Pithiviers to Fontainebleau

I woke at 7.45 am to find Paul just lying there, not even try to get up. Unbelievable! What was he thinking, this is a short day and we can just go any old time??? I eventually got him going and we packed up and were heading out the door around 9 am. We rode ALL the way across the square outside the hotel to the patisserie on the other side and got a baguette as usual but for a change we bought a piece of Pithiviers tarte, like last nights dessert. Last nights was better I think, the pastry was not so oily (buttery?) and there was more filling.


I was in fine form this morning, even after yesterdays long ride, and we made excellent time. We had a nice run of quiet roads out of Pithiviers and there was little wind, possibly even a tail wind. We rode about 40 K's without a stop when we came to a town with an ancient ruined basilica. It looked interesting so we had to go in and take a look. The basilica was huge when it was built but for some reason, we don't know why, it became partly ruined. The back of the church is still in use but they have just walled up the inside about one third of the way along and the rest of the church is open to the air. There used to be an enormous bell tower but it has mostly caved in. Now it is a home to hundreds of pigeons.

After that we had a nice white road, a green route, but I didn't enjoy it. We'd stopped a bit too long and I was finding it hard to get going again, also it was forested and I found it quite cold. Not too far along we came to a town with a patisserie so we stopped for a another break. We bought a rather nice Flan with Cherries in it, and I had a Coke as well. Feeling rested we set off for the final leg, not too far to go now. Oh no, hills, bugger. Fortunately it wasn't that far and in not time at all we were in Fontainebleau.

Paul had, of course, picked a Logis for our stay but even though there was a sign we couldn't find it. However there was a sign for the train station which I wanted to go to so we rode there first. There was a huge bloody detour on the way, down a long hill and then back up another one :( And, once we got to the station, we discovered the detour was pointless for bikes, we could have just used the foot path for 50 metres instead. Anyway I went in to see how to get from Meaux, the town we are riding to tomorrow to Holland. The lady was quite helpful, she even spoke English, but there really is no easy way from Meaux. The system is really designed around TGV's for long distance travel but you need a bike bag for those and of course you can't buy them at the train station. I'll have to think about what to do. Maybe I can get a bag for the TGV at a bike store? By the way, the TGV is quite cheap, only 85 Euro to Amsterdam.


We rode back into town and looked for the Logis. We had to ride around to find it but it turns out we went straight past it the first time, it is only a 100 metres from the Chateau, an excellent position. We checked in, 80 Euro a night! Oh well. The room is enormous with two double beds and a vast bathroom. They even let us keep the bikes in the room. We then walked around the block to the local bike store. They have a bag for the train but it is enormous, I couldn't tour with it, and it costs 145 Euro! So that is not an option.

We went for lunch and had the special of chicken in tarragon on a bed of rice. Very nice and surprisingly filling. After lunch we went back to the room and I worked on the Internet for ages looking at different routes to get back to Holland. I have a plan now. I will ride with Paul to Meaux and then catch a train to Charleville-Meziers. The next day I will ride into Belgium and catch a train to Maastricht and from there go to Hans and Trees'. Paul fell asleep watching TV while I worked all this out. With all that done, and Paul now awake again, we went for a walk around the town. I got a Michelin Map for the region north of Charleville-Meziers for my ride into Belgium. While we were walking around we found a lovely chocolate shop so we bought a mini assortment of Chocolates, 8 for only 6.90 Euro. We ate two chocolates each as soon as we got back to the Hotel :)


After another rest it was time for dinner. Paul hadn't decided yet where to have dinner so we went for a long walk. He eventually decided we'd go to the Brasserie on the main street when I took us up another road which had quite a few restaurants. Oh no, Paul found a couscous restaurant. He'd been wanting to have couscous for ages whereas I didn't see why we'd do that when we were in France? However the meal turned out to be really nice. I got a Tajine, a stew dish of lamb, and Paul got some grilled meat. It all came with vegies, soup and of course couscous. The servings were actually very large as well, so we were nicely bloated by the time we finished. Oh, we had a Tunisian Rose with the meal too. It was quite strong, almost port like, nice.

Back at the room again we both did some email and watched TV until bed. One, I guess funny, thing was that we had to close the windows in the room. The restaurant is down below and there was smoke billowing up from below making the room stink!