What a relief to wake from a night of sleep with no interruptions and feeling a hundred times better. Today I feel as though I am almost me again and I am anxious to get going. But a hundredfold improvement is still not all the way. I still hack and cough, sputtering for air, even if only once or twice every 10 minutes. We resolved today to stay for the whole day and sleep one more night in our sagging bed. Our next destination is a long ride from here and there is little sense in tackling it while still sick.
Today we are homebodies resting body and mind, cleaning and clearing and getting ready to tackle life with canvas walls once more. We find that when we rest in a place it become our home, we leave our marks, scattered debris that proclaims our territorial boundaries, and we learn the features and it is hard to leave.
Fear for the unknown has sent me searching for a phone. I am not willing to trust the guide that has proved so deceptive, so disappointing. We tramped out together and found a phone not too far from our lodgings. But when the operator asked courteously for country codes and city codes that we did not have I gave up in frustration.
We continued up Talmont’s centre street where we found the Super U and stopped for groceries. Heather showed me the seafood section in delight. Even after almost thirty days in France we are still delighted by counter tops swathed in ice and a colorful display of seafood. The shrimp in a woven wicker basket flipped and writhed in angry spasmodic jerks, as if cursed with a foreknowledge of their gastronomical fate. Eels and deep sea fish stared up from their frozen bed with lifeless eyes and the crabs here seemed listless and crusted with sand. Heather walked purposefully through the aisle of the market, trying to feed us and still not destroy a budget already broken and shattered. I fell behind and drifted away into the aisle of books and music and toys. ABBA came over the radio and the stock clerk counting inventory unconsciously broke into song. I flipped through books on Vendee legends, naval history and prehistoric artifacts. I was startled to find references to home in the book on naval history. The people of the Vendee had been delighted, it seems, by the crew of the HMCS Iroqois when, after liberating the area of Nazi occupation, they had erected a huge cake declaring “Vivre la France, Canada, Angleterre et Amerique.” What delighted the French so much was, unlike messages from their other liberators these words were delivered bilingually.
The books were a surreal mix of French culture and pervasive American influence. Dark French police novels, covers adorned with sexy women and guns rested on racks next to Buffy Contre les Vampires and Anne Rice novels. The racks of toys mixed unknown French action heroes and G.I. Joe dolls. But all the video games were American and even the boxes were English with no translation. French had been the international language of diplomacy but now gave way to English, international language of computer geeks.
Heather finished selecting our meals for the day, a fare not much different from yesterday or the day before, meat, cheese, grapes and the ubiquitous French baguette. We returned to our hotel, our haven, and ate our lunch.
We hauled out our sand and grime coated tent and threw it into the shower and let the water run. I leapt in and scrubbed dirt and sand away until the showers floor resembled more the sea bed than anything else. We threw our sopping dwelling out the window and let it dry over the kitchen roof. And then we did nothing. We lay in bed as I read Heather Hyperion, then she slept while I snuck out to the phone once more. Even as I walked our previously sunny and warm day disintegrated under an onslaught of clouds and down the rain came. Heather had woken up in time to see the rushing clouds and save our drying things. Armed as I was this time with calling codes and city numbers still I failed to get through and I feared my failure might have more to do with a closed campground than inability to use a French phone. I returned to our hotel in disgust.
As I did the clouds dissipated and a brilliant rainbow filled the sky, arching, like a tourist ad for the perfect vacation, over the crumbling ruins of Richard's castle. I stared and longed for a camera and knew that moments like that were not really meant to be caught on film.
I arrived once more at our sheltered door and a realization hit me. We have lived with the elements, on an intimate first name basis, twenty four hours a day since, it seems, before time began. We have considered weather to be our friend, our foe, our ally and our indifferent nemesis and we are always aware of it. We have come to think of ourselves as weather conscious, knowing the pulse beat of the skies, and yet, now, behind the shelter of solidity, weather is forgotten. Not merely relegated to a secondary status, not ignored, just forgotten. Rarely do we look at the sky and never to assess what the next minute of life will hold for us. The sky and clouds are merely pretty decorative objects that no longer dictate our lives like the stars on an astrologers chart. Three days and we have become absolutely disconnect from what had been the most important aspect of our lives, and we had scarcely noticed. How many other things pass from places of critical importance in our lives and we never notice their passing?
I entered our room, or rather tried to enter. Heather had set up the tent in the room to let it dry out of the rain and it blocked the door with a fabric barricade that yielded but would not give. After minutes of struggle I finally squeezed into the room. The tent was on its side and the blue groundsheet rose menacingly in our little room, a blue nylon monolith, a science fiction metaphor for our journey. I expected to look in to the mirror and see wrinkled hands and face, Also Sprach Zarathustra humming from spinning bike wheels in the garage below us.
The smell of sautéed onions and freshly baking pizza drifted up through cracks in the floor, taunting us with delicious scents and odors too expensive to inhale. Tentatively I went down the stairs and asked our hostess to kindly explain the phones to me. Instead she called the campground in Marans, a long ride away, and confirmed that they were open until nov. 15. I appreciated her kindness, but as the ancient saying goes: “give a man a phone…”
Strange how much I will regret leaving here. In the sunken bed and water stained walls I have found a sort of spiritual balm. Talmont can be an ugly little town, slowly decaying in the sun of southern France and the rains and winds off the Atlantic. But it seems to harbour a soul full of inspiration such as I have found in so few places, a taint of artistry that calls out to be created. Tomorrow is the pain of hard bike seats and the elements and I can only hope to find that feeling elsewhere...
...and pray that my bike will not say “we have a problem Dave.”
Next Entry: Day 79. Marans
Previous Entry: Day 77. Talmont St. Hilaire
Showing posts with label Sick. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sick. Show all posts
Sunday, October 23, 2011
Saturday, October 22, 2011
Day 77. Talmont St. Hilaire. Oct 22 2001
Last night was a nightmare collage of wracking coughs, fevered dreams and aching muscles. Every time I surrendered to exhaustion and slumped down to the beaten and broken mattress my lungs protested and sent me upright in a volley of coughs that sounded terribly like the vicious barking of a dog. So violently did I cough that my head began to explode with pain with every movement. Even as my body shook I castigated myself for imagining that I could bike across France, let alone a significant portion of Europe. Only as daylight touched the casements of our window and cast first hesitant rays of light across the mossy kitchen roof was I able to find the solace of sleep.
I woke to an incessantly pounding head and church bells that no longer sounded sweet, merely loud. Heather dressed then disappeared out the door to find food to sustain us. I crawled feebly into the booth that served as our shower and curled up on the floor, allowing the scalding water to cascade over me as if in a metal and plastic womb. By the time Heather returned the room had filled with a choking steam.
Heather hadn’t merely purchased groceries but had braved an unfamiliar tongue and a slightly deaf pharmacist to bring me soothing drugs and cough syrup. She was flustered and embarrassed, trying to convey her exact needs in a foreign language had been hard for her and she kept apologizing, as if I cared that she had mispronounced the word for “husband” or “heaving cough.”
After being drugged and having a rest I began to feel human once more. Unable to merely do nothing we set out, if not energetically, then at least with a little enthusiasm, to see Talmont Castle. The castle rose from a series of decaying fortifications on a rocky outcrop near the centre of town, its crenelated and corroded peak almost lost behind a swirling murder of crows that made the place seem sinister even in daylight.
We climbed the steep path that led to the wooden shack that served as the twentieth century gatehouse. The castle seemed wilted, in a way that only a tourist attraction in the final days before closing can be. They had lost their credit card machine so we were forced to dig into our dwindling supply of coins.
Built by William the Bold in 1025 and modernized by Richard the Lionheart with ideas brought back from Syria, the castle sprawled out, a conglomerate of accreted pieces. The wall that separated the lower courtyard form the upper had disappeared with age, the majesty that once must have been the lord’s manor had crumbled to dust and the castles defensive face had fallen to reveal the bones building beneath. William the Bold had built his castle over the church of Saint Peter and the beautiful arches and vaults of the bell tower peered out from surprising corners.
We climbed the staircase of the western tower and stopped at its first branching. Here was the base of the ancient bell tower, a niche almost walled over during the hurried building of outer walls. A silent room with a single entrance and windows so high and narrow they could scarcely be seen. Here William, and Richard after him, had stored their money, their jewels, and their suits of ceremonial amour. Here was a treasure chamber any thief might have given his arm to find and we stalked its floors and casually appraised its vaulted ceiling.
Then we climbed again and climbed, to the second floor that opened to the wall walks and higher still to the command room that had opened to the sky as the ceiling collapsed and higher still to a terrace beneath the flapping flags of Richard and a view from here to the sea. Below us the clustered red roofs of town bunched together in silent huddles, their red paved surfaces a highway about the streets.
We followed the passages to the latrines, to the murder hole above the gatehouse and through a maze of stones and dim light that almost left us lost. The castle seemed a mountain, stones that had been heaped one atop another in careless disregard, and then hollowed to make space for those who inhabited it. Artificial caves in an artificial hill a hundred feet above the town.
We descended an endless stair on the castles far side, sure that we must be descending far beneath the ground, only to emerge on green grass. Outside an ancient defensive tunnel disappeared deep into the earth, its hidden recesses gated off from prying eyes.
We left the site and wandered outside and only then did we realize that even the hill on which the castle stood had been fortified, the walls serving now as the rear walls of sheds and houses. The castle had been shattered by Louis XIII and the famed Richelieu so that the region's Protestants would have no place to hide.
We returned to our hotel room, how strange to write that, my pen almost automatically wrote "campsite", our hotel room and we began to pack. There is a lively debate in my mind tonight about whether we will leave at the first sign of light tomorrow or rest another day with a solid roof and bed beneath us. We cannot really afford to stay. We will pack tonight and see how things are in the morning.
As we pack we are desperately trying to lighten our loads. There is so much that we carry that we do not use but we cannot easily bring ourselves to part with. Things of sentimental value or things those we “might use if…” I am trying to learn the mystical art of packing. How do you arrange things so that you can get at what you need without flinging everything else across whatever space you have? There is the story of the Greek man, I forget his name now, who wanted simplicity and so owned only his robe and a drinking cup, until one day he saw a beggar using his hands to drink from a fountain. With a cry of joy he threw away his drinking cup. We need resolve like that.
Next Entry: Day 78. Talmont St. Hilaire
Previous Entry: Day 76. Talmont St. Hilaire.
I woke to an incessantly pounding head and church bells that no longer sounded sweet, merely loud. Heather dressed then disappeared out the door to find food to sustain us. I crawled feebly into the booth that served as our shower and curled up on the floor, allowing the scalding water to cascade over me as if in a metal and plastic womb. By the time Heather returned the room had filled with a choking steam.
