trips into Paris. From there we are exploring the possibility of renting a car to do the south of France, Italy and to get us back to Frankfurt. We would still do day trips with our bikes but could cover more ground with a vehicle.
I learned a valuable lesson the other day, don’t touch a barb-wire fence until you confirm that it is not an electric fence….Zap. I got quite the jolt but didn’t suffer any long lasting effects. I had been trying to pet a cow of all things. Patti thought I should have mentioned that the day we had to stop riding due to the rain and the wind, the sewers in Berck were bubbling over due to the enormous amounts of water.
The country side was beautiful today and there wasn’t any of the bomb shelters or gun positions that we saw along the coast. Hopefully it will flatten out a little for the rest of our ride to Paris.
