Channelling to the world's most famous pond and the Champs Elysees

Leaving Hove for the Brighton train station to go to Newhaven for the ferry, we started passing cyclists coming from Brighton, wearing bibs with numbers on them, looking exhausted. We talked to a couple at the train station and found they had cycled overnight from London to Brighton – the third annual event of its kind, organised to raise money for charity. And you think we are crazy.
After a short train ride to Newhaven, we were on a ferry to Dieppe, only four hours on a very calm Channel. Seeing the white cliffs at both Newhaven and Dieppe suggests that these two bits of land were actually connected at one time and ripped asunder by gigantic forces to protect the French and English from each other.

Leaving Newhaven for Dieppe on a glassy English Channel

We only stayed one night in Dieppe so we didn't have enough time to visit this very interesting city with lots of history, including a disastrous raid by Canadian troups in 1942. Although the raid was a terrible failure, with much loss of mostly Canadian lives, a number of lessons were learnt that proved invaluable for the Normandy invasion two years later.
We arrived in Dieppe on Bastille Day, and could have watched the fireworks, but went to bed instead.

The foreshore at Dieppe is infamous for the failed Allied raid
during WW2. The town has worked hard with a number of
festivals to exorcise the ghosts.

Then Neuchatel-en-Bray celebrated Bastille Day the next evening, with a dance in the square next to the church, and a parade down to the river for fireworks at 11 pm. Instead of participating, we went to bed again. Must be getting old.
Only a couple of kilometres outside Dieppe, we come to a terrific cycle path, shared only with pedestrians, people on roller blades, etc – no horses or horse poo to avoid (did I mention that in Sussex horses shared the paths with us?). This was another disused rail line, so almost dead straight, only a slight uphill grade, beautifully surfaced and signposted – when the French do it well, they do it so well! So apart from the occasional barriers and crossroads to navigate, we could zoom along very easily. We

Tracks removed but they left a few rail signals as reminders of things past

Rail station converted to a top class restaurant--closed for Bastille Day.

still only cover 30-40 kilometres a day at most. Pulling the trailers is not getting any easier. The first day took us to Neufchatel-en-Bray, famous for Newufchatel cheese, a bit like Camembert, but more bitey. We found it used in all sorts of ways, including wrapped in filo pastry topping a salad, or grilled on toast. The most interesting use was in a dessert, where it was blended with creme fraiche, put on a pastry base and topped with caramelised pears. Unusual but very nice once you got over the surprise.

Bored with beautiful French countryside? Sign posts along the course scaled the distance between the planets

Another ex-station but this time as a rest stop and herb garden.

Unfortunately, after Forges-les-Eaux the old train line ended and from there onto back roads. We had found out about an Englishman who had worked out a somewhat different route into Paris, and we wanted to try it. However, while Lee was able to load it on the Garmin, following the directions on paper would have been a nightmare. We tried the Garmin route, and it sent us about 10 km off both his course and the Avenue Verte, up a long hill, through beautiful countryside, but still .... So we are back to the Avenue Verte route. We also have had to slow right down so as not to get to Paris before our hotel booking, on the day before the Tour de France finishes.
We spent two nights at Forges-les-Eaux and went in to Rouen by train one day. Although Rouen is not at all amenable to cyclists, with limited cycle paths through the city, the old city that you would want to visit is not far from the train station and relatively easily navigated, even in the busy traffic. The very new church built in 1979 to honour Joan of Arc is quite amazing – very modern architecture and yet at one with its surroundings, and well integrated with the market next to it. This is a national monument as well as a holy place. The simplicity of the altar and the building generally seemed to me more impressive and at the same time holy than many much grander churches I have been in – including the much more famous Cathedral of Rouen. The museum of Beaux-Arts in Rouen had put together a very impressive exhibition on the place of the cathedral in art over the centuries, and the museum's permanent collection contained some wonderful Impressionist paintings, amongst others. One thing about the museum which impressed me was its large number of paintings by female painters, with information notices about the women themselves. Not surprisingly, few of them were able to get into the major academies or schools of art, or compete for the major prizes, or even paint nudes in painting classes, until the 20th century.
We are now at the beginning of the Grandes Vacances, where all French people who can leave wherever they are for somewhere else. We have seen this every time we were here – there is always something on the news about the roads being clogged on this particular weekend, but it doesn't seem to change anything. We did get caught again by not booking far enough ahead for the weekend, so we ended up staying in Gournay-en-Bray, an odd town with nothing obvious to recommend it. Worse, we are actually at a hotel about 2 kilometres out of town, with lousy airconditioning and limited Wi-Fi access. We both have colds and the weather has been very dicky this weekend, so it was not a bad idea to sit tight and not try to cycle, but it hasn't been the best place to be stuck.

Probably the worst hotel in France.

ro

Several floors of unoccupied rooms 

The empty restaurant where it was at least cool. Rarely staffed.

The hotel parking lot with two cars owned by staff.

Les Jardins d'Epicure

A sauna and swim before dinner. Nancy swims between the grand piano
and the dumb waiter for the meals.

