The house quickly went from quiet to active in the morning. Since I was in the living room, I got up and dressed as quickly as I could. The family gathered for breakfast and I sat in just to be part of it. The kids brushed their teeth at a sink off the kitchen. And, then they were all gone. They left me alone, gave me a key, and told me where to leave it. I packed up my gear, loaded my bike and went in search of food. I found the boulangerie that Jean Yves had recommended and down the street was a greengrocer who provided fruits, tomatoes and avocado. WIth that, I was off.
My next host lived in Angers and that was my goal for the day. It wasn't raining when I left Vitre but it looked like it would rain any moment. As usual, after a bit of city riding, I was quickly into the countryside.
There were networks of small roads that I could take to get to Angers. I decided to head toward the Mayenne River, which runs through the middle of Angers. The took me southeast and then south and made the day a bit longer. I managed to get lost and had to ride for several miles on a main, two-lane highway full of big semis. I got a bit of reprieve due to road closing construction that I could ride past but not the trucks.
I turned south just past Menil where the river first came into view.
When I got down beside the river, the view was spectacular.
This photo is from the same spot only looking up the river from the direction I had come. As you can see, it had cleared a bit and the overcast had become puffy clouds. This, however, was looking back from where I had come. The way forward wasn't so friendly.
I opted for the scenic route, thinking it would stay next to the river. But, instead, it rolled over the hills and meandered close to and away from the river.
This picture gives a more accurate view of the weather I was riding toward. I took this picture at 5pm.
It started to rain when I was about 20 miles from Angers, around 5:30pm. I stopped around the town of Graz-Neuville to eat some food and get out of the rain. As I finished my meal, it started to rain quite heavily and I packed up and went across the street to a Tabac Bar and ordered a hot chocolate. I called my host to give him an update and waited for the rain to stop.
It never did stop, so I waited for it to slack off and went for it. Angers is a big city and the roads into it are busy. I also noticed that people seem to drive faster when it rains. I had to think about this for a while as it was counter-intuitive. Shouldn't people drive slower when it rains? In the end, I came to the conclusion that people are in a hurry to get out of the rain and don't worry about the increased risk of driving (speeding) on wet pavement.
It rained for about an hour and then stopped. By this time (7pm), I had another 10 miles to go. I was on relatively narrow roads that were often empty but also had many speeding cars on them.
The route I took into the city had to go around the many major highways that meet there. As i got closer to the city center, roads got wider and the traffic got heavier. I crossed the Mayenne River for the last time near the Angers city center. This picture was taken at 8pm.
I stopped just after I crossed the river. It was dark, I was cold, didn't know where to go, and the streets were very unfriendly. I called Herve, my host, and he not only knew where I was, but he was nearby and had a van large enough to hold my bike. I was standing in front of a McDonald's and nibbling on a bits that I had on my bike. I didn't want to lock my bike so I didn't go into the McDonald's, but I really wanted to see what they look like in France (I haven't been to a McDonald's in the US in decades).
Herve pulled up in about 10 minutes and we loaded my bike and stuff into his large van and drove off to a dinner that he had arranged with a group of couchsurfing locals. It seemed that they always got together when ever one of them had a guest. We had dinner at a restaurant at the top of the city's cultural center. It was a, what I would call, Mongolian Barbeque, where you pick a pile of raw vegetables and such from a buffet and give it to someone to wok fry it for you. You also get a choice of sauce and meat. Since they didn't offer a non-meat protein, I took an extra bowl of raw stuff to get wokked up.
The meal was so-so, but the company was grand. I ate with Herve and a work collegue of his, at first. But three others came as we were finishing our meals. One of them was from England and bilingual. The others spoke various levels of English. After dinner (and 72+ miles), we went to a (smoke free) bar for about an hour of drink and talk. It was midnight when we left the bar and between the cider and, what turned out to be my longest, day's ride, I was exhausted.
We all drove over to a nearby Condo that Herve is selling. Herve lives with his girlfriend at another place and let me use this for the night. It was clearly in the process of being emptied and while there was a bed and some other furniture, it was also full of boxes. It was a tiny place up 6 half flights of stairs. Herve helped me hump my bike and gear up to the front door and into the condo. It wasn't easy.
I was in the bed and sleeping about 5 minutes after he left.