Europe 2014: The bad and the good..

Yesterday and today's distance: 166km (104 Miles)

Meant to have a short day yesterday but it was not in the cards for us. The plan was to ride to the city of Orleans and find a hotel in the center of town to explore and rest up. We made it there shortly after noon and had lunch right next to the statue of Joan of Arc in her home town. We tried to find a hotel but were greeted with signs saying: "Hotel Complet", or in English "Fat chance you can get a room here". Paris is only 64km from Orléans so maybe that is why all hotels are booked? We really didn't want to search much further so headed back onto the Loire Valley route to the next town.

Much of the day was heading into a fairly stiff and cool NorthEast wind. Really shouldn't complain since that same wind brought us dry weather. Still, we want things to be perfect based on everything so far, so we did complain about that. And..., the fact that all hotels in the next 3 towns were "Complet" as well to our further frustration. Arrgghhh.. These French should be working in the middle of the week, not having a vacation this time of year! Or could it be they have gone on strike again.... Ok, my sarcasm is showing through... Not a good character trait.

A nice lady in a tourism office did find us a room in a small hotel 5km furth down the route in the little village of Germigny-des-Préz. It did look very small on the map so we anticipated and bought some food provisions at the Boulangerie and Charcuterie shops for our eventual dinner. Picked up a nice wine bottle from Provence to help soothe our frustrations of the day. It worked!

Today was a new and much better day! Our hotel was right across the street from the oldest Christian oratory in France built in 806. Unfortunately it wasn't open yet that early in the morning so we hit the road going further east and now south. Our little hotel only served us coffee and toast, so we were in search of much needed croussants and pain-aux-chocolate which we found in the next village, Saint Bernoît-sur-Loire. Found a bench in the sun next to the church and monastery and ate our now daily bread and listened to the organ being played inside. We knew it was going to be a good day!

The route today was through some really pretty farm land and the prettiest part of the Loire that we have seen so far. We didn't see as many fellow cyclists until we stopped at a cafe in Saint-Gondon for a beer. There was a large group of Americans and Canadians on bikes as part of an organized tour. All were very curious about our Bike Friday bikes and the route we had taken over the last few weeks. They were on a one week tour that would end up just south of Paris. Their guide spotted our Road Holland attire and asked Linda if we were Dutch. Linda has unofficially adopted Holland as her second home country and enthusiastically said "Ja", and pointed in my direction. Spent some time talking to him and he endorsed our way of traveling.

We successfully ended our day finding a nice campground in a town (Bonny-sur-Loire) that also has a couple restaurants where we will hopefully find a good dinner tonight..