I walked to a nearby bakery and got pastries for breakfast. The weather continues to be threatening.
We didn't get on the road until nearly 11 but we had a fairly short day of just a little over 40km.
It didn't rain much before lunch but it always felt like it was about to. Occasionally to sun came out only to end with a dark cloud. After lunch it was sun, dark cloud and rain.
After only about 10km we came to Beaugency and detoured into town and found La Crep'zeria. We had cafe and jus. Realizing it was almost noon we decided to have lunch. We each had a nice pasta.
Back on the road the weather became more schizophrenic. Sun, wind, clouds, rain ... repeat. I was hoping for better weather in France. People who live here say it is a bad year for weather.
I no noticed my rear tire was getting soft and stopped to add air. I told Aidan to carry on. A few minutes later I found him laid out on a bench in the sun. It felt so good. We stayed for a while but saw dark clouds coming.
We got to Blois in a downpour. It is so hard to use your phone to find your hotel when your phone is getting wet and your hands are wet and cold. We had to stop and wanted to go into a place that had people sitting inside but was actually closed. The sun then came out.
We were only two blocks from the apartment we had rented but it was managed by a hotel around the corner which we found out from an awkward phone call. The hotel guy asked if we wanted dinner and I declined. He then handed me a ring of keys and said something like: go up the street, turn right, go through the gate with this key, go right, go through the door with this key, go right, go left, this key is for the outside door there, go to the first floor which for Americans is the second floor, turn left and use this key to get into the apartment. Que?
The apartment was great. Very large with everything. They had velo parking after the first locked gate and we initially put the bikes there.
Once we showered, did laundry and sorted ourselfs out I brought the bikes up stairs. They were a lot more vulnerable than the ebikes and rentals that were starting to pile up.
When we went for dinner the velo parking was very full and our push bikes would have looked very out of place. I had looked up the hotel restaurant and it had very good reviews and it was close so that was our target. Lots of empty space ... do you have a reservation? No ... Sorry can't seat you.
The next best restaurant according to Google was around the corner and the same thing happened. The hostess at our hotel restaurant had said the pizza place was good so we went there because we could no longer think. It was a French Olive Garden. It even had some really loud American tourists at the next table. They tried to poison Aidan by putting almond shavings on sherbet.
My old Oracle buddy, Dave Sidwell lives not too far away and we arranged to meet up in two days in Poitiers. That should be interesting.
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