Cenac, France

It has been an amazing few days. I'll begin by listing our miles and destinations:

July 13th - 3 miles via cycling - 150 via train to Royan
July 14th - 16 miles via cycling - 5 miles via Ferry to Sou lac-Sur Mer
July 15th - 50 miles via cycling to Lacanau
July 16th - 51 miles via cycling to Cenac (55 miles for Bob because I sent him to the Patiserie)

The train ride from Redon to Royan was a lot of fun. Bob of course gave me a ribbing over getting us to the train station 2 hours early. (I was nervous) But the train ride went very well and we met two lovely couples who spoke better english than we did french. We spent the 4hr train ride chatting about things to see in France and sharing each others various stories of mis-adventures.

Once in Royan we found a great campground and set about some much needed house keeping. Since we are both currently unemployed and on a tight budget I (Sherry) thought I would save money by putting all of our clothes into one washing machine. Well it seemed like the prudent thing to do at the time. Until I sent Bob to retrieve the items and he told me how nice my gray bra and gray shirts, socks, underwear looked. The new BLACK cycling shorts I had purchased faded and turned all of my white, pink, and blue things a lovely shade of gray. Argh!!!!! I just can,t win when it comes to clothing this trip!

But bad laundry aside we had a relaxing time in Royan. Walked down to the beach and watched the children playing and the many surfers.

We spent the next night in Sou-lac Sur Mer just a short ferry ride and 16 mile bike ride from Royan. July 14th is Bastille Day which is France's independance day. The campground wasn't great but all we needed was a place to rest our heads. (It is really nice that we can both roll with the punches) We went into town which was alive with activity. Music playing people everywhere and the streets crowded with all sorts of merchants selling their "bargains"

We made our way to the beach opened a bottle of wine and sat on the beach! What better way to spend Bastille Day.

We woke the next morning, July 15th to sunny skies! Yippeeeeeeeee! It is amazing what a bright blue sky can do for ones disposition. 50 miles to Lacanau which is a sea side village was absolutely wonderful. The entire 50 miles we rode on a designated PAVED bike path! The path took us through a forest which reminded me of riding in tahoe. The beach in Lacanau is really BIG! It goes for miles and miles and the waves are some of the biggest I have ever seen! At one point the lifegaurds stated blowing whistles and shouting for everyone to "get out of the water" not much after that this HUGE wave came in and swept everything off of the beach!!! Luckily we were back far enough that we were not affected but lots of people who had ignored the warnings had their stuff swept out to sea. It was pretty impressive and I even had a nightmare lastnight about a tsunami!

So now we are up to today, July 16th. Yet another great day in France. Sunny clear skies when we woke but by the time we got around to riding it was partly cloudy. Not to worry, it was just a nice cloud cover for our 51 mile ride to Cenac. I can't say enough about the simply amazing bike system that we have found here in France. Our ride today was once again on a PAVED bike trail. The trail system includes directional road signs just like you would see if you were driving in a car! And did I mention that we had the wind at our back the entire 50 miles! It just doesn't get much better than that!

Bordeaux was our first stop today. A big city but very interesting. A stop at the tourist office allowed us to get our bearings and find a nice Gite to stay in for the night. We are approxi,ately 14km from Bordeaux in the town of Cenac. We are the very first guests to stay at the new Gite! If I understood the manager, Paulina, correctly the Gite was purchased by the towns people. It is adorable! And everyone in town seems very excitted to have us staying here. People keep walking by to say "bonjour" One of the neighbors even stopped in to invite us over to her house!

We are enjoying an evening indoors. Tomorrow we are going to go wine tasting! We will be staying here for 2 nights!!!

That is all for now. I know that we keep promising more pictures and I think tonight and tomorrow we may actually be able to get them down loaded. It is a slow and painful process.

Having a wonderful time in France,
Love
Bob & Sherry