A few holiday snaps

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Arch

Married to Night Train
Location
Salford, UK
Didn’t want to bore you all with a blow by blow account of my French trip, so I thought I’d pick out few of the quirkier images…

Accommodation: very good in both value and quality. Varied a bit mind. Here’s the bathroom I had one night:

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And then the next, with possibly the smallest bath in France!

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Food: What happens if you ask for “un assiette s'il vous plait, avec un piece de brioche, peut etre, ou gateau?” (Basically, “just a biscuit or a bit of cake perhaps?)

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And may I present, the pain au chocolat, masquerading as l’escargot:

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It was a delight to be at the Hotel d’Angleterre again, with its Cheese Trolley. We were humming 'Jerusalem' all evening…

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Scenery: Some rather grand bits, as we crossed the Loire region:

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Most of the time I was too busy keeping up, or freewheeling down hills with a big grin on my face to take many pictures of the scenery. Most of it was gorgeous. The field edges especially, with classic poppy/cornflower combinations...

Wildlife:

This chap watched us have our morning coffee one day, and only slobbered over one of us (not me!). With a suitable saddle, I could just about have ridden him, he was huge!

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These were much less slobbery, being made of concrete:

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Finally some actual bike action: Firstly, how to carry two trikes and two passengers. One trike and two people in the car, one trike on the rack – a very easy way to transport a trike, a four bike tow bar rack with one channel slightly adapted for width. Meant one of us had the option of bailing out when knees started to hurt (ok, it was me!)

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Us on one of our ‘rest’ days. This was at the top of a 4km climb, looking forward to the 4 km down the other side!

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On another rest day, just about to set off on the Velo-rail. Designed for pootling families, I think we broke the course record on the thing, having some very strong cyclists on board (I don't include myself in that category. We had two guys pedalling doing an aero tuck;)). We even ‘overtook’ the one in front by swapping cars, when they realised how fast we were…

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Oh, if you want to order your gravestone now, I know a shop in St Calais…

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And finally. On the day we left Dieppe, it happened to be my birthday. The hotel staff overheard the chorus of Happy Birthday for me over breakfast and when we came to leave presented me with the nearest they could rustle up to a cake at short notice – an apple, with a couple of bits of fudge on a cocktail stick stuck in it, and a paper cut out of a candle. Completely impromptu, and their own idea. I thought it was lovely!;)

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Once again, a fabulous trip, and huge thanks to Alistair and Yvonne for organising it and keeping us all in order. I'm starting to really love France - the quiet roads, the great food, the respect for cyclists. If they could just learn about needing boiling water for tea....
 

Globalti

Legendary Member
"Toutes nos viandes de boeuf sont d'origine Francaise" - the cheeky monkeys! Or was it the chariot of cheese, which got you going?
 
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Arch

Arch

Married to Night Train
Location
Salford, UK
Rigid Raider said:
"Toutes nos viandes de boeuf sont d'origine Francaise" - the cheeky monkeys! Or was it the chariot of cheese, which got you going?


It was the chariot of cheese I was interested in, as I'd sort of mentioned in the text... And why shouldn't they advertise that their boeuf is French anyway. The take a damn sight more trouble over their food than most people do here, and it shows... We had an excellent 4 course meal at that place, for about £14 each - there's plenty of pubs here where you'd pay that for one steak with badly cooked veg...

Dan - the sheep is only on a pavement, not in the road. All I saw in the roads were lizards and slugs - great big orangey ones. To start with, I avoided bisecting them with my wheels, but after a while you can't be bothered... The lizards though, were more sensible and very much faster!
 

summerdays

Cycling in the sun
Location
Bristol
That bike rack on the back of the car looks very similar to ours. Your photos remind me a bit of my daughters photos when she has gone on school trips ... photos of food, friends ... odd things ... but not loads of the actual area she has visited. Its always an interesting insight.
 
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Arch

Arch

Married to Night Train
Location
Salford, UK
summerdays said:
That bike rack on the back of the car looks very similar to ours.

I don't remember the make, I just know it worked very well for the trike and was very easy to load...
 
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Arch

Arch

Married to Night Train
Location
Salford, UK
Uncle Phil said:
Ah yes. My mate the meat inspector's got one of those.

"You'll know it's my 'ouse when you see t'dog. His face looks like soomeun's set fire to it and then beaten it out wi' a shovel".


Excellent description!:smile: It sat and watched us for a bit and then wandered off to make friends with a cat sitting nearby. Needless to say, the cat didn't hang about!
 

Night Train

Maker of Things
Great photos, Arch, the trikes and the dog look wonderful fun!
 
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Arch

Arch

Married to Night Train
Location
Salford, UK
Night Train said:
Great photos, Arch, the trikes and the dog look wonderful fun!

Luckily that dog didn't do what I once saw in someone's holiday video. It chased down a road, barking excitedly and then when it reached the chap sitting in his trike, it leapt into his lap, wagging its tail. It was a labrador, so not small...
 
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Arch

Arch

Married to Night Train
Location
Salford, UK
Oh, and a couple of clips of the velorail in action...

http://s8.photobucket.com/albums/a6/SueArcher/?action=view&current=S7001327.flv

http://s8.photobucket.com/albums/a6/SueArcher/?action=view&current=S7001330.flv

The funny wibbly noise on the first clip is real - something to do with the conical shaped wheels on the rails I think. It made even slow speed a little alarming, and we reckon we were probably exceeding the sort of speeds it was designed for in places! Needless to say, we reckoned it would be better a)with gears and :smile: recumbent, but we also know that if you let the public on anything more complicated than "very basic" they tend to break it...
 
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Arch

Arch

Married to Night Train
Location
Salford, UK
betty swollocks said:
Happy Days!
Looks like you had a fab time.
Do I espy Messrs Stobbs and Turvey?

You do indeed! That's partly why we got the velo rail up to enormous speed! (Alistair being the other speed merchant)
 
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