Late addition: May 25th Sancerre to Deciizes

Another late addition to the blog that slipped through the net:

May 25^th  Sancerre to Deciizes  101 kms.

An early start this morning to take advantage of the cool and to maximise our chances of getting to Decizes in which case we will be only a couple of hours behind schedule instead of two days.

Very easy riding along the levee Napolean for the first 24 kms to La Charite sur Loire, which, as its name suggests, is an important pilgrims staging point on the way to St Jacques de Compostella  . And it is very charming indeed. The old cathedral was second only to Cluny and  is still very impressive. The gigantic nave is no more and houses have been built where the old niches were. It is still possible to see the old carvings high up on the house walls. Interesting though the eccleasiastical history is, it wasn’t that which held us up longer than intended. La Charite has become the Hay on Wye of this part of France and is packed with superb antiquarian bookshops.  Luckily most of them were closed and we escaped without making a purchase, but it was not easy.

Today it was difficult to imagine that only a couple of days ago I was cold. I pounded along the top of the river dyke in broiling sunshine through Marseilles les Aubigny, an erstwhile large port, now very much a shadow of its former self although I did note a catamaran from Southampton tied up to the quay (actually it looked as if it had been there a long time!) to Le Guetin where the Allier meets the Loire. The  canal laterale bridge over the very fast running Allier (Katherine learnt in trying to get to the beautiful village of Apremont sur Allier, that the river had, in fact, flooded the road higher up the valley) and then a seriously fast stretch  where I joined a fellow sexagenarian (I think neither of us was willing to admit he was slower than the other!) to the ecluse de  Verville where the excellently maintained towpath suddenly very seriously deteriorated and I found myself on a bicycle wheel wide overgrown footpath which cut down my speed. Needless to say I abandoned the towpath as soon as possible and took the  D13 for most of the way into Decize, a pleasant town I was glad to revisit from my ride down the Nivernais canal in September 2010 and which, with luck, puts me within two days riding of Chalons and thus a rest day at Grand Fontaine.

A hot day’s riding, quite tiring though never strenuous. La Charite was a wonderful discovery.  

101 kms 

Total from Galway 1297 kms.