Heather hadn’t merely purchased groceries but had braved an unfamiliar tongue and a slightly deaf pharmacist to bring me soothing drugs and cough syrup. She was flustered and embarrassed, trying to convey her exact needs in a foreign language had been hard for her and she kept apologizing, as if I cared that she had mispronounced the word for “husband” or “heaving cough.”
After being drugged and having a rest I began to feel human once more. Unable to merely do nothing we set out, if not energetically, then at least with a little enthusiasm, to see Talmont Castle. The castle rose from a series of decaying fortifications on a rocky outcrop near the centre of town, its crenelated and corroded peak almost lost behind a swirling murder of crows that made the place seem sinister even in daylight.
We climbed the steep path that led to the wooden shack that served as the twentieth century gatehouse. The castle seemed wilted, in a way that only a tourist attraction in the final days before closing can be. They had lost their credit card machine so we were forced to dig into our dwindling supply of coins.Built by William the Bold in 1025 and modernized by Richard the Lionheart with ideas brought back from Syria, the castle sprawled out, a conglomerate of accreted pieces. The wall that separated the lower courtyard form the upper had disappeared with age, the majesty that once must have been the lord’s manor had crumbled to dust and the castles defensive face had fallen to reveal the bones building beneath. William the Bold had built his castle over the church of Saint Peter and the beautiful arches and vaults of the bell tower peered out from surprising corners.
We climbed the staircase of the western tower and stopped at its first branching. Here was the base of the ancient bell tower, a niche almost walled over during the hurried building of outer walls. A silent room with a single entrance and windows so high and narrow they could scarcely be seen. Here William, and Richard after him, had stored their money, their jewels, and their suits of ceremonial amour. Here was a treasure chamber any thief might have given his arm to find and we stalked its floors and casually appraised its vaulted ceiling.
Then we climbed again and climbed, to the second floor that opened to the wall walks and higher still to the command room that had opened to the sky as the ceiling collapsed and higher still to a terrace beneath the flapping flags of Richard and a view from here to the sea. Below us the clustered red roofs of town bunched together in silent huddles, their red paved surfaces a highway about the streets.
We followed the passages to the latrines, to the murder hole above the gatehouse and through a maze of stones and dim light that almost left us lost. The castle seemed a mountain, stones that had been heaped one atop another in careless disregard, and then hollowed to make space for those who inhabited it. Artificial caves in an artificial hill a hundred feet above the town.
We descended an endless stair on the castles far side, sure that we must be descending far beneath the ground, only to emerge on green grass. Outside an ancient defensive tunnel disappeared deep into the earth, its hidden recesses gated off from prying eyes.
We left the site and wandered outside and only then did we realize that even the hill on which the castle stood had been fortified, the walls serving now as the rear walls of sheds and houses. The castle had been shattered by Louis XIII and the famed Richelieu so that the region's Protestants would have no place to hide.
We returned to our hotel room, how strange to write that, my pen almost automatically wrote "campsite", our hotel room and we began to pack. There is a lively debate in my mind tonight about whether we will leave at the first sign of light tomorrow or rest another day with a solid roof and bed beneath us. We cannot really afford to stay. We will pack tonight and see how things are in the morning.
As we pack we are desperately trying to lighten our loads. There is so much that we carry that we do not use but we cannot easily bring ourselves to part with. Things of sentimental value or things those we “might use if…” I am trying to learn the mystical art of packing. How do you arrange things so that you can get at what you need without flinging everything else across whatever space you have? There is the story of the Greek man, I forget his name now, who wanted simplicity and so owned only his robe and a drinking cup, until one day he saw a beggar using his hands to drink from a fountain. With a cry of joy he threw away his drinking cup. We need resolve like that.
Next Entry: Day 78. Talmont St. Hilaire
Previous Entry: Day 76. Talmont St. Hilaire.
Friday, October 21, 2011
Day 76. Talmont St. Hilaire. Oct 21 2001.
We woke to misery. The tent was coated in a thick layer of sand, the sky was gray and water had seeped in through the corners. Both of us were ill, Heather worse than I, but we were equally wracked with coughs we thought would have left by now and Heather was congested enough that her head ached.
To leave or not to leave was the question that plagued us. I wanted to go, Heather wanted to stay. I felt a need to leave this campground with its sandy plots and rattle of dead branches against one another. Heather wanted to stay, looking at the gray sky with a weary eye, not willing to deal with another day of rain. Finally I prevailed and had begun to load my bike when the clouds opened in a downpour that left me soaking.
We agreed to stay.
But time passed and while the clouds did not lift they lightened and I argued to go once more. Our destination town was not far and I wanted to be on the move. Finally Heather capitulated and we packed up once more, fearfully watching the skies. Even as we worked the clouds blew over and revealed beautiful blue sky and brilliant sunlight that shone down like a benediction.
Still, packing was not easy. Cleaning the tent of the grime and sand splashed on by last nights storm proved impossible. We were forced to give up and we packed our filthy dwelling away angrily. We rode out into perfect sunlight looked forward with an optimism that was misguided, if not foolish. Because it was Sunday all the stores were closed and we had no food. The lady at the counter of our campsite reassured us that there was a large supermarket nearby, ready to cater to our nutritional needs. But when we found it even the McDonalds in the parking lot was closed. We had little choice, today we would eat short rations, finishing off the leftover peanuts and hoping for a quick dawn tomorrow.
We headed east, leaving the ocean behind, but not the ominous gray clouds that peered over the horizon like a rising swell of waves. The gray became dark and black and the clouds swelled with a heavy weight of water until they could hold back no more and burst open in anger. We were caught almost halfway to our goal and were soaked to the skin once more. The clouds parted as swiftly as they had gathered but the suns feeble light did little to dry us.
We reached Talmont sometime in mid-afternoon. Even the restaurants and bakeries were closed and there was no sigh of the promised campsite. Finally we found a clue and headed back out of town.
We found the campground alright, the one our guide promised “open to the end of October” and once more it was closed! I stared at the “ferme” sign and felt anger boil inside of me. How can you plan a trip if your guides are full of faulty information? How many more time would we face the gut wrenching disappointment of “ferme” and feel the stress of not knowing where to sleep? My anger hit a critical juncture and I flung the book from me in disgust. Three hundred and sixty degrees from which to choose and unerringly I hit upon the ten degrees that are occupied by my distraught wife. The book bounced off the front of her bike and my anger dissolved into depressed apologies. It felt like I couldn't even get angry without screwing up.
Despondently we headed back to Talmont facing the inevitable fact that we had to break the budget once more and find a hotel. We had not lost all our spirit however and decided that a two star hotel was better than a no star hotel and hence we followed the signs out of town. What the signs failed to mention was that the two star hotel was in fact on the beach, a good thirty kilometers or so from Talmont. We gave up in despair once more.
We returned to town for our third time and sought the low budget places in the crowded streets. The first, catering to truckers, had a huge sign hidden on a back window, closed until October 29. The second didn't even bother with a sign and was merely closed. Mere words cannot convey the cold numbness that had dropped over us. We stood listlessly in the street, listening indifferently to the silence of the city. Even simple decisions became impossible to make. How could we make another when all the others had turned out so wrong?
Finally our aimless and careless wanders brought us to the Boule D’or, a restaurant with lodgings over top. I went in to ask, not even caring anymore what the reply would be. The young woman at the counter seemed surprised that she had a tenant and showed me the room with an apprehension that could have been fear, excitement or surprise. The room was small and I didn't really see it, didn't really care. I went down to Heather and we stowed our bikes in the filthy garage. We climbed the steps wearily.
The room was a square covered in white wallpaper with blue splashes and water stains near the ceiling. A yellow bed with a fold in the middle large enough to hide a person stuck out in garish repose from the rotten wall, beside it an old beaten wardrobe. On the east wall, where a window looked out to the back roof of the restaurant and a panoramic view of lichen covered roof tiles, was a single wooden table and a single wooden chair from which I am writing even now. The south wall sported a sink that hung loosely from the wall over orange tiles that covered the hardwood flood. Beside it was a booth two thirds the size of a phone booth, in which we could shower. Our toilet was down the hall, with no sink of its own.
Despite the crudity of the room it somehow added up to more than the sum of its parts. I could picture myself huddled over the skeletal table, beside the window that looked on nothing, scribbling madly with pen in hand, the very posture from which I write these words.
The room had, has, an ambiance that brings to mind lonely struggling authors, painters, artists of all stripes and the frantic need to create that can tolerate no distraction. Even the church bells sound sweeter from here, more real and relevant to the passage of human time. But ambiance and peanuts a poor meal make and I was getting more ill with every clang of the bells.
As night fell we went in search of a pizzeria that we had passed earlier. San Marco’s was a small dive with mural of Venice covering one wall, yellowed from cigarettes and age. The pizza was excellent. The pepper oil served in a long tapering beaker with the leaves and peppers floating in a golden soup with a taste that burned lips and tongues and left you wanting more. San Marco on the Avenue of the Sands. Our server was young and polite, as all those who want to be elsewhere but know you are their paycheck can be. His mother bustled about warning us to be careful of the spicy oils, watching with delight as we ate our first ice cream in months and running around with a happy smile and familiarity that made the restaurant her own. Even flustered as she was, trying to use their new, intricate, credit card machine, she never lost a brilliant smile. We left reluctantly, our bellies hardly full, the smoke from fellow dinners burning my lungs and forcing long painful coughs from me that tore at my throat.
As we climbed the stairs to our room Heather noted a strange light at the hallways end. She looked out and gasped. The fortress of Richard the Lionhearted, the centerpiece of Talmont St. Hilaire, was bathed in a gentle blue glow, as if rising from an ethereal mist. The church that rose beside it blotted from view.
We had visited the church earlier, after we deposited our gear and gained some volition back. We had sat in the pews of St. Peters and talked seriously about the future of the trip. With campgrounds unexpectedly closed at every turn and both of us so ill that we can hardly bike, let alone clamber over ruins and tourist sites, our future is hazy. I have no desire to end the trip, but our budget will not allow many stays like tonight's. I despair a little, feeling as though we have failed in some esoteric fashion. We have seen so much and yet so little. But tonight at least I am too ill to contemplate going on.
I cannot help but feel like a pale shadow of Keats, with my tiny room, wracking cough and despair. But I am not dying, I am not a poet and I have the hope at least that in the morning my despair will be gone. At least our walls do not shake tonight as I cough and I can sit up by electric candlelight. Darkness outside with light inside is strange to us and looking at the clock I see that it is almost 9:00. An hour past our bedtime.