 The annex in France: the Villa Florentine

We hit some interesting hotels along the way. We mostly stayed in ones mentioned in the Avenue Verte booklet, which welcomed cycles. The outstanding entry in this particular competition is Les Jardins d'Epicure, a "Domaine of Exception" according to its website, in a miniscule town called Bray-et-Lu. This hotel/restaurant is more pretentious than any place we'ver ever stayed before. The main building dates from the Napoleon III period (built around 1850 by one of his generals). The building we were in was across the park and the River Epte (as in Inepte). From 911 until 1204 when Normandy was annexed to France, the Epte was the border between France and Normandy – we were in Normandy and the other hotel buildings and grounds were in France, with little signs on either side of the footbridge to let you know where you were.

You are now leaving France for Normandy

 Our room was in the Villa Florentine, built about 1650, and consequently probably the oldest building in the town. The decor of the rooms was suitably ostentatious, and the bathroom had not only a bathtub (increasingly uncommon in hotels) but two sinks! But the icing on the cake was the dining room, a grand room with glass ceilings, complete with swimming pool and piano. Check out the photo in the album. We did have one meal there, and then subsisted on bread and water for three days to bring our daily expenditure back to something more realistic (just joking – actually we spent the children's inheritance on dinner).

Even the bathroom she is foofy

Restaurant closed so a cold meal in our room.

We stayed at the Jardins d'Epicure two nights and did a day excursion to Giverny, famous for being Claude Monet's home and site of what must be the most famous pond in the world. Given that no photograph could possibly improve on Monet's Water Lilies paintings, the thing to photograph there was the people photographing the pond. We had to admire the way Giverny has been marketed, and yet even filled with tourists it was stylish and beautiful. Even so, you'd have to call it "Monet-land".

Monet

Visitors

Visitors

Visitors

Tosh for visitors

Water lillies in the rain

Attendents inside the house kept trying to stop people taking
photos but it was okay to take the view

Six full time gardeners in Monet Land

Visitors

More visitors

Lots more visitors

A great place to propose

From Bray-et-Lu we cycled only about 20 km to Cergy, and the next day to St Germain-en-Laye, practically on the edge of Paris. Needless to say, we had the usual adventures – getting lost seems to be one of our special strengths. Even along the Avenue Verte it is possible to make a mistake, as signs go missing, or are turned around. Also, the Avenue Verte doesn't go into most of the towns, so you have to find your own way in if you want to visit the attractions or have booked a hotel.

After climbing to the plateau it was still a good three kilometres
through gardens to our hotel.

Even a breadshop has interesting food.

Before the lunch rush in the back streets.

Municipal dog toilet 

St Germain-en-Laye was very much a case of finding your own way. It goes without saying that we couldn't follow the more obvious route Google Maps proposed, but selected the other one, which took us through some back streets, up steep hills (St Germain is perched on a high plateau), and then the way petered out and we could not find the tracks Google had promised us. So we tried bushbashing, pushing on further and further, until we finally emerged below a long terrace built in the late 1600s by Le Notre, extending 2.4 km away from the chateau and town. But at least we were at the top of the plateau and it was flat, so we were able to find our way in past the chateau to our hotel. The hotel was quite old, with a kind of faded grandeur, and of course didn't have air conditioning, on a 30C degree day! It was close to the chateau but half a kilometre or so away from the main part of the town, on the way out of town to a national park. We discovered later that it had been set up as a coaching house when the chateau was in use, which explained why it was there, but not why it was still operating.

From the palace terrace you can see
Paris

A day to explore the old city and the chateau, which is not set up for visits but instead holds the National Archeological Museum, established by Napoleon Bonaparte. The Chateau was the home of kings going way back, only being abandoned when Louis XIV decided Versailles was a better spot. Possibly most interesting is that the chateau which survived, called the Old Chateau, was replaced by a new one of which only a part remains – but that part is now a seriously upmarket hotel and restaurant.
Leaving St Germain-en-Laye we took a slightly easier route than going up, but still couldn't just go on the road – that would be too easy. First was three sets of stairs which 300 years ago were the first part of the series of terraces going from the chateau down about 200 metres to the river. Then a steep cobble-stone ramp, then a road which fortunately didn't have too much traffic for the rest of the quite rapid and rather exciting descent to the town of Le Pecq at the bottom of the plateau.

Big bridge over a canal so the barges could pass. In usual French
fashion the two lifts were broken so we had to carry the bikes and trailers

Bikeway? Well yes, we did have one but then....

