Velofrancette 2026 - Rest day in Angers

 

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It's a rest day.

Sitting around all day was tempting but that's just not what we do so instead we spent the morning walking around Angers guided by information we found online about sights to see. Mostly this took place on the opposite side of the river to where we are staying. 

This would appear to be the old part of the city. Buildings here are made from rough hewn irregular pieces of rock and have timber framing. 

Aside from wandering the streets, we went into the museum of contemporary art. Tapestries seem to be the preferred art form though there are also paintings. There's a special exhibition of tapestries created recently that portray artwork originally created by the author J. R. R. Tolkien.

We crossed the river again and visited the impressive cathedral.

We were getting peckish so bought filled baguettes (camembert, butter and salad for me, tuna and mayo for M2) and pastries for lunch and took them back to our apartment.

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Velofrancette 2026 - Entrammes to Angers

 

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It was overcast when we left this morning and we thought we were probably in for a wet day. M1's solar panel was packed away in a pannier. There wasn't much point in mounting it on the bike and in fact very little solar energy has been generated on this trip. It's been very sunny but we've spent most of the time cycling in the shadows cast by avenues of trees.

We left the residential area within  Entrammes where we'd stayed the night and cycled back towards the river and La Velofrancette, largely on cycle paths.

On turning a corner, with M2 leading, imagine our surprise when we saw a not insignificant snake slithering across the path! I was too slow to get a photo but it must have been approaching a metre in length. We're not sure what species it was but it neither bit us nor wrapped itself around one of us and squeezed, so that's the main thing!

Back on our route, we cycled alongside La Mayenne river all day. It's a picturesque river, green in colour and with locks and weirs at intervals. Each lock has a photogenic building next to it and in a way, these were the visual highlights. That said, there were also a few remarkable châteaux.

As always, wildlife spotting enhanced our cycling experience and we saw White Storks, red squirrels, just possibly a kingfisher, and several snowy white Little Egrets. 

We stopped for second breakfast at Chateau Gontieres but this turned out to be only coffee. We're failing dismally to secure a daily intake of French breakfast baked goods on this trip for some reason. No PaC or PaR or any other abbreviated, tasty breakfast delight.

By midday, having been forced to do without second breakfast, we were hungry. I was carrying bread and a full pack of Boursin soft cheese, left over from the previous evening, so we stopped at a bench by the river and made sandwiches. Yum. 

Once again, La Velofrancette included an artificial looking detour to a nearby town. We'd been underwhelmed by Flers but maybe the interestingly named Lion d'Angers would be better?

It wasn't. Getting there was a huge waste of effort, requiring us to cycle along muddy paths for some distance until we reached a horse racing course on the edge of the town. Apparently this is the tourist highlight of Lion d'Angers. Perhaps if we'd actually seen a horsey or two. But we didn't.

We bought cold drinks in the town and sat on a bench to enjoy them. And that was Lion d'Angers.

We cycled back the way we came and got the bikes even muddier.

Back on route, we continued to follow La Mayenne, both feeling a little tired now. It had rained in the night and the gravel path had become much softer, adding rolling resistance and requiring more effort. But we only had about 20 km to go now.

It started to drizzle. Lightly. And as we got closer to Angers, with more determination.

Finally we arrived in the city of Angers and found the address of our Airbnb. 

Getting into the apartment wasn't straightforward. When we'd stopped for coffee earlier, we'd had to fill in a series of forms on some website that had nothing to do with Airbnb. This included giving personal information such as our home address. If we'd declined to provide this information to this system and its operators, about whom we knew nothing, the lockbox code for the apartment would not be provided. Blackmail. Lovely.

Access was allowed from 4 pm. We were 15 minutes early and of course the stupid 3rd party system held onto the access details until exactly 4 o'clock. This is a corporate owned property of course rather than a place owned by a normal homeowner as always used to be the case when Airbnb was new. These corporates, with their systems, data harvesting, automation and complete lack of any kind of personal touch have ruined airbnb. Rant :-)

The access details were finally revealed and what joy, the lockbox containing the key was not at this address! I had to walk to a bike rack a couple of streets away to find it padlocked to the rack, get the key and walk back.

Next came the fun of getting our luggage and the bikes into the second floor apartment. M2 stayed with the bikes. M1 made three trips up and down the stairs to carry bags up. Then the real fun began. To reach the apartment, each bike had to be carried physically up a tight, winding, steep, rickety wooden staircase. 

I've done this many times (four floors in Lucerne!) but this was the toughest yet. With so little space it was a struggle to get the bikes around the corners and to not become unbalanced with catastrophic effect!

But finally we were in and the bikes parked in the main room. I was exhausted! It won't be the cycling that gets me, it will be hauling bikes up flights of stairs!

We did a little grocery shopping. We're to be here for two nights with tomorrow a rest day.

The apartment is more or less above a Thai takeaway restaurant. We thought we'd give it a try, bought food to eat back and the apartment and were not disappointed. Delicious!

M1

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Velofrancette 2026 - La Moussandière to Entrammes

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Weird night. M2 slept like a log as always. M1 lay awake listening to the spookiest, weirdest, indescribable sound made intermittently by some kind of creature in or near the lake we were camped by. A bird? Didn't sound like one. But what?

We spoke to the nice guy who runs the campsite as we left. He asked if we'd slept well. I mentioned the weird noise. He said it was like an otter but not an otter. Like a beaver but not a beaver. Like a large rat..... But nice! We think we know what he meant. It was probably a Nutria. We've seen them before in France but never heard them until now.

We cycled back to La Velofrancette. Once back on the route, despite having eaten bananas for breakfast, our thoughts turned to second breakfast. Pastries. Coffee.

We detoured into Ambrières-les-Vallees, pedalling up a big hill to get up to the main street with the boulangeries and patisseries we imagined would be there. Sure enough there were several and all sorts of other shops. But apart from a small supermarket, everything was closed! Disaster! Well, not exactly.

We got some almond flavoured cakes and a can of coke from the supermarket. Good enough.

We rejoined our route, cycling on a section of former railway line again. Fine gravel. A nice surface. The sun was struggling to peep through the clouds but it didn't matter because on all of the railway line sections, we've been in the shade of trees on either side. Nice for us. Not good for generating solar energy!

We saw a couple of red squirrels. Always a treat. 

Our route took us through a small town and then alongside the river La Mayenne. We stayed by the river for almost all of the remainder of the day's cycling, which was a delight. It's a scenic, green river inhabited by grey herons and cormorants. On the opposite bank, the scene was of autumnal colours, trees on the hillside already shedding leaves thanks to the climate change driven drought much of Europe has been experiencing.

In Laval, about 15 km from our final destination for the day, we stopped and had a late lunch of couscous,. vegetables and a piquant source at a food hall near the river. We then bought groceries and cycled to our accommodation, which today is an Airbnb apartment. It's actually part of the host's home but with its own bathroom and kitchen and separated from the host's part of the house by a locked door. It's very comfortable and lacks Noisy Nocturnal Nutria. As far as we know.

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