Next Entry: Day 77. Talmont St. Hilaire
Previous Entry: Day 75. Les Sables D'Olonne
To leave or not to leave was the question that plagued us. I wanted to go, Heather wanted to stay. I felt a need to leave this campground with its sandy plots and rattle of dead branches against one another. Heather wanted to stay, looking at the gray sky with a weary eye, not willing to deal with another day of rain. Finally I prevailed and had begun to load my bike when the clouds opened in a downpour that left me soaking.
We agreed to stay.
But time passed and while the clouds did not lift they lightened and I argued to go once more. Our destination town was not far and I wanted to be on the move. Finally Heather capitulated and we packed up once more, fearfully watching the skies. Even as we worked the clouds blew over and revealed beautiful blue sky and brilliant sunlight that shone down like a benediction.
Still, packing was not easy. Cleaning the tent of the grime and sand splashed on by last nights storm proved impossible. We were forced to give up and we packed our filthy dwelling away angrily. We rode out into perfect sunlight looked forward with an optimism that was misguided, if not foolish. Because it was Sunday all the stores were closed and we had no food. The lady at the counter of our campsite reassured us that there was a large supermarket nearby, ready to cater to our nutritional needs. But when we found it even the McDonalds in the parking lot was closed. We had little choice, today we would eat short rations, finishing off the leftover peanuts and hoping for a quick dawn tomorrow.
We headed east, leaving the ocean behind, but not the ominous gray clouds that peered over the horizon like a rising swell of waves. The gray became dark and black and the clouds swelled with a heavy weight of water until they could hold back no more and burst open in anger. We were caught almost halfway to our goal and were soaked to the skin once more. The clouds parted as swiftly as they had gathered but the suns feeble light did little to dry us.
We reached Talmont sometime in mid-afternoon. Even the restaurants and bakeries were closed and there was no sigh of the promised campsite. Finally we found a clue and headed back out of town.
We found the campground alright, the one our guide promised “open to the end of October” and once more it was closed! I stared at the “ferme” sign and felt anger boil inside of me. How can you plan a trip if your guides are full of faulty information? How many more time would we face the gut wrenching disappointment of “ferme” and feel the stress of not knowing where to sleep? My anger hit a critical juncture and I flung the book from me in disgust. Three hundred and sixty degrees from which to choose and unerringly I hit upon the ten degrees that are occupied by my distraught wife. The book bounced off the front of her bike and my anger dissolved into depressed apologies. It felt like I couldn't even get angry without screwing up.
Despondently we headed back to Talmont facing the inevitable fact that we had to break the budget once more and find a hotel. We had not lost all our spirit however and decided that a two star hotel was better than a no star hotel and hence we followed the signs out of town. What the signs failed to mention was that the two star hotel was in fact on the beach, a good thirty kilometers or so from Talmont. We gave up in despair once more.
We returned to town for our third time and sought the low budget places in the crowded streets. The first, catering to truckers, had a huge sign hidden on a back window, closed until October 29. The second didn't even bother with a sign and was merely closed. Mere words cannot convey the cold numbness that had dropped over us. We stood listlessly in the street, listening indifferently to the silence of the city. Even simple decisions became impossible to make. How could we make another when all the others had turned out so wrong?
Finally our aimless and careless wanders brought us to the Boule D’or, a restaurant with lodgings over top. I went in to ask, not even caring anymore what the reply would be. The young woman at the counter seemed surprised that she had a tenant and showed me the room with an apprehension that could have been fear, excitement or surprise. The room was small and I didn't really see it, didn't really care. I went down to Heather and we stowed our bikes in the filthy garage. We climbed the steps wearily.
The room was a square covered in white wallpaper with blue splashes and water stains near the ceiling. A yellow bed with a fold in the middle large enough to hide a person stuck out in garish repose from the rotten wall, beside it an old beaten wardrobe. On the east wall, where a window looked out to the back roof of the restaurant and a panoramic view of lichen covered roof tiles, was a single wooden table and a single wooden chair from which I am writing even now. The south wall sported a sink that hung loosely from the wall over orange tiles that covered the hardwood flood. Beside it was a booth two thirds the size of a phone booth, in which we could shower. Our toilet was down the hall, with no sink of its own.
Despite the crudity of the room it somehow added up to more than the sum of its parts. I could picture myself huddled over the skeletal table, beside the window that looked on nothing, scribbling madly with pen in hand, the very posture from which I write these words.
The room had, has, an ambiance that brings to mind lonely struggling authors, painters, artists of all stripes and the frantic need to create that can tolerate no distraction. Even the church bells sound sweeter from here, more real and relevant to the passage of human time. But ambiance and peanuts a poor meal make and I was getting more ill with every clang of the bells.As night fell we went in search of a pizzeria that we had passed earlier. San Marco’s was a small dive with mural of Venice covering one wall, yellowed from cigarettes and age. The pizza was excellent. The pepper oil served in a long tapering beaker with the leaves and peppers floating in a golden soup with a taste that burned lips and tongues and left you wanting more. San Marco on the Avenue of the Sands. Our server was young and polite, as all those who want to be elsewhere but know you are their paycheck can be. His mother bustled about warning us to be careful of the spicy oils, watching with delight as we ate our first ice cream in months and running around with a happy smile and familiarity that made the restaurant her own. Even flustered as she was, trying to use their new, intricate, credit card machine, she never lost a brilliant smile. We left reluctantly, our bellies hardly full, the smoke from fellow dinners burning my lungs and forcing long painful coughs from me that tore at my throat.
As we climbed the stairs to our room Heather noted a strange light at the hallways end. She looked out and gasped. The fortress of Richard the Lionhearted, the centerpiece of Talmont St. Hilaire, was bathed in a gentle blue glow, as if rising from an ethereal mist. The church that rose beside it blotted from view.
We had visited the church earlier, after we deposited our gear and gained some volition back. We had sat in the pews of St. Peters and talked seriously about the future of the trip. With campgrounds unexpectedly closed at every turn and both of us so ill that we can hardly bike, let alone clamber over ruins and tourist sites, our future is hazy. I have no desire to end the trip, but our budget will not allow many stays like tonight's. I despair a little, feeling as though we have failed in some esoteric fashion. We have seen so much and yet so little. But tonight at least I am too ill to contemplate going on.
I cannot help but feel like a pale shadow of Keats, with my tiny room, wracking cough and despair. But I am not dying, I am not a poet and I have the hope at least that in the morning my despair will be gone. At least our walls do not shake tonight as I cough and I can sit up by electric candlelight. Darkness outside with light inside is strange to us and looking at the clock I see that it is almost 9:00. An hour past our bedtime.
Next Entry: Day 77. Talmont St. Hilaire
Previous Entry: Day 75. Les Sables D'Olonne
Thursday, October 20, 2011
Day 75. Les Sables D’Olonne. Oct 20 2010.
Woke up this morning to a perfect day. I only wish that they’d stay like that.
We packed up quickly, after eating breakfast in our tent and trying to convince the farm dog that we had nothing appetizing for him. Neither of us mentioned the weather in the hope that it would remain bright and blue. Off in the distance we could hear the turkey gobbling. He was enormous and on coming in the night before we had been more afraid of him than the energetic dogs. The chickens had seemed a little abnormal as well, they had a huge spread of feathers on their legs that made them look as thought they were wearing bell bottom pants. What with the turkey’s huge fan of feathers and one of the dog’s shaggy beard it was a very fashionable farm.
I had slept well despite the downpour and the ridge of dirt that ran directly under my shoulders.
Mounting our bikes in the morning has become an art of compromise. We know that we must get moving but we are reluctant to begin the never ending effort and the sawing pain of insufficient padding. Generally, by unspoken agreement, the bikes are walked to the entrance of the site. When we finally climb our steeds of aluminum we try to avoid sitting for as long as possible. Today was no different and setting out was harder than usual because we had to face the one task we hated above all else, retracing our steps. Back we went, following last nights hard road, past the abandoned campground and past the turn to the lake.
Finally we found new ground and we headed towards Les Sables D’Olonne. Today the transformation in architectural styles is almost complete. Gone are the stone and brick houses with slate or shingle roofs. Every house here has whitewashed walls, terra cotta shingling and, more often than not, blue shutters on the windows. Before we had biked too far we came within sight of the Atlantic Ocean. Sea breezes caressed our faces once more. The houses look perfect nestled against the distant band of blue on the horizon. Design elements in the plan of an artist who has sculpted the world. The ocean has become our ally and our nemesis. The land near it runs in long flat strips, where we can see almost to eternity and worry not about what comes after a downhill ride. There are no downhill rides except to the water. But the sea breathes and its breath is a wind against which we are locked in terrible conflict. Every gust is our foe and every calm merely a pause in the struggle.
Soon the sea was lost to us once more, hidden behind the shelter of the island of Olonne. We cycled over a thin strip of pavement perching precariously over marshlands that stretched as far as the eye could see. There was an air of abandonment and decay here, a basketball court so overgrown with weeds that only the rotting backboard and iron hoop from a long vanished net spoke to its original purpose. The whitewash on houses cracked and fell to the ground in faint speckles as if snow had come too early. Pornographic posters, elsewhere left alone as if not worthy of notice, were blacked out in reactionary anger, only to be replaced by more until they papered over the landscape. In the distance a spire rose on a rocky hill above the marshes. Our goal, we though, until we reached it and another rose behind it.
Les Sables D’Olonne sat along a whaleback ridge at the marshes edge, separating wetland from ocean. We cycled in and were surrounded by urbanity once more. Urbanity in this case most obviously exemplified by the motorists who tried to run me over as I crossed the street, despite the light being in my favor.
The foliage was brilliant and verdant and I thought to myself how nice it was to be in the middle of October and see green trees. We found our campsite with little difficulty and simultaneously discovered the one place in town where no leaves, not a one, were left. All the trees were bare and most, I am sure, were dead. The broken wreckage of their limbs littered the grounds, filling the sites with the debris and detritus of approaching winter. We found a site clear of branches, not yet transfigured into a pit of slime from the terrible downpour of the night before and we pitched out ten on the sands beneath the twisted cedars.
We had made good time; it was scarcely past noon, and many hours of daylight lay before us. We stretched out our sleeping bags on a line, trying to let their smell dissipate before we crowded into them once more. While we waited we used the parks glass shrouded phone booth and made contact with those we left behind. They were well, Dad had just returned from his excursion to Halifax and was very excited about his new photos. We spoke for a long time, sharing news across countless miles of ocean and land.
