500 miles through France

500ish miles and 9.5 days in France

Quick summary:

Calais to somewhere near St Omer, camping - 40ish miles

camping to Arras - 50 miles

Arras to Amiens - 65 miles because of detours for WWI things

Amiens to camping near Noyon - 50 miles

camping to camping somewhere else in the french countryside, east of Soissons - 50 miles

camping to Rheims - 40ish miles

Rheims to camping just outside the city - 20 miles

camping west of St Dizer - 50 miles

camping north of chaumont - 50 miles

camping south of Langres - 50 miles

Dijon, finally - 65 miles

Okay, so France

The first three days were great. I got off the ferry from Calais and was instantly told my O2 sim card was useless. No calls, no data. GPS didn't seem to be working. "It's okay, I planned for this. I still have the maps on my phone. Now to just find where I am." I head into town because the only other direction seems to be towards a motorway. I think I can follow the signs to the train station which should help me find my place on the map, but once I got into town my GPS is suddenly working again. Hurray. I started my journey towards Arras, and on the way, around dinner time I found my way into a small town where a guy had setup a food cart out of a double decker English bus named "les frites qui roule." I managed to successfully order a sausage and fries and successfully give a blank stare when he asked me something back. A few miles down the road I wandered into an Auchan to buy a tart and french sim card before finding a place to camp. I realized I had forgotten just how enormous french supermarkets are. I think it took me 5 minutes to walk from one end of the store to the other.

Day 2 in France.

It was very warm. For the first time in a month I was down to only two layers and I took off my winter gloves to switch to the fingerless gloves. A few differences between England and France so far: Everything is in french, most of the farmland isn't fenced in like it is in England, and the hills are longer and lower grades making it actually possible to ride up them. Also the better gear ratio from the new rear cassette probably helped with that last bit. I made it to Arras to stay with a nice French family where I saw a few churches and their large squares.

Day 3: Off to Amiens.

Also a nice day, but not quite as warm. Between Arras and Amiens there are tons of WWI battlefields and graveyards that I detoured to see. At some point I stopped detouring and taking pictures because it was getting a bit depressing.

I'd say about half the tombstones are unmarked like these:

Several of the sites had these signs:

A ridiculous amount of explosives were dropped in the war and many of them are still around, killing people each year.

The South African war memorial in the Delville wood. 3200 soldiers were ordered to hold this forest. After 5 days, 140 men came out alive.

It doesn't show up in pictures well, but the ground in the entire forest is shaped from explosions

The Theipval memorial:

Lochnagar crater, also known as "La grand mine" where the british dug a tunnel and detonated a lot of explosives under a German strong point.

After all that I arrived in Amiens to stay the night with another nice french couple.

Day 4: Amiens

Amiens has a cathedral, and this one is a Unesco heritage site. To be honest with all the camping I did I don't think it's possible to be out of earshot of a church while in France.

 I probably would've paid more attention to the sermons in church if they were given from this pulpit:

 Obligatory statue of jeanne d'arc

Leaving town I went through these weird floating residence things in a park:

Here is where the weather took a turn for the terrible. As I believe the saying goes "no good day goes unpunished." I'm starting to dread the good days because I know what will follow. Three straight days of rain turned what should've been two days of travel to Rheims into three days of pain.

Apparently in France it's common to close for lunchtime and I wandered into this cathedral in Noyon at noon only to have the door literally closed in my face with a French lady telling me to come back in two hours (yeah right like I want to stay in this nowhere town for 2 hours just to see my hundredth church of the month).

At least I decided that since I was in France I had to class up my camping dinners a bit. A sampling:

Main course: Spaghetti and meatballs with the best nonalcoholic drink ever invented:

Course two: fresh baguette with Camembert. According to my hosts in Amiens, it's better when made with raw milk than with pasteurized. I would agree it does have a bit of a stronger taste, but so far all I've tasted has been store bought, so the jury is still awaiting additional evidence. If it's wrong to eat 250g of Camembert in ten minutes, I don't want to be right. Also in the slightly warmer weather it wont keep for more than a day or so in my bags. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Course three: Eclair(s).

I'm fairly certain the patisseries have been lacing these with cocaine because I can't stop eating them. In other news I think I'm gaining weight instead of losing it like most cycle tourists. Probably not related.

Day 5:

Nothing remarkable. Another day of cold and rain through nowhereville France. I did find it interesting that in all these one-horse towns I passed through, if there was a boulangerie/patisserie it was always the busiest part of town with at least 5 people in it at all times. Oh look, another church:

I was slightly outside the map I had pre-downloaded to my phone, and not sure exactly how to get to Rheims, so I decided to try my brand new, revolutionary method of navigation. Forget maps, forget GPS, forget navigating by the sun (can't see it anyway most of the time), forget navigating by the stars (also can't see them), instead I have been able to navigate by wind. My method so far is thus: at the beginning of each day, point my bike into the wind. That's it. With about 90% accuracy, that's the way I wanted to go. The stronger the headwind, the more confident I am that I'm headed in the right direction. 

Day 6: Made it to Rheims

Surprise, Cathedral: (didn't see that coming did you)

Come on Rheims, You're supposed to have a famous cathedral, and this is the best pulpit you can come up with. Have you see the one in Amiens? This is what you answer with?

Staying with a host in Rheims, he was having a bit of a dinner party with 4 other people. Never before has it been apparent how useless 3 years of French lessons in school were because I didn't understand a thing. Next morning I explored Rheims a bit more, and went to visit Pommery, a champagne house. When in rome... well I still don't like the taste of champagne.

I went to visit the museum where the Germans surrendered in WWII. They still have everything in place like these cool war maps:

Also, for some reason I really love soviet era propaganda (Forward, victory is in sight!):

Days 7-9

Uggggg the weather. France you're supposed to be better than this. Non-stop rain and snow. Four days of camping, while riding along the canal/river. Nothing particularly interesting. Here is France in one picture:

You have your farmland, you have your small town, you have your church steeple, you have your rain/fog. If only there was a way to show a soul-crushing headwind, it would complete the picture. The next two days were unremarkable, except for the fact that spending time sleeping at night was drastically becoming my favorite part of the day (it may look stupid sticking off the back of my bike, but I love my sleeping bag for how warm and cozy it has been keeping me).

Yesterday I awoke to find my right shifter cable had frozen in place and I was unable to switch from the gear I ended the previous day in for the first 10 miles or so until it warmed up. Yes, yes, this is what I expected from France in March:

At least the bike is holding up. Even if my new favorite hobby is swearing at the weather, I know the troll will get me where I want to go. I am counting the days until I am in the desert (it'll feel good to be out of the rain).

Day 10

Another decent day. No rain. Snow for only an hour or so. I think I blew some Frenchman's mind when I told him in broken french that I was headed to Istanbul.

This is the face of someone who hasn't seen the sun in days and who knows he'll  be leaving France soon (also four days of helmet hair):

Finally arrived in Dijon where I'm staying with another host. I will spend one day exploring and resting in Dijon before riding onward and upward towards Geneva.

As I head to higher altitude, I only expect it to get colder. why can't it be summer all the time. :(