Pedalling for a Purpose

Mission accomplished.     We arrived in Saint-Brevin-les-Pins and dipped our toes in the Atlantic Ocean, after riding across France, east to west, from Mulhouse, near the Swiss border. We still had a short ride to Saint-Nazaire where we will spend the night and travel to Paris by train tomorrow. We've travelled over 1,300 km in 21 days, including 3 rest days in Nevers, Orleans, and Amboise. We experienced some of the best that France offers its visitors; cultural experiences, fine wines and food, and a glimpse of its history and heritage.   Today's ride ...   A few blogs I've read about the stage between Nantes and Saint-Nazaire described it as being a bit boring, however we found it great. Very diverse landscapes throughout the 65 km journey.   We started this morning with stands up at 9.00am, cycling back towards the Eurovelo 6 route on the northern side of the river. The traffic was chaos to us, however by the looks on Nantais' (natives of Nantes) faces it wa...

Our shortest day of riding for the trip ... for 3 of us. David made a promise to his wife to investigate a chateau that might make a great holiday destination at some point. Being a wonderful husband (as conveyed by David about David) he solemnly promised that he would do so. Unfortunately, we passed the turnoff for the said chateau yesterday, blissfully unaware we were soooo close. David was confident that it was still a day's ride away near Nantes! When David broke the news, we 3 Australians provided our input ... 'Catch an Uber', 'Tell your wife you saw it', 'Tell her it burnt down', etc. However, honourable David decided to add another 60 km to today's ride by heading back 30km to inspect a very very old chateau, then 30 km back to the morning's starting point, then 37 km to Nantes. Stewart, being David's buddy, offered to accompany him. We Australians looked down at our shoes averting eye contact, kicked some rocks, and said we didn't re...