On our side a storm began brewing and Heather raced off to pull our things down from the line. I finished talking and followed after her, arriving at the tent as the big drops began to fall. We huddled under our waterproof shelter and listened to the shower, the winds and the sound of the water trickling. At this last we sat up and noticed a small river forming under the tent and others to the side. Heedless of the freezing rain around us we leapt up and hurried out of our small shelter. The sand around us was pockmarked with a million pinhole craters, shifting and reforming under the bombardment of water from the heavens. We hurried to fill the trenches around our tent, trying to stem the surging rivers. The ground was saturated with water and would take no more and all the overflow seemed bent on filling our tent. We managed to fill in the area around our tent with makeshift sandy dikes. We hurried into the protective shelter once more, only to have the rain stop completely.
Heather is sick tonight, still, and I cannot seem to shake this cough that wracks my body from time to time. Whether we are truly ill or merely allergic to our surroundings, our tent, our sleeping bags, each other or ourselves, is a frequent topic of discussion. I must admit that we are both feeling melancholy tonight and the subject of our date to return home was the primary topic of conversation. Both of us are missing the comforts of home but leaving would mean an end to our journey and a return to normalcy. That would be, to put the best possible spin on it, anticlimactic.
Our spirits were lightened somewhat by the camp's cat. It rummaged through our garbage, hoping no doubt to find the sausage that we ate for dinner. We shoved the cat away but it was brazen enough to return eventually, near midnight. It grew willful enough to steal our garbage out from under my watchful eyes.
Next Entry: Say 76. Talmont St. Hilaire
Previous Entry: Day 74. Coex
We packed up quickly, after eating breakfast in our tent and trying to convince the farm dog that we had nothing appetizing for him. Neither of us mentioned the weather in the hope that it would remain bright and blue. Off in the distance we could hear the turkey gobbling. He was enormous and on coming in the night before we had been more afraid of him than the energetic dogs. The chickens had seemed a little abnormal as well, they had a huge spread of feathers on their legs that made them look as thought they were wearing bell bottom pants. What with the turkey’s huge fan of feathers and one of the dog’s shaggy beard it was a very fashionable farm.
I had slept well despite the downpour and the ridge of dirt that ran directly under my shoulders.
Mounting our bikes in the morning has become an art of compromise. We know that we must get moving but we are reluctant to begin the never ending effort and the sawing pain of insufficient padding. Generally, by unspoken agreement, the bikes are walked to the entrance of the site. When we finally climb our steeds of aluminum we try to avoid sitting for as long as possible. Today was no different and setting out was harder than usual because we had to face the one task we hated above all else, retracing our steps. Back we went, following last nights hard road, past the abandoned campground and past the turn to the lake.
Finally we found new ground and we headed towards Les Sables D’Olonne. Today the transformation in architectural styles is almost complete. Gone are the stone and brick houses with slate or shingle roofs. Every house here has whitewashed walls, terra cotta shingling and, more often than not, blue shutters on the windows. Before we had biked too far we came within sight of the Atlantic Ocean. Sea breezes caressed our faces once more. The houses look perfect nestled against the distant band of blue on the horizon. Design elements in the plan of an artist who has sculpted the world. The ocean has become our ally and our nemesis. The land near it runs in long flat strips, where we can see almost to eternity and worry not about what comes after a downhill ride. There are no downhill rides except to the water. But the sea breathes and its breath is a wind against which we are locked in terrible conflict. Every gust is our foe and every calm merely a pause in the struggle.
Soon the sea was lost to us once more, hidden behind the shelter of the island of Olonne. We cycled over a thin strip of pavement perching precariously over marshlands that stretched as far as the eye could see. There was an air of abandonment and decay here, a basketball court so overgrown with weeds that only the rotting backboard and iron hoop from a long vanished net spoke to its original purpose. The whitewash on houses cracked and fell to the ground in faint speckles as if snow had come too early. Pornographic posters, elsewhere left alone as if not worthy of notice, were blacked out in reactionary anger, only to be replaced by more until they papered over the landscape. In the distance a spire rose on a rocky hill above the marshes. Our goal, we though, until we reached it and another rose behind it.
Les Sables D’Olonne sat along a whaleback ridge at the marshes edge, separating wetland from ocean. We cycled in and were surrounded by urbanity once more. Urbanity in this case most obviously exemplified by the motorists who tried to run me over as I crossed the street, despite the light being in my favor.
The foliage was brilliant and verdant and I thought to myself how nice it was to be in the middle of October and see green trees. We found our campsite with little difficulty and simultaneously discovered the one place in town where no leaves, not a one, were left. All the trees were bare and most, I am sure, were dead. The broken wreckage of their limbs littered the grounds, filling the sites with the debris and detritus of approaching winter. We found a site clear of branches, not yet transfigured into a pit of slime from the terrible downpour of the night before and we pitched out ten on the sands beneath the twisted cedars.
We had made good time; it was scarcely past noon, and many hours of daylight lay before us. We stretched out our sleeping bags on a line, trying to let their smell dissipate before we crowded into them once more. While we waited we used the parks glass shrouded phone booth and made contact with those we left behind. They were well, Dad had just returned from his excursion to Halifax and was very excited about his new photos. We spoke for a long time, sharing news across countless miles of ocean and land.
On our side a storm began brewing and Heather raced off to pull our things down from the line. I finished talking and followed after her, arriving at the tent as the big drops began to fall. We huddled under our waterproof shelter and listened to the shower, the winds and the sound of the water trickling. At this last we sat up and noticed a small river forming under the tent and others to the side. Heedless of the freezing rain around us we leapt up and hurried out of our small shelter. The sand around us was pockmarked with a million pinhole craters, shifting and reforming under the bombardment of water from the heavens. We hurried to fill the trenches around our tent, trying to stem the surging rivers. The ground was saturated with water and would take no more and all the overflow seemed bent on filling our tent. We managed to fill in the area around our tent with makeshift sandy dikes. We hurried into the protective shelter once more, only to have the rain stop completely.
Heather is sick tonight, still, and I cannot seem to shake this cough that wracks my body from time to time. Whether we are truly ill or merely allergic to our surroundings, our tent, our sleeping bags, each other or ourselves, is a frequent topic of discussion. I must admit that we are both feeling melancholy tonight and the subject of our date to return home was the primary topic of conversation. Both of us are missing the comforts of home but leaving would mean an end to our journey and a return to normalcy. That would be, to put the best possible spin on it, anticlimactic.
Our spirits were lightened somewhat by the camp's cat. It rummaged through our garbage, hoping no doubt to find the sausage that we ate for dinner. We shoved the cat away but it was brazen enough to return eventually, near midnight. It grew willful enough to steal our garbage out from under my watchful eyes.
Next Entry: Say 76. Talmont St. Hilaire
Previous Entry: Day 74. Coex
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Day 74. Coex. Oct 19 2001.
A beautiful start to a nightmare of a day.
No one did come for payment, so the beautiful campground was free.
The day dawned crisp and clear and bright and today was one of those rare days when we could actually pack the tent away dry. But it didn’t last. By the time we had passed one of the two reservoirs at the front it had begun to cloud over. By the time we pulled into the picnic area beside them to eat, the clouds had opened up and curtains of rain swept across the water as we huddled under some trees and ate apples that had sat at the bottom of the bag too long.
We waited for the rain to lift, hoping that the torrent would not last long and it didn’t. It gave way and we resumed our ride only to have the clouds come down and spit like malicious children as we rode. The first town we came to sat atop a great hill. We climbed it afoot, not having the energy to pedal. Half way to the peak a farm dog raced out of his yard and snarled angrily at us. His owner, an old French woman who looked eroded through years of hard work, smiled at us and said “Don’t worry, it’s not a problem.” The dog crouched by my left ankle and snarled, pulling his lips back from his teeth. Just as he made to leap at me I kicked out with my leg and he retreated, only to come back just as fiercely. His owner still smiled and said “no problem.” Heather pulled up beside me and we made a box with the protective walls of our bikes to either side, daunting the dog. But he continued to growl and snarl the whole way up the hill until we mounted our bikes and pedaled off.
We are finding, to our surprise, that we are having problems with dogs. I in particular find it strange because I have always had an affinity for dogs and they have responded well to me. But dogs have a dislike for bikes, or French dogs are raised to be angrier. Every time we pass a household with dogs they go into frenzy. They race at gates or strangle themselves on chains or, admittedly rarely, they get out and charge after us. Pedaling madly away from snarling, salivating dogs was not how I anticipated traveling through France. And with every instance the owners come out and smile and tell us not to worry. When they stand their ground as a strange dog charges them with teeth barred perhaps I will reappraise my attitude but just because the dogs are friendly to them does not mean the same will happen for us.
We continued on and passed deeper into the rural countryside and into the sickly sweet smell of cow farms. The smell hangs in the air like a physical thing and clings to clothes and hair long after you have passed. It was everywhere yesterday and is again today and we seem to develop no immunity to it. Heather, stopping to look at wild flowers growing a ways from the nearest farm summed up the situation succinctly. “Pretty, but they still stink.” It is hard to enjoy even the beautiful things when enveloped in such a foul odor.
Though exhausted from yesterday we reached out destination town of St. Julien Des Landes all right. Heather, however, was sicker than ever and I was feeling none too perky myself.
On our way we stopped at the town of Aizenay. In the center of town was an elaborate fountain. Three silver gothic arches angled over top of each other and over a jet of water. To its right was an elaborate gothic cathedral. The sides were supported by flying buttresses and there was a large spire over the door. But where the nave met the transept there was a strange hexagonal roof. Intrigued by the unique design we went in. I could find no information about the church at all but it was beautiful inside. The church was dark inside and it took a while for our eyes to adjust. Because of the darkness the light from the incredibly elaborate stained glass windows was spectacular to behold. I could not discover whether it was a church or a cathedral or even its proper name. Outside we noticed the buttresses were coated with moss until at their very peaks they were as green as grass.
Once at St. Juliens we were very tired and more than ready for rest. The road today had been full of many small hills. For some reason this small town had four campground but according to our guide only one was open. We followed the signs out and found what we thought was the place. It was, however, closed, and occupied by a farm. We returned in dismay to the town. Heather had developed a raging headache to match her cough and was very eager to sleep. We found another sign to the campground indicating it was further out than we had though. We pedaled wearily out, past our first campground and on to the second. We biked in happily, ready to set up and sleep. It was not to be. Despite the information in our guidebook claiming that they were open, they were not. The lady left to look after the place for the winter was very helpful, looking for another place, but could find nothing. Finally she contacted a friend who ran a B&B and campground and asked if we could stay in her backyard. We could but it was seven kilometers away.
