Back in the saddle again!
Trip Start
Jun 08, 2008
1
31
38
Trip End
Aug 11, 2008
Noyon,
France
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Long day. We had a late start today. Regretfully , we left the beautiful house and friends in Paris about 10am. After packing our bikes up, we rode down the steep hill to the train station. We rode the train across Paris to the north side, having no desire to fight Paris traffic all day, especially in the hot sun. The train took forever to get to Cairn, our last stop. We hopped off the train and rode into town to pick up lunch. Thankfully, we found a farmers market just before the vendors stared packing up and got some decent fruit. Then, right across the street, we found a bakery that had some decent sandwiches. Don't confuse European sandwiches with those found in the US... Here, a sandwich consists usually of a 12" to 16" fresh baggette sliced open lengthwise with a tiny amount of either meat or cheese placed in the opening. If your lucky, you might find crudite which includes a tiny amount of lettuce and maybe 2 or 3 slices of tomato and hard boiled egg as well
Reflections
. It was a hot day. Luckily, we found a pleasant route that took us through what Europeans call a forest. This is an area designated as forest land which is basically a manicured park with paved trails and trees planted almost in rows. The undergrowth is even kept to a minimum probably to help prevent forest fires. following a roadside map, we rode through the forest to a small town that had a Gite in it. A gite is generally an old farm cottage that has been converted into a rental (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gîte). This farmer apparently was on holiday. After asking around, we found that not only was there no other option for accommodation, but there was also no store or restaurant in town either. We rode up a long, steep hill to the next town. Here, we found that there was no where to stay either and the only store/bar/cafe was no longer serving food, but there was definitely a gite in the next town... This went on for almost 4 hours and over 20k. By the time we made it to Noyon, we were tired, hungry and cranky! We found the only open hotel in town and then walked around, trying to find food. This is definitely not Spain where people are just sitting down for dinner at 10pm. All the restaurants were closed or closing. We stumbled into a Japanese restaurant that still had a table finishing their dinner and after a ouple minutes of talking to them, they must have seen our desperation so they let us stay, even re-opening the kitchen. 
Comments
Traveling Man
You are going to be in great shape when you return! Excellent bonfire stories! I could just feel the pain, the exhiliration, the hunger, the survivor instinct, and mostly the sense of satisfaction! I'm exhausted now, I think I'll have a glass of vino tinto!