Day 10: in the rain to Chartres
Day 10; Orleans- Chartres in the rain, 75 km
Especially elderly French give us thumbs up all day. I guess we are the reminder of long forgotten times when the tandem was popular in France. France had some famous tandem builders like Rene Herse, but also Peugeot, Gitane and Look had a tradition of building nice tandems. Cyfac in the Bourgogne still makes some very nice tandems….
In the ENFB magazine in Holland (an organisation that promotes cycling, and has fully jumped on the electric bike) recently stated that not many tandems would be sold now the man who wants to cycle with his wife buys her an electric bike. They could not be further off the truth; tandeming is a team effort as riding after your hubby on one of these accu bikes is making the wife a lesser part of evolution.
So far on emancipation and tandems.
We woke up to the familiar sound of raindrops on our Orleans roof.
Breakfast was provided from a local bakery with a broken down oven, it was an excellent excuse to eat croissants, pain au chocolat and quiche Lorraine in the morning.
We were glad that we could get the tandem out of the very narrow door. Without troubles we found our way out of Orleans. At 11.30 we had a cup of coffee in Les Villages Vovéens with the local alcoholics. The sky got very dark by now which made the yellow wheat fields look beautiful. It started to rain again and in raincoats we arrived in Chartres.
The first thing Ben wants is a stamp for his Credentiale, so with wet socks we went into the church. We spend some time looking at the beautiful stained glass windows and a relic which should have been worn by Maria. There are some conflicting stories when she wore this exactly, but we did not care too much about it.
When the feet got really cold we went to our Ibis hotel and washed our dirty laundry.
In the afternoon we went back to the cathedral to watch the beautiful portals and had a little problem finding the right place to eat.
Looking at the rather poor weather forecast for next week we changed the plan for Boulonge to Den Bosch for a less windy and more inland route.