Having no choice we set down a horse path, down to a lake, across a bridge which at first we could not find and up a very steep hill. Finally we found it, or so we thought, a sign pointing to “La Ferme Latoi” our destination. But the campground was torn apart and there were no signs for a B&B. We biked further in on the road, one kilometer, two, before turning back. Despite a sign at the camp saying “open until the end of October” it was obviously closed. Heather checked out the water while I pedaled up the main road.
Finding no water we set out and suddenly found the place. What we got was an uneven field and concrete bathrooms. What the hell, we took it. Then it started to pour. I was very happy to pass out from exhaustion tonight.
Next Entry: Day 75. Les Sable D'Olonne
Previous Entry: Day 73. St. Etienne Du Bois
No one did come for payment, so the beautiful campground was free.
The day dawned crisp and clear and bright and today was one of those rare days when we could actually pack the tent away dry. But it didn’t last. By the time we had passed one of the two reservoirs at the front it had begun to cloud over. By the time we pulled into the picnic area beside them to eat, the clouds had opened up and curtains of rain swept across the water as we huddled under some trees and ate apples that had sat at the bottom of the bag too long.
We waited for the rain to lift, hoping that the torrent would not last long and it didn’t. It gave way and we resumed our ride only to have the clouds come down and spit like malicious children as we rode. The first town we came to sat atop a great hill. We climbed it afoot, not having the energy to pedal. Half way to the peak a farm dog raced out of his yard and snarled angrily at us. His owner, an old French woman who looked eroded through years of hard work, smiled at us and said “Don’t worry, it’s not a problem.” The dog crouched by my left ankle and snarled, pulling his lips back from his teeth. Just as he made to leap at me I kicked out with my leg and he retreated, only to come back just as fiercely. His owner still smiled and said “no problem.” Heather pulled up beside me and we made a box with the protective walls of our bikes to either side, daunting the dog. But he continued to growl and snarl the whole way up the hill until we mounted our bikes and pedaled off.
We are finding, to our surprise, that we are having problems with dogs. I in particular find it strange because I have always had an affinity for dogs and they have responded well to me. But dogs have a dislike for bikes, or French dogs are raised to be angrier. Every time we pass a household with dogs they go into frenzy. They race at gates or strangle themselves on chains or, admittedly rarely, they get out and charge after us. Pedaling madly away from snarling, salivating dogs was not how I anticipated traveling through France. And with every instance the owners come out and smile and tell us not to worry. When they stand their ground as a strange dog charges them with teeth barred perhaps I will reappraise my attitude but just because the dogs are friendly to them does not mean the same will happen for us.
We continued on and passed deeper into the rural countryside and into the sickly sweet smell of cow farms. The smell hangs in the air like a physical thing and clings to clothes and hair long after you have passed. It was everywhere yesterday and is again today and we seem to develop no immunity to it. Heather, stopping to look at wild flowers growing a ways from the nearest farm summed up the situation succinctly. “Pretty, but they still stink.” It is hard to enjoy even the beautiful things when enveloped in such a foul odor.
Though exhausted from yesterday we reached out destination town of St. Julien Des Landes all right. Heather, however, was sicker than ever and I was feeling none too perky myself.
On our way we stopped at the town of Aizenay. In the center of town was an elaborate fountain. Three silver gothic arches angled over top of each other and over a jet of water. To its right was an elaborate gothic cathedral. The sides were supported by flying buttresses and there was a large spire over the door. But where the nave met the transept there was a strange hexagonal roof. Intrigued by the unique design we went in. I could find no information about the church at all but it was beautiful inside. The church was dark inside and it took a while for our eyes to adjust. Because of the darkness the light from the incredibly elaborate stained glass windows was spectacular to behold. I could not discover whether it was a church or a cathedral or even its proper name. Outside we noticed the buttresses were coated with moss until at their very peaks they were as green as grass.
Once at St. Juliens we were very tired and more than ready for rest. The road today had been full of many small hills. For some reason this small town had four campground but according to our guide only one was open. We followed the signs out and found what we thought was the place. It was, however, closed, and occupied by a farm. We returned in dismay to the town. Heather had developed a raging headache to match her cough and was very eager to sleep. We found another sign to the campground indicating it was further out than we had though. We pedaled wearily out, past our first campground and on to the second. We biked in happily, ready to set up and sleep. It was not to be. Despite the information in our guidebook claiming that they were open, they were not. The lady left to look after the place for the winter was very helpful, looking for another place, but could find nothing. Finally she contacted a friend who ran a B&B and campground and asked if we could stay in her backyard. We could but it was seven kilometers away.
Having no choice we set down a horse path, down to a lake, across a bridge which at first we could not find and up a very steep hill. Finally we found it, or so we thought, a sign pointing to “La Ferme Latoi” our destination. But the campground was torn apart and there were no signs for a B&B. We biked further in on the road, one kilometer, two, before turning back. Despite a sign at the camp saying “open until the end of October” it was obviously closed. Heather checked out the water while I pedaled up the main road.
Finding no water we set out and suddenly found the place. What we got was an uneven field and concrete bathrooms. What the hell, we took it. Then it started to pour. I was very happy to pass out from exhaustion tonight.
Next Entry: Day 75. Les Sable D'Olonne
Previous Entry: Day 73. St. Etienne Du Bois
Friday, October 14, 2011
Day 69. Nantes. Oct 14 2001.
Rain, a lot of rain. The sky opened up and it came down in buckets. Heather is feeling very ill, a chest cold that she can’t seem to shake and since today is Sunday and everything is closed on Sunday’s anyway it seemed a perfect day to sit in our tent and try to recover. We settled in for a long and uneventful day of falling rain and contemplation of tomorrow’s activities.
Then I made a fatal error.
I began to think.
I calculated the days in the notebook against a calendar and found, to my surprise, that today was in fact Saturday. Nantes was pulsating with activity even as we sat here doing nothing! And tomorrow everything would be closed! Two whole days spent doing nothing! Well, I just couldn’t accept that! So I bundled myself up in a sweater and sweat pants and put on my rain pants and raincoat. Heather was going to wait back at the tent for me. She needed time to get well. Running around in the rain could do nothing good for her. It would be the first time that I would head out and see something on this trip without her. I promised to bike out of my way and see only the things that together we would skip. She didn’t seem too happy about it but didn’t say anything. So off I went into a curtain of rain so thick it was almost blinding.
I followed our original route into town, along the tram paths. The streets were mostly deserted and the people on them looked at me as thought was insane. I could hardly argue with them. Water was already seeping into my jacket from somewhere, soaking the sleeves of my shirt and I was sweating so much that my legs were soaked as well.
But Nantes was very beautiful in the rain. The pavement of the streets shone like an obsidian mirror while the cobblestones that lined the route glistened like polished marble. I followed the quay into town them biked along the road of the Fifty Hostages. The rain let up for a while and the neon signs flashed, reflected from every glittering surface. In the distance I saw the bell-tower of the church of the holy cross, Ste-Croix, and I pedaled towards it, up the long narrow streets that made up the historical heart of Nantes, the Bouffay Quarter. Somehow I kept missing the church, though I could always see its tip peering out over nearby buildings. The bell tower of the church of Sainte-Croix was one the most unique I had ever seen. It’s flat topped cylindrical shape was gilded in gold or bronze and from it’s peak a bevy of angels leaned out, sounding trumpets. I would have like to have found it, but it always seemed to pass me by, hidden from view long enough to suddenly appear behind me.
I pelted through the damp streets of Nantes and I couldn’t help noticing that most of the shops were closed. Strange for a Saturday, I thought… Suddenly red banners blazed out over a building ahead of me. The Galeries LaFayette, a place that had been advertising an "haut couture" show all over the city. I knew that Heather would like to see the show so I pulled my bike into the entrance way to check prices. It was closed. Well, it was noon and things in France close around noon. I looked at the times so I would know when to come back. “Open 10 until 8 every day except Sunday” said the sign. Oh!
Things began to click.
The closed shops, the deserted streets...
It was Sunday.
Here I was, getting soaked to the skin, racing around Nantes, trying to see everything, on a day everything was closed! As if some malicious god was laughing at me the rain began to increase at that moment. Suddenly I was trapped downtown, in the centre of the city, with no shelter. Oh well, I was wet already. I headed off for home in rain that would make Noah hesitate.
I found the St. Peter and St. Paul cathedral but, mindful of my promise to Heather, I didn’t go in. The city was in the process of cleaning off the pollution that had built up and restoring the façade so the church had a very strange look to it. One half was covered in a black patina of age and grime. The other side was cleaner than new stone. A gray so perfect it looked as though it had been painted on. While the work was to beautify the place the intermediate stage, with it’s mottled patchwork of colours, was very ugly indeed.
From the church I turned right and suddenly, without plan or warning, found myself biking past Le Chateau des Ducs de Bretagne, the Castle of the Dukes of Brittany. It was an imposing sight, gray and black in the rain. Its green algae filled moat bubbling in the rain as gargoyles vomited water from above. People huddled in the protective shelter of the gatehouse and waited for the rain to pass. They had a long wait ahead of them. I cycled past and found myself in the Place de la Duchess Ann. Ann, Duchess of Brittany, had married Louis XII of France. Their heir, Francois I King of France had brought the independent nation of Brittany in to union with France in 1532. The city of Nantes seems to virtually worship Ann and you can find her name, or her symbols, almost everywhere. Nantes seems to be very much, almost five hundred years after her death, to be Ann’s city.
I found the people of Nantes to be very nice with regards to my plight. Cars calmly let me cut them off and even gestured for me to pull in front of them as I pelted for home. I eventually reached the campground and cycled up to our tent to find Heather smiling sardonically up at me. After I had gone she had checked my figures once more and discovered what had taken me an hour and a soaking. Today was not a day to be biking in Nantes. I climbed into the tent, stripped off my wet clothes and huddled under my sleeping bag seeking forgotten warmth. And the rain stopped! Is there really any wonder that Heather and I have become highly superstitious? Surely the chaos of random events could not be so malicious. If only we could find the sacrifice that would propitiate the god of the rains. But I think he finds his greatest pleasure in tormenting mere mortals such as we and no sacrifice would be enough to deter him from his sport.
That afternoon we called home to check in on my mother, as my father was away in Halifax taking pictures like the mad photographer that he is. Mom was doing well but had bought a new TV and a new DVD player to sooth her loneliness. This to compliment their new internet access! We leave and they buy all the things we were deprived of as children. Typical.
We also phoned my sister. A former student of hers had died and Andrew was away in Manitoba. Talking to people, even family was awkward at first. I have lost what few social skills I had before beginning this adventure. By the time we return to a “civilized” lifestyle we will not be able to fit in. We will probably pitch a tent in a living room somewhere and disappear for weeks at a time. I can understand why the Earl of Greystoke longed for the Jungle.
