Angers to Nantes

Drought

After my tour of Angers, and emphatically refusing an offer to stay for lunch (I was afraid that, in a moment of weakness, I would have accepted the subsequent offer of dinner) I set off.

The route would be simple: find the Loire, and follow it down all the way to Nantes. Finding one of the largest rivers in France might have been harder than expected!

Where there used to be a port, I found a pier, and beach. The boats had been moved one hundred metres away to keep them in the water.

In front of a sign proclaiming that it was forbidden to swim lay … a vast desert. Not a drop of water in sight. Instead of the usual vast expanse, a nearbay arm of the river carried a modest amount of water downstream.

Hearing about the drought, I still never immagined that I would be met by a dry a riverbed.

The river eventually recovered as more affluents joined it, but it stayed far below the levels it usually had.

Lest we forget

History is constant theme in my travels. Look around, and you’ll see plaques, monuments, or memorials to events and people. Here, on a small rock platform, on the side of a fence, a plaque recalled the sacrificed of Pierre Nédelec (17 years old), Julien Ferté (19 years old), Victor Chatenay (18 years old).

Sent on a reconnaissance mission by the Americans, they were spotted by germans entrenched a short distance away and were felled in the firefight. The other six men in the group were captured, but, as they were being escorted away, an American machine gun, guided by another FFI fighter caused enough chaos to allow two of them to escape. The other four were able to escape when the train they were being transported on was attacked.

Their story was recorded for posterity by the Museum of French Resistance

Finding sustenance

As the day grew longer, each kilometre grew harder. I’d been told to expect a 40 km/h headwind, but had held on to the hope that I would be mostly protected by trees and vegetation. This was somewhat true, but each time I needed to stray into flatter lands, or onto a dike, I was met by the full force of the wind.

Each turn of the pedals grew harder, and I could feel my reserves deplete. I needed food. I soon found a town and headed to the closest bakery, paradise on earth. Bread, patisserie, cakes, ecalirs, flans, it was too much to pick from, but it succeeded in giving me the energy to resume the journey.

Arriving in Nantes, I was energised by the knowledge that my ordeal was nearly over. That was until, guided by the yellow line on the screen of my GPS, I turned, and saw the road slope upwards. 3 km away from the end, with my energy ebbing, I had no choice but to summit this hill.

A word of warning would have been nice!

My legs were hurting, and I was covered in sweat, but, once I’d cleaned up, I was welcomed by a home cooked meal.