Eparnay to Metz

Metz  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metz is the actual start of our bike ride, or the "planned" bit, meaning the part I originally bought guides for.

Since then, we've ridden from Paris, 200k to Epernay, and a further 60 in a tour there. As I write this, at Lac de Madine,  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lac_de_Madine, we've done a further 208k.

Anyway, it was with regret, that we packed up and left our lovely Chambre d'Hote, and our nice hosts at Epernay.

Once we were out of the town, we found that there was a canal, running right next to the Marne, which was called, not surprisingly, le canal par la Marne, or some such. 

smooth

The path started out smooth, but gradually deteriorated, and eventually we were riding along a bit of a bush track, but later, as we got closer to Challon-en-Champagne, it returned to its brilliant smoothness.

Unfortunately, at about the same time, Hannelore's chain broke. A nice French couple on a tandem happened by, and stopped to help, and the chap offered me a link to fix it. That was a little different to my fix, which was by using a special link one uses so that the chain can be pulled apart for cleaning, but I was carrying it just in case the chain broke.

rough, gets rougher

However, I went along with his idea, until I managed to lose his spare, which he offered me, in the long grass, where it pinged off  the pliers. So, I went ahead with my original plan, and Hannelore's bike was soon up and running again.

We had a nice “Pigeon French” chat with the couple, before continuing on to our next camping site, at Chalons-sur-Marne, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chalons_Sur_Marne which was shorter than our original planned destination, but we felt like stopping after the excitement of the broken chain.

There was a Dutch couple at the camping, with high quality everything, tent, bikes, and in particular, a wonderful camping seat, which he said weighed 75grams, and packed into a case the size of my toilet bag. I had a go at sitting in it, ingeniously it has a back rest, although you have to balance the whole thing as you sit, because it has only two legs.

Nice little Marne Canal boat

The couple were going on to Santiago in Spain, doing a pilgrimage by bicycle, as was the young fellow camped across the way from us. We have met others doing the same thing since, long distances, from our point of view, 80 to 100k per day, we only do half that. I guess the ordeal is part of the thing. They were packed up and gone, long before us, next morning.

us on the Marne Canal

We went on to Vitry-le-Francois, which is quite a big town, and reputed to have a camping area, but, when we got there, a Royal Show type event, complete with sideshow alley, was happening, next door to where the camping was supposed to be, and the camping area itself, which looked terrific, was closed and empty. How typically French, we thought, as we cycled off to find somewhere else to stay.

That turned out to be the Hotel de la Poste, which is one of the Logie de France group, a little up market for me, at 80 euros with breakfast, but we were glad to have somewhere to stay. We had dinner at a nearby restaurant, Hannelore a seafood pizza, and I, a Bretonne salad, which was basically lettuce topped with smoked salmon and sprinkled with mayonnaise.

This is quite a big town, has a huge square, and a couple of monster churches, but you won't find much on the internet about it, not with a quick search, at any rate.

Next day, after some more canal riding, and some D road riding, we made Bar-le-Duc,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bar-le-Duc another large town, where we arrived at 3:15, and found that the camping area was closed until  4pm. So, we went to a bar down by one of the many churches, and had a beer! 

I had a red Irish one, which was delicious, Hannelore had a Blonde, which was OK too. After downing them, and Hannelore visiting the church, we went back to the camping, where a multilingual older chap, with stumpy teeth, a dog, and a cat, checked us in. It was the cheapest so far, 8.50 euros, but we had to pay a 20 euro deposit for the gate/toilet key.

After setting up the tent, we went to the Mandarin Chinese restaurant, where I managed a truly vegan dinner, for a change.

I had planned a route to go further south, and meet the Moselle, but I didn't have the correct map, and we were about to go back into the town and buy one, when the camp commandant gave us a free one, with a nice short cut that would potentially get us to Metz quicker. 

Me during the ride to Lac de Madine

It wasn't long before we realised that it was going to be a fairly arduous short cut, the first hill we came to, after only a couple of kilometres, was a “granny gear” one. We did 58k, nothing stupendous, we are usually reasonably fresh after such a run, but we were both worn out, when we came to our camp at Lac de Madine  from where I am typing this. That's because, it rained during the night, and it was still coming down in the morning. Better to be warm and dry than cold and wet we thought, so here we are, for another day.

Well, we made it to Metz, following the Vallee du Rupt de Mad, don't ask me what it means, apart from it is the Mad River valley, and quite beautiful, even though the weather is still not perfect, cold, windy, and overcast. There was quite a climb first up, but afterwards, fairly gentle ups and downs, and if the wind hadn't been right in our faces, we'd probably have not even noticed the hills.
 

Vallee du Rupt de Mad

We had a pretty terrible time finding our way into Metz through a myriad of huge roundabouts, which led to service areas and shopping centres, also to the huge inter-European A31, which I was sure I was going to get sucked into. But, somehow we made it, me riding in front, and Hannelore screaming instructions at me, from behind. I respect her intuition!
We're going to have a lay day, and explore Metz tomorrow, it is a gem of history, and our occasional glimpses through the traffic so far have suggested this is so.