Next Entry: Day 70. Nantes
Previous Entry: Letter From Nantes
Then I made a fatal error.I began to think.
I calculated the days in the notebook against a calendar and found, to my surprise, that today was in fact Saturday. Nantes was pulsating with activity even as we sat here doing nothing! And tomorrow everything would be closed! Two whole days spent doing nothing! Well, I just couldn’t accept that! So I bundled myself up in a sweater and sweat pants and put on my rain pants and raincoat. Heather was going to wait back at the tent for me. She needed time to get well. Running around in the rain could do nothing good for her. It would be the first time that I would head out and see something on this trip without her. I promised to bike out of my way and see only the things that together we would skip. She didn’t seem too happy about it but didn’t say anything. So off I went into a curtain of rain so thick it was almost blinding.
I followed our original route into town, along the tram paths. The streets were mostly deserted and the people on them looked at me as thought was insane. I could hardly argue with them. Water was already seeping into my jacket from somewhere, soaking the sleeves of my shirt and I was sweating so much that my legs were soaked as well.
But Nantes was very beautiful in the rain. The pavement of the streets shone like an obsidian mirror while the cobblestones that lined the route glistened like polished marble. I followed the quay into town them biked along the road of the Fifty Hostages. The rain let up for a while and the neon signs flashed, reflected from every glittering surface. In the distance I saw the bell-tower of the church of the holy cross, Ste-Croix, and I pedaled towards it, up the long narrow streets that made up the historical heart of Nantes, the Bouffay Quarter. Somehow I kept missing the church, though I could always see its tip peering out over nearby buildings. The bell tower of the church of Sainte-Croix was one the most unique I had ever seen. It’s flat topped cylindrical shape was gilded in gold or bronze and from it’s peak a bevy of angels leaned out, sounding trumpets. I would have like to have found it, but it always seemed to pass me by, hidden from view long enough to suddenly appear behind me.
I pelted through the damp streets of Nantes and I couldn’t help noticing that most of the shops were closed. Strange for a Saturday, I thought… Suddenly red banners blazed out over a building ahead of me. The Galeries LaFayette, a place that had been advertising an "haut couture" show all over the city. I knew that Heather would like to see the show so I pulled my bike into the entrance way to check prices. It was closed. Well, it was noon and things in France close around noon. I looked at the times so I would know when to come back. “Open 10 until 8 every day except Sunday” said the sign. Oh!
Things began to click.
The closed shops, the deserted streets...
It was Sunday.
Here I was, getting soaked to the skin, racing around Nantes, trying to see everything, on a day everything was closed! As if some malicious god was laughing at me the rain began to increase at that moment. Suddenly I was trapped downtown, in the centre of the city, with no shelter. Oh well, I was wet already. I headed off for home in rain that would make Noah hesitate.
I found the St. Peter and St. Paul cathedral but, mindful of my promise to Heather, I didn’t go in. The city was in the process of cleaning off the pollution that had built up and restoring the façade so the church had a very strange look to it. One half was covered in a black patina of age and grime. The other side was cleaner than new stone. A gray so perfect it looked as though it had been painted on. While the work was to beautify the place the intermediate stage, with it’s mottled patchwork of colours, was very ugly indeed.
From the church I turned right and suddenly, without plan or warning, found myself biking past Le Chateau des Ducs de Bretagne, the Castle of the Dukes of Brittany. It was an imposing sight, gray and black in the rain. Its green algae filled moat bubbling in the rain as gargoyles vomited water from above. People huddled in the protective shelter of the gatehouse and waited for the rain to pass. They had a long wait ahead of them. I cycled past and found myself in the Place de la Duchess Ann. Ann, Duchess of Brittany, had married Louis XII of France. Their heir, Francois I King of France had brought the independent nation of Brittany in to union with France in 1532. The city of Nantes seems to virtually worship Ann and you can find her name, or her symbols, almost everywhere. Nantes seems to be very much, almost five hundred years after her death, to be Ann’s city.
From the Chateau I biked up the street under which the Erdre River had been buried and found myself in the Place Marachal Foch, a square with a towering statue of King Louis XVI in the centre. To my left were the cathedral and the St. Peter gate, the last remnant of the old city walls. Somehow I was biking in circles! But I knew the way from here. I biked, rather disrespectfully, down the war memorial and headed for home. By now the rain had, if possible, become even heavier and I was biking in rivers of water.
I found the people of Nantes to be very nice with regards to my plight. Cars calmly let me cut them off and even gestured for me to pull in front of them as I pelted for home. I eventually reached the campground and cycled up to our tent to find Heather smiling sardonically up at me. After I had gone she had checked my figures once more and discovered what had taken me an hour and a soaking. Today was not a day to be biking in Nantes. I climbed into the tent, stripped off my wet clothes and huddled under my sleeping bag seeking forgotten warmth. And the rain stopped! Is there really any wonder that Heather and I have become highly superstitious? Surely the chaos of random events could not be so malicious. If only we could find the sacrifice that would propitiate the god of the rains. But I think he finds his greatest pleasure in tormenting mere mortals such as we and no sacrifice would be enough to deter him from his sport.
That afternoon we called home to check in on my mother, as my father was away in Halifax taking pictures like the mad photographer that he is. Mom was doing well but had bought a new TV and a new DVD player to sooth her loneliness. This to compliment their new internet access! We leave and they buy all the things we were deprived of as children. Typical.
We also phoned my sister. A former student of hers had died and Andrew was away in Manitoba. Talking to people, even family was awkward at first. I have lost what few social skills I had before beginning this adventure. By the time we return to a “civilized” lifestyle we will not be able to fit in. We will probably pitch a tent in a living room somewhere and disappear for weeks at a time. I can understand why the Earl of Greystoke longed for the Jungle.
Next Entry: Day 70. Nantes
Previous Entry: Letter From Nantes
Thursday, October 13, 2011
Day 68. Nantes. Oct 13 2001.
Today we followed the Erdre River into le Pays De La Loire.
We woke early, to fog once more. We got together our gear in a ritual that happens almost by rote now. Heather packs her panniers while still in the tent, getting everything ready before mounting it on its racks. I mount my panniers on the bike and stuff things into them as they surface. Heather, in frustration, has dubbed her bike Jinx, reflecting its cursed nature. Initially I dubbed my bike Herbert, but in view of his red coloring and the fact that he has never yet broken down, I renamed him Fidel.
In addition to being foggy this morning was also very hazy and a strong smell of smoke hung in the air. The French like to burn their garbage as they work and we frequently pass small pyres burning beside farms or on construction sites. It always casts a foul smell for kilometers and it makes it harder to breath.
The passage through the countryside was…typical. It doesn’t change all that much from day to day. We tried to follow the Erdre River but the road into Nantes was all over the place. We stopped for groceries at Suce sur Erdre and then something terrible happened. Heather saw a sign for McDonalds
McDonalds has come to symbolize all the food we are missing from home and I had promised to stop at the next one we saw. Chapelle sur Erdre (the town where the McDonalds actually was) was a beautiful town, despite hosting a fast food joint. We biked into town in search of The House of Grease and passed by their beautifully ornate church. A bride in white and her groom were parading down the street towards their vintage wedding car as we passed. Crowds of people had flooded into the street following the wedding and now stopped to chat and catch up with old friends and family heedless of the traffic trying to get by. I think all weddings most share that phenomenon in common. The bride looked radiantly happy but you could hardly see the groom, lost among the crowd. Another wedding phenomenon I suppose. I wonder if she was keeping her maiden name.
We passed through the entire town with no sign of our goal and I had given up when we saw it looming to our left. We quickly deviated from our course and were soon munching away happily. Such a treat did not come cheaply however, both in material and physical cost. One meal at McDonalds broke our budget for the day and my stomach was soon turning over. Fast Food is food one must build up immunity to.
We hurried on to Nantes. Nantes surprised us as we cycled in. It had a skyscraper. The first we had seen, outside of hideously ugly apartment blocks that were everywhere and equally ugly water towers. Based on the towering building and our newly revised formula for such things we determined Nantes' size to be pretty big. It was also nice, at least from our entry point. The tramways looked extensive and had either well maintained grass or cobblestones between the tracks. The trains themselves universally looked crisp and new.
We hurried on the campground where I was violently ill in the filthiest washrooms we had yet encountered, perhaps one of the low points of my life. The campground itself wasn’t too bad so we reluctantly decided to stay. We set up our tent and headed out to explore the town. We were also looking for an internet café to communicate with everyone back home. Nantes, like Rennes, has lanes set aside for cyclists so we cruised easily into downtown alongside the trams. We cycled along the boardwalk that parallels the river Erdre as it comes into the city. At first we had little appreciation for the city because we were trying, and failing, to find an internet café. But the boardwalk was beautiful. It was cobblestone, separated into lanes for pedestrians and cyclist by marble strips. There were stones inlaid with directional signs embedded in the boardwalk and boats were moored everywhere.
The Isle de Versailles was a lush island in the river, laid out in a Japanese style, with well cared for pines and oaks and a river running in a series of waterfalls down to the Erdre. Off in the distance we could just see the tip of the Cathedral of Nantes peering over the rooftops. Finally, close to where the Erdre disappeared into a tunnel beneath the streets of Nantes, we found our internet stop.
We wrote a long letter to our friends back home and read their messages avidly. Before we knew it two hours had passed and we had once again gone over budget. We left the café feeling very homesick and missing friends and family. It’s hard to hear about events back home because you want to be there to share in all the joys and sorrows. When they say that they miss you a feeling like you're being selfish washes over you. This trip is all about us, exclusively for us and it is hard to reconcile that with being a loving member of a community.
The walk home was very nice, we didn’t feel like biking, but we were both a little down and Heather was feeling more ill than yesterday.
We walked to the memorial at the head of the Road of the 50 Hostages.
These were among those executed in retaliation for the death of a Nazi officer on the streets of Nantes during World War II. The memorial was elegant and simple. Very evocative. I can understand how hard it must be to forget the atrocities the Germans committed in that war. The idea of the European community must be very difficult for many, especially the older generation. It would mean unifying with those who had been responsible for the worst war the world had seen, or at least their descendants. At home we don’t have to live with the consequences of wars. None of our cities have been devastated; few of our people have been executed. It would be nice if things stayed that way. Walking back on the far bank of the Erdre we passed a wall of names of those from Nantes who had died in conflict, “died for patriotism” as the wall itself said. Few things have killed as much as “patriotism.” But at least we get pretty statues out of it.
