| Day # |
17 |
State of Legs |
:-) |
|
Distance (miles) |
Distance (km) |
Ascent (feet) |
Ascent (metres) |
Punctures |
| Today |
44.2 miles |
km |
1998 feet |
metres |
0 |
| Trip Totals |
675.4 miles |
km |
21648 feet |
metres |
0 |
Travelogue
The big news of today, with yesterday's blog post as the context, is that it didn't rain! At least not on us :-)
After a very wet day yesterday, and all the trauma of wet clothes, a wet tent and no way of drying anything, we were relieved that today stayed dry.
We headed off from the campsite, cycling the five miles back to our route, planning to have another of those tasty cups of coffee from the bar in Pagny-sur-Moselle, only to find that the bar had not yet opened. Undeterred, we joined our route and pushed on.
We were soon cycling along a path by the River Moselle, away from the rush hour traffic (of which there was in fact very little, to be fair!).
We saw a number of very sleepy looking swans in the river.
We soon reached the town of Pont-à-Mousson and took the opportunity to stop there for breakfast. M1 went off to find pastries, whilst M2 sat outside a bar with the coffees we'd ordered. M1 returned with not one pastry each, but two! Ouah! We each had a pain au chocolat (PaC) and a croissant d'amandes (CdA). Most tasty they were as well.
M2 was completely supercharged by the two pastry treat and amazed M1 by descending like Tom Pidcock on the downhill parts, leaving M1 behind at one point!
 |
| That blurry dot in the distance is M2! |
We passed through numerous villages, many of which had churches that were much larger than you'd expect in such small places. There were religious statues and monuments, scattered throughout the countryside too.
 |
| It is assumed that the cows appreciate the significance of the monument in their field |
But it was in Abaucourt that we encountered a more modern icon, which M1 could really get behind (if not quite worship! OK, nearly worship!).
Last year, during M1's solo European bikepacking trip, he was excited to report home, the discovery of a retail innovation that he believed heralded a new age of vending machine food experiences. What was it that got M1 rambling so incoherently? Well, it doesn't actually take much but in this instance it was..... his
first sight of a pizza vending machine! What a genius idea! If you recall this exciting episode or go and read the account from that day, you will find that things didn't quite go to plan, and M1 ended up eating part of an uncooked pizza, confused during the ordering process by a translation issue!
So, when we saw another pizza machine in the tiny village of Abaucourt, right in front of the town hall, despite the banana and biscuits for breakfast and the two pastries for second breakfast, M1 was adamant. It had to be done. And so it was! And this time, the pizza was cooked!
The remainder of the day's cycling was through quite attractive farmland, with yet more enormous fields of sunflowers. There were also some impressive wind turbines, that towered over the landscape.
Our initial destination was the town of Chateau-Salins, which we'd identified as the place to detour to the day's campsite and to get some provisions from LIDL. We made pretty good progress, and were soon there.
As is often the case, the last few miles of the day's ride, following our detour from the planned route to the campsite was rather hilly! In fact, one hill in particular was really tough, coming as it was at the end of our ride. But, we made it and were soon at our campsite, checked in and told to camp anywhere we wanted to, on the other side of the site's lake.
It's a really nice site, catering mostly to people wanting to rent chalets but with an area along one side of the lake for tents, which is almost unused at the moment. It's quiet, green and pleasant and has a covered area with tables and benches in which a weary cyclist can update his blog.
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