From Le Pecq we travelled mostly on fair to good cycle paths, along the Seine. Of course on one occasion a high bridge crossed a stream and although a lift had been installed on each side of the stream, neither one worked, so we had to unhook the bikes and trailers and make two trips each to cross (I carried the bikes, Lee the trailers). The along the canals to Paris, with only one occasion where we got a bit lost, went off-course through St Ouen and Asnieres (not the best suburbs to get lost in), finally found the Bassin de la Villette canal basin, which we had gotten to know last year, and then to our hotel near the Gare de Lyon. As usually, this part of the Avenue Verte was generally well-signposted (except for where we got lost), and generally bike-only paths, but don't let that lull you into thinking that they really appreciate what it's like being on a bike. Especially near the canal Port de Colombes, where for a good half to 3/4 of a kilometre the cycle path was taken up by parked prime-movers waiting to pick up their trailers. And on another occasion, along the canal St Martin, where vhicles serving the open-air market had parked on the cycle path. It was Saturday afternoon in Paris, so a demonstration was obligatory. This one was about the situation in Gaza, and culminated in a march from the Place de la Republique to the Place Bastille, which we had to go through. The concentration of police was pretty impressive, but I felt for them knowing that with the Tour de France finishing on the Champs Elysees the next day, no-one was getting the weekend off.
One of the nice things about Paris is that from most places you can go out of your hotel, walk around for a little while, and have a choice of restaurants, most of which, while not great, will be at least satisfactory, especially if you just want a big salad or a steak and fries. This time we were lucky, as the restaurant was literally across the street from the hotel, and not too bad. Knowing my access to a proper apple tarte was coming to an end, I couldn't pass it up, and as usual, was not disappointed. Never mind, I can diet in Australia.
Sunday morning was a beautiful day in Paris, although no doubt the sans-abri (homeless) camping on the bench outside our hotel felt differently after a cold night. I found sitting watching them through the window of the hotel breakfast room was uncomfortable, so I changed places with Lee the next day so he had to watch them instead. We had one who had spent the whole night on the bench (we know because he was settled there when we came back to the hotel after dinner), and in the morning was joined by three friends for a chat and a few cigarettes. The second morning one even brought a bottle of wine and had drunk half of it by 9am.

Rue de Rivoli early on the morning of the arrival.
Traffic free except for us bikers.

However, no time to contemplate the French socio-economic situation – we were on a mission to hit the Champs Elysees before it was closed off for the Tour de France. Unfortunately we were a little late and only managed to cycle half way up the Champs Elysees. We couldn't get onto the Place de l'Etoile (around the Arc de Triomphe), but the area behind the row of police and barriers was still pretty free of people and we did a tour around the Arc from not too far back. It was still something you could only do on a couple days a year (I think something similar happens on Bastille Day, 14 July). We talked to (and took mutual photographs with) a South African man in EuropeCar lycra, who turned out to have trained both Bradley Wiggins (winner last year) and Darryl Impie (Orica GreenEdge team, winner of a stage last year). He told us he has the only yellow jersey signed by both Wiggins and Impie, when Impie handed it over to Wiggins last year. He also had a pass that allowed him in to all the VIP areas due to his cycling contacts. Amazingly (Paris being such a small town), we ran into him again an hour later, when he had cycled up the Champs Elysees, down to the Eiffel Tower and back again.

gian corner, opposite the Rue de Rivoli at the Place de la/ Concorde, the official souvenir vans were already selling their stuff and playing loud music, people were getting comfortable in their folded seats next to the barriers and the sound guys were doing their sound checks ("Test de sonorisation a la ligne d'arrivee") over and over again very loudly, so we decided to mosey off, first down to a pricey bar on Avenue Georges V (there is no other kind of bar on the Avenue Georges V) for expensive coffees, and then ultimately back along the Seine to the hotel, giving our sturdy bikes their last outing.
We were hoping to watch La Course – a new women's elite race on an 89 km circuit also finishing on the Champs Elysees several hours before the men's race -- on television, but while it was broadcast free-to-air in Australia on SBS, in France it was only on a cable channel our hotel didn't subscribe to. Since we no longer had that excuse, we yielded to fate, girded our loins, set ourselves up in the hotel parking/storage area and starting breaking down the bikes and packing them away. Despite Bike Friday's fan club's assurances that this can be done in a quarter of an hour, we take about one hour for each bike. Working together we do some parts more or less simultaneously, but mostly we both work on one bike and then the other, referring back to the instructions and photos regularly and checking everything as we go.
Amazingly, at the end, all the parts fit into the suitcases and we even found some room to stick a few other bits and pieces around them as padding. After posting off a parcel or two with helmets, gifts and odds and sods, we will have Lee's backpack and my carryon bag with our clothing in them, plus the big suitcases with the bikes in them. Amazing, even to us!
I'm writing this on the TGV (Train Grande Vitesse) from Paris to Nice. In four hours we will be in Nice, post off our parcels, get to our hotel. One last day for a whip around Nice on their city bikes, and home. Looking forward to seeing the kids, the cats, Canaipa Passage and our friends. It's been in some ways a bit of a marathon, in others something of a dawdle. 1600+ kilometres, almost three months, god knows how many hotels, restaurants, cities and towns. Time soon for reflection on what stands out, what worked, what didn't and whether we ever do it again!
See the album Postcard 2 from the Avenue Verte for some idea of what we have seen on this part of the journey.
Love from Nancy and Lee
PS: Thanks to a series of hotels with very poor Wi-Fi connections, and serious jet lag on arrival, this post card is only now being sent, a couple days after we got home. There was another week after the Tour de France, in Nice and Dubai plus travelling. Will there be another post card? We'll see -- there is still lots to talk about.