Returning we saw the Isles de Versailles from the other side. There is a beautiful and strange building on one corner, all square and tipped up on one corner, which we should investigate in the next few days. There is so much to see here! The river had massive boats on it, two stories of open glass dining rooms and observation decks. We had seen the brochure for them and I had assumed they would be like those I’d seen in Paris, small boat what ply the Seine with their cargo of tourists. But these dwarf my memories.
Back at camp French students were taking advantage of the weekend to party, banging drums and singing loudly. I’m glad it’s the off season.
Next Entry: Letter from Nantes
Previous Entry: Day 67. Nort Sur Erdre
We woke early, to fog once more. We got together our gear in a ritual that happens almost by rote now. Heather packs her panniers while still in the tent, getting everything ready before mounting it on its racks. I mount my panniers on the bike and stuff things into them as they surface. Heather, in frustration, has dubbed her bike Jinx, reflecting its cursed nature. Initially I dubbed my bike Herbert, but in view of his red coloring and the fact that he has never yet broken down, I renamed him Fidel.
In addition to being foggy this morning was also very hazy and a strong smell of smoke hung in the air. The French like to burn their garbage as they work and we frequently pass small pyres burning beside farms or on construction sites. It always casts a foul smell for kilometers and it makes it harder to breath.
The passage through the countryside was…typical. It doesn’t change all that much from day to day. We tried to follow the Erdre River but the road into Nantes was all over the place. We stopped for groceries at Suce sur Erdre and then something terrible happened. Heather saw a sign for McDonalds
McDonalds has come to symbolize all the food we are missing from home and I had promised to stop at the next one we saw. Chapelle sur Erdre (the town where the McDonalds actually was) was a beautiful town, despite hosting a fast food joint. We biked into town in search of The House of Grease and passed by their beautifully ornate church. A bride in white and her groom were parading down the street towards their vintage wedding car as we passed. Crowds of people had flooded into the street following the wedding and now stopped to chat and catch up with old friends and family heedless of the traffic trying to get by. I think all weddings most share that phenomenon in common. The bride looked radiantly happy but you could hardly see the groom, lost among the crowd. Another wedding phenomenon I suppose. I wonder if she was keeping her maiden name.
We passed through the entire town with no sign of our goal and I had given up when we saw it looming to our left. We quickly deviated from our course and were soon munching away happily. Such a treat did not come cheaply however, both in material and physical cost. One meal at McDonalds broke our budget for the day and my stomach was soon turning over. Fast Food is food one must build up immunity to.
We hurried on to Nantes. Nantes surprised us as we cycled in. It had a skyscraper. The first we had seen, outside of hideously ugly apartment blocks that were everywhere and equally ugly water towers. Based on the towering building and our newly revised formula for such things we determined Nantes' size to be pretty big. It was also nice, at least from our entry point. The tramways looked extensive and had either well maintained grass or cobblestones between the tracks. The trains themselves universally looked crisp and new.
We hurried on the campground where I was violently ill in the filthiest washrooms we had yet encountered, perhaps one of the low points of my life. The campground itself wasn’t too bad so we reluctantly decided to stay. We set up our tent and headed out to explore the town. We were also looking for an internet café to communicate with everyone back home. Nantes, like Rennes, has lanes set aside for cyclists so we cruised easily into downtown alongside the trams. We cycled along the boardwalk that parallels the river Erdre as it comes into the city. At first we had little appreciation for the city because we were trying, and failing, to find an internet café. But the boardwalk was beautiful. It was cobblestone, separated into lanes for pedestrians and cyclist by marble strips. There were stones inlaid with directional signs embedded in the boardwalk and boats were moored everywhere.
The Isle de Versailles was a lush island in the river, laid out in a Japanese style, with well cared for pines and oaks and a river running in a series of waterfalls down to the Erdre. Off in the distance we could just see the tip of the Cathedral of Nantes peering over the rooftops. Finally, close to where the Erdre disappeared into a tunnel beneath the streets of Nantes, we found our internet stop.
We wrote a long letter to our friends back home and read their messages avidly. Before we knew it two hours had passed and we had once again gone over budget. We left the café feeling very homesick and missing friends and family. It’s hard to hear about events back home because you want to be there to share in all the joys and sorrows. When they say that they miss you a feeling like you're being selfish washes over you. This trip is all about us, exclusively for us and it is hard to reconcile that with being a loving member of a community.
The walk home was very nice, we didn’t feel like biking, but we were both a little down and Heather was feeling more ill than yesterday.
We walked to the memorial at the head of the Road of the 50 Hostages.
These were among those executed in retaliation for the death of a Nazi officer on the streets of Nantes during World War II. The memorial was elegant and simple. Very evocative. I can understand how hard it must be to forget the atrocities the Germans committed in that war. The idea of the European community must be very difficult for many, especially the older generation. It would mean unifying with those who had been responsible for the worst war the world had seen, or at least their descendants. At home we don’t have to live with the consequences of wars. None of our cities have been devastated; few of our people have been executed. It would be nice if things stayed that way. Walking back on the far bank of the Erdre we passed a wall of names of those from Nantes who had died in conflict, “died for patriotism” as the wall itself said. Few things have killed as much as “patriotism.” But at least we get pretty statues out of it.
Returning we saw the Isles de Versailles from the other side. There is a beautiful and strange building on one corner, all square and tipped up on one corner, which we should investigate in the next few days. There is so much to see here! The river had massive boats on it, two stories of open glass dining rooms and observation decks. We had seen the brochure for them and I had assumed they would be like those I’d seen in Paris, small boat what ply the Seine with their cargo of tourists. But these dwarf my memories.
Back at camp French students were taking advantage of the weekend to party, banging drums and singing loudly. I’m glad it’s the off season.
Next Entry: Letter from Nantes
Previous Entry: Day 67. Nort Sur Erdre
Sunday, October 02, 2011
Day 57. Donneville-Les-Bains. Oct 2 2001.
Heather is ill. We woke up this morning in time for an early start but Heather has been plagued by a persistent headache, cough and weakness. After our depression the other day about how far we have managed to travel I would like to have headed out but traveling with Heather in less than peak condition would be foolish so here we stay.
We’ve spent most of the day cocooned in the tent, Heather sleeping and me alternating between reading and staring at the tent walls. I’ve been reading through the Lonely Planet Guide to Europe on a Shoestring and I’ve come to the conclusion that the best way to start traveling frugally is to not buy the book. It gives a lot of information for the countries but is so general as to be almost useless unless you are staying in London or Paris or Rome. Of the things to see outside the cities there a nary a mention. I have particularly enjoyed reading the history sections of each country. I am continually amazed at how little history I really know.
Mike Perzel once said to me:
“The first year of university is congratulating you for actually getting that far. The rest is tearing you down by teaching you how little you know. By the time you graduate, if university has succeeded, they have reduced you to a state of idiocy”
Reading history I do sometimes feel like an idiot, so perhaps my university years were not entirely wasted.
There are too many places and names and dates to remember them all, but it would be nice to remember a few. I once had a professor who likened the study of history to the study of the space-time continuum. Every event could be placed on an x,y,z axis somewhere and then studied as it passed through the fourth dimension, time.
She was, of course, the one professor who made everyone memorize maps and she was despised for it.
But now it seems to me that the study of the events of history, without an understanding of the locations, is completely senseless. Who can understand the achievement of Julius Caesar invading Britain without having crossed the channel?
Who can understand the elephants of Hannibal without having crossed the Alps?
I hope never to understand Hannibal, at least not on the seat of a bike.
Sitting here, the two of us in the tent, is driving me a little stir crazy. Heather has slept for three hours now and my mind is so bored I am counting the squares in the knit of the tent fabric. I could go outside but the weather is so dull and dreary there almost seems to be no point. The only thing to do would be to watch the gray waves crash on the gray shore against the backdrop of the gray sky.
The sound of the waves is so contradictory. At times it can be so soothing, exactly what you what you need to push you over the edge into sleep. At other times it can seem menacing, ready to crash over your tent and wash you out to sea. I can’t imagine sleeping on the beach. All night I would be sitting up just to make sure the waves were in their proper place and not sneaking up on me.
Raindrops too are similarly contradictory. When there is a gentle mist the swish they make against the surface of the tent is one of the most beautiful sounds you can hear. But when you are hit with big fat drops, as we are here beneath the shelter of this cedar, the water hits the tent like a great drum and everything reverberates to the sound. When there is a great heavy rainstorm it is similar to sitting in the percussion section when the rest of the orchestra has gone home. I don’t mind it too often and every once in awhile it can be really exciting, but after listening to it everyday you start to long for some melody.
After a day sitting cooped up in the tent we decided to have a night on the town. We trudged up the main street of Donneville to look for a restaurant. The rain was intermittent; so we brought our raincoats, which would alternately become too hot to wear, then not warm enough. We walked up first one side then the other of the town and found no real restaurants, only bars and a hotel with an enormous statue of a chef with his chest puffed out. We had been mocking the statue every time we passed it, so it didn’t seem right to eat there.
By the time we reached the western end of Donneville Main Street it was beginning to get dark and we had found no food, so reluctantly we descended into Granville. We thought about trying the restaurant at the casino, but one meal there would break our budget for the week.
The casino overlooks the sea and has a pier from which you could lower a boat. In the half darkness of evening the sea looked like a living thing trying to shamble its way up the pier only to meet failure again and again. Further along the pier, where it presented a sheer wall to the sea, the water was battering the concrete with such intensity that great gouts of spray were flying twenty or more feet into the air, soaking those walking by.
Finally we found a little restaurant done up to look like an American dinner in the late fifties. The waitress seemed angry to have to work at such a place in the middle of France. She took our orders brusquely and plunked two half cooked hamburgers on the table with a savage thud that seemed to say “Eat and get out.” Starved as we were we ate, and almost choked when the bill arrived. The hamburgers were what we expected, but the cokes were fifteen dollars each. We paid angrily and left.
Heather felt guilty about not checking drink prices before we ordered, but who expects your drinks to coast more than your meal?
Outside it was now completely night and the rain was falling in the gentle mist that I love. The pavement was shimmering in the half-light of the lamps and everyone still outside hurried to their destinations, collars pulled up high around their faces. We strolled casually back to our campground, pausing to look out at the sea by the casino. It had calmed but looked oily and sinister in the dark, as if some forgotten creature of the depths loomed just beneath the surging waves, waiting for an unsuspecting victim. We were hesitant to turn our backs to it.
The climb back up to Donneville was slow and slippery, but well worth it. When we reached the top we gazed back at the city’s rooftops and the gently light filtering up from the streets in that man-carved labyrinth. It was like looking down on a fairy tale story of what a French city at night should be like.
