Nantes - Savennieres

Another beautiful day on the bikes. This day had everything: long flats, a steep, long climb, wind, a tiny (tiny) bit of rain, and many many turns of the pedals. The total mileage on the day was just shy of 100km.

Our stay the night before was in a really cute hotel in Nantes that had only been open for 2 months and was being run by people who got their hotelling chops sharpened at the Four Seasons. The place, The Hotel Saint-Yves, was smack in the middle of a busy block but once you walked in the door it was like you were sitting in the middle of a country kitchen. We met an 82 year-old man who had recently completed a 250km ride all on cobbles. Wow. He was sweet and very concerned with how many gears we had on our bikes.

Around midday (before the wind, after the main climbing) we hit a town at the top of a colline that seemed abandoned, with one restaurant open. Once inside though, we saw every man (they were all men) from the 5 closest towns eating their lunch buffet. We were a tad on the late side, so by the time we had finished our carbo-load lunch the place was absent its 45 other diners and we were the only two that remained. Nicky was chatting with the lovely couple that runs the place when she was told the story of the birth of the town:

Local legend has it that Gargantua put one giant foot in Nantes and the other in Angers, and relieved himself of his solid waste. That relief, the story goes, was the town of Bouzillac.

Now you know that is a tale that I can get behind...

Right.

Most of the mileage took place in the rolling wine hills of the Loire valley. A hot, muggy day meant that many of the expansive views were cut a little short, but everything was playing out to be just a great day. But the mugginess gave way to a breeze-and a stiff headwind developed that wound up near-destroying our morale. Our speed dropped and our legs began to ache. We anxiously awaited each town, but they were far apart and mostly drab and none of them had ice cream. We needed ice cream. We never got it. When we finally limped into Savennieres, nothing was open and there were no restaurants to find with moving lore. We were at rock-bottom. Awaiting the return home from work of our night's hosts (see Nicky's post about the goodness in the world), we mustered the strength to go to the next town in the hopes of finding a beer. Which we did (well, I did, Nicky had wine..).

And like most things that start with beer, the rest of the evening proved to be one of my favorite things about the whole trip.