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Friday 26th June 2015 Narbonne to Narbonne Plage This morning I awoke, washed and dressed then went downstairs in the Hotel L'Alsace, looking forward to a spot of petit dejeuner. The dining area, however, was empty and unlit with no sign of a welcoming orange juice or mouth-watering croissant. I wandered over to reception and there was no-one there either, nor was there any sign of any other guests - it was as if I was in the Marie Celeste of the hotel world.
Ah well, I had already paid for the room, if not for the non-existent petit-dejeuner, so we were all square. I went back upstairs, packed up and abluted then took everything downstairs to check out. There was still no-one there so I rang the bell - nothing. Not a mouse stirred. I found my way to the locked indoor alley where the bike was being stored and there it was so I loaded up. The key was in the outside door just hanging there on the inside so I unlocked the door, yelled out a few pleasantries like 'I'm leaving now!', 'Je Vais!', 'Je quitte… aurevoir!' - ah, what a polyglot I am! In response a deathly silence crashed about my ears. I opened the door. . . and left. A strange place, the Hotel L'Alsace. This all meant I got away fairly early which is what I'd wanted to do anyway to avoid the heat of the mid-day sun. Of course I still faffed about and rode around in a circle for a while so it wasn't that early. When I finally cleared Narbonne I was quite surprised by how much traffic was on the B road to the much smaller holiday town of Narbonne Plage. The road was good though, smooth and wide, and after a certain point it had a marked cycle strip. Despite it being reasonably early the day soon began to heat up and it became a wee bit of a slog. Not difficult, just hot and dry with yet again no shade and, of course, the continuing thunderous racket of the cicadas.
I got to Narbonne Plage, had a lemonade and a tea, sat a while then cycled up the front as far as the next village without seeing a suitable place to dip the wheels in the Med - the sea was a long way out and I felt a bit silly about wheeling my bike all that way to it through sand and past sun-bathers. On the way back, however, I tried the stone groyne or jetty and that led me to within a stone's throw of the water's edge with the added benefit that it was fairly removed from most of the rabble. I took off the panniers, wheeled the bike to the briny and got the deed recorded for posterity on the camera.
After that it was just hanging around till 2.00 and having a sandwich for lunch before getting fixed up for the night at a hotel, the Hotel Mirage. There I fell asleep for an hour or so on the bed then roused myself and did a bit of washing - at least in this heat it dried quickly.
I had acquired several insect bites over the last two or three days on the exposed bits of my arms and legs and some of them were beginning to swell up a bit now. Never mind, eh. In the evening I had a salad at the hotel then walked to the sea and had a paddle.
Bike computer: unknown GPS: 14.8 miles 11.7 mph avg 26.7 mph max 469 ft ascent English miles: 117.8 French miles: 868.9 | ||||||
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