Sometimes it is hard for us to believe that we are actually in France and not some quarter of Alberta that we had previously left unexplored. Only at the strangest times does it hit us how much rock and earth and water stand between us and home.
Next Entry: Day 58. Courtils
Previous Entry: Day 56. Granville
We’ve spent most of the day cocooned in the tent, Heather sleeping and me alternating between reading and staring at the tent walls. I’ve been reading through the Lonely Planet Guide to Europe on a Shoestring and I’ve come to the conclusion that the best way to start traveling frugally is to not buy the book. It gives a lot of information for the countries but is so general as to be almost useless unless you are staying in London or Paris or Rome. Of the things to see outside the cities there a nary a mention. I have particularly enjoyed reading the history sections of each country. I am continually amazed at how little history I really know.
Mike Perzel once said to me:
“The first year of university is congratulating you for actually getting that far. The rest is tearing you down by teaching you how little you know. By the time you graduate, if university has succeeded, they have reduced you to a state of idiocy”
Reading history I do sometimes feel like an idiot, so perhaps my university years were not entirely wasted.
There are too many places and names and dates to remember them all, but it would be nice to remember a few. I once had a professor who likened the study of history to the study of the space-time continuum. Every event could be placed on an x,y,z axis somewhere and then studied as it passed through the fourth dimension, time.
She was, of course, the one professor who made everyone memorize maps and she was despised for it.
But now it seems to me that the study of the events of history, without an understanding of the locations, is completely senseless. Who can understand the achievement of Julius Caesar invading Britain without having crossed the channel?
Who can understand the elephants of Hannibal without having crossed the Alps?
I hope never to understand Hannibal, at least not on the seat of a bike.
Sitting here, the two of us in the tent, is driving me a little stir crazy. Heather has slept for three hours now and my mind is so bored I am counting the squares in the knit of the tent fabric. I could go outside but the weather is so dull and dreary there almost seems to be no point. The only thing to do would be to watch the gray waves crash on the gray shore against the backdrop of the gray sky.
The sound of the waves is so contradictory. At times it can be so soothing, exactly what you what you need to push you over the edge into sleep. At other times it can seem menacing, ready to crash over your tent and wash you out to sea. I can’t imagine sleeping on the beach. All night I would be sitting up just to make sure the waves were in their proper place and not sneaking up on me.
Raindrops too are similarly contradictory. When there is a gentle mist the swish they make against the surface of the tent is one of the most beautiful sounds you can hear. But when you are hit with big fat drops, as we are here beneath the shelter of this cedar, the water hits the tent like a great drum and everything reverberates to the sound. When there is a great heavy rainstorm it is similar to sitting in the percussion section when the rest of the orchestra has gone home. I don’t mind it too often and every once in awhile it can be really exciting, but after listening to it everyday you start to long for some melody.
After a day sitting cooped up in the tent we decided to have a night on the town. We trudged up the main street of Donneville to look for a restaurant. The rain was intermittent; so we brought our raincoats, which would alternately become too hot to wear, then not warm enough. We walked up first one side then the other of the town and found no real restaurants, only bars and a hotel with an enormous statue of a chef with his chest puffed out. We had been mocking the statue every time we passed it, so it didn’t seem right to eat there.
By the time we reached the western end of Donneville Main Street it was beginning to get dark and we had found no food, so reluctantly we descended into Granville. We thought about trying the restaurant at the casino, but one meal there would break our budget for the week.
The casino overlooks the sea and has a pier from which you could lower a boat. In the half darkness of evening the sea looked like a living thing trying to shamble its way up the pier only to meet failure again and again. Further along the pier, where it presented a sheer wall to the sea, the water was battering the concrete with such intensity that great gouts of spray were flying twenty or more feet into the air, soaking those walking by.
Finally we found a little restaurant done up to look like an American dinner in the late fifties. The waitress seemed angry to have to work at such a place in the middle of France. She took our orders brusquely and plunked two half cooked hamburgers on the table with a savage thud that seemed to say “Eat and get out.” Starved as we were we ate, and almost choked when the bill arrived. The hamburgers were what we expected, but the cokes were fifteen dollars each. We paid angrily and left.
Heather felt guilty about not checking drink prices before we ordered, but who expects your drinks to coast more than your meal?
Outside it was now completely night and the rain was falling in the gentle mist that I love. The pavement was shimmering in the half-light of the lamps and everyone still outside hurried to their destinations, collars pulled up high around their faces. We strolled casually back to our campground, pausing to look out at the sea by the casino. It had calmed but looked oily and sinister in the dark, as if some forgotten creature of the depths loomed just beneath the surging waves, waiting for an unsuspecting victim. We were hesitant to turn our backs to it.
The climb back up to Donneville was slow and slippery, but well worth it. When we reached the top we gazed back at the city’s rooftops and the gently light filtering up from the streets in that man-carved labyrinth. It was like looking down on a fairy tale story of what a French city at night should be like.
Sometimes it is hard for us to believe that we are actually in France and not some quarter of Alberta that we had previously left unexplored. Only at the strangest times does it hit us how much rock and earth and water stand between us and home.
Next Entry: Day 58. Courtils
Previous Entry: Day 56. Granville
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Day 45. Holbury. Sept 20 2001
I am now officially sick.
Looking out at the vast expanse of these two pages I wonder how I can possibly fill them and so develop a new policy that I will write only as far as I can and begin the next days entry where the last one ended. Unfortunately when I bought the journal I labeled each day so I wouldn’t forget, up to 47, so I still have to fill in a couple of pages.
Today was very much a lay at home day. What had started as a scratchy throat and a couple of sneezes soon developed into a full blown cold and I was forced, yeah it was so hard, to sit in front of the television for the entire day. Heather had made plans with Paul and Tessa and so biked off to Blackfield, leaving me alone with my sniffles. Paul had previously fixed Heather’s pannier rack with fiberglass tape but she had forgotten to bring the bolts with her at our last visit, necessitating one more trip. Paul was possibly the most excited Orman about our trip, possibly because he is an avid biker in his own right. He also seems to feel a debt of gratitude to my parents because they hosted Paul and Tessa on their honeymoon. He offered us whatever we needed to make our holiday a success! Pretty generous offer, especially because I think my parents had even more fun hosting the Ormans than they had coming over. I still remember vividly Paul and Dad disappearing one morning in Yoho National Park (I think) only to reappear as tiny dots on the side of a mountain, climbing to abandoned caves.
It is really amazing how open and generous all the Orman’s are. They have hosted us with a generosity that is boundless and they have made us feel like honourary members of their families, even allowing their children to drool, vomit and play all over us.
Heather was at Paul and Tessa’s for a very long time and learnt that my cold was probably distributed family wide at Sam’s birthday party the previous weekend. Thomas was sick as was Nick, Sam, Emily, Imogine, Paul and sort of Heather. At least the family shares everything with their guests.
Oh, I forgot to mention that yesterday was Maxine’s birthday. She was so low key about it that I keep forgetting…. Oh and I think it was Paul’s as well. They were born on the same day years apart. Heather, being the responsible and social member of our twosome gave both cards that we had brought from Canada, beautiful photo cards produced by Dad.
My television watching experience was interesting. The news of course was saturated with events in America and Afghanistan. It is most unfortunate that Bush is president in these trying times. A man with genuine vision could parley the horror that grips the world into a more powerful United Nations, a truly international criminal court system and greater global unity, but instead America concentrates on revenge that will solve nothing, perhaps kill hundreds of innocents and fragment the nations of the world even further along religious and ethnic lines.
Strange how the BBC is held as an ideal that all other news programs should strive towards, a newscaster all others look towards for that quality. Most other British news sources are absolute trash. Reading the headlines it is hard to believe they don’t spark panic everyday. “Terrorists living in our midst” announces one paper when the article describes terrorists catching a connector flight from London. And every page is filled with the minute movements of celebrities. How anyone could care that much is beyond me.
Next Entry: Day 46. Holbury
Previous Entry: Day 44. Marchwood
Looking out at the vast expanse of these two pages I wonder how I can possibly fill them and so develop a new policy that I will write only as far as I can and begin the next days entry where the last one ended. Unfortunately when I bought the journal I labeled each day so I wouldn’t forget, up to 47, so I still have to fill in a couple of pages.
Today was very much a lay at home day. What had started as a scratchy throat and a couple of sneezes soon developed into a full blown cold and I was forced, yeah it was so hard, to sit in front of the television for the entire day. Heather had made plans with Paul and Tessa and so biked off to Blackfield, leaving me alone with my sniffles. Paul had previously fixed Heather’s pannier rack with fiberglass tape but she had forgotten to bring the bolts with her at our last visit, necessitating one more trip. Paul was possibly the most excited Orman about our trip, possibly because he is an avid biker in his own right. He also seems to feel a debt of gratitude to my parents because they hosted Paul and Tessa on their honeymoon. He offered us whatever we needed to make our holiday a success! Pretty generous offer, especially because I think my parents had even more fun hosting the Ormans than they had coming over. I still remember vividly Paul and Dad disappearing one morning in Yoho National Park (I think) only to reappear as tiny dots on the side of a mountain, climbing to abandoned caves.
It is really amazing how open and generous all the Orman’s are. They have hosted us with a generosity that is boundless and they have made us feel like honourary members of their families, even allowing their children to drool, vomit and play all over us.
Heather was at Paul and Tessa’s for a very long time and learnt that my cold was probably distributed family wide at Sam’s birthday party the previous weekend. Thomas was sick as was Nick, Sam, Emily, Imogine, Paul and sort of Heather. At least the family shares everything with their guests.
Oh, I forgot to mention that yesterday was Maxine’s birthday. She was so low key about it that I keep forgetting…. Oh and I think it was Paul’s as well. They were born on the same day years apart. Heather, being the responsible and social member of our twosome gave both cards that we had brought from Canada, beautiful photo cards produced by Dad.
My television watching experience was interesting. The news of course was saturated with events in America and Afghanistan. It is most unfortunate that Bush is president in these trying times. A man with genuine vision could parley the horror that grips the world into a more powerful United Nations, a truly international criminal court system and greater global unity, but instead America concentrates on revenge that will solve nothing, perhaps kill hundreds of innocents and fragment the nations of the world even further along religious and ethnic lines.
Strange how the BBC is held as an ideal that all other news programs should strive towards, a newscaster all others look towards for that quality. Most other British news sources are absolute trash. Reading the headlines it is hard to believe they don’t spark panic everyday. “Terrorists living in our midst” announces one paper when the article describes terrorists catching a connector flight from London. And every page is filled with the minute movements of celebrities. How anyone could care that much is beyond me.
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