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Thursday 11th June 2015 Rouen to Le Neubourg Hot and dry once again. This morning we didn't trust the hotel to provide a breakfast worth having so we decided to just check out and get something in the city; probably no different to what we would have got anyway but we ended up having croissants and coffee at a pavement café.
After the croissants we had a last look round Rouen, visiting the huge Abbey Eglise and then the cathedral where we saw Richard I's tomb, although apparently only his heart, the 'lion's heart', is buried there. His entrails were buried in Chalus where he died and the remaining bits were buried beside his father in Fontevraud Abbey, Anjou, and subsequently lost at the time of the French Revolution.
Rouen lies on the River Seine and when it was time to leave we rode along the banks of that fine river for some distance; it's a big city though and the suburbs merged into a couple of miles of industrial landscape through which we had to pedal before escaping to more open countryside.
There was a bit of a climb out of Rouen and then near Elbeuf we deviated from the intended road and took to a made-up-on-the-go route which took us along quieter back-roads. That worked out quite well. We stopped at Elbeuf for lunch and had cheese omelette and frites (again) at a Turkish café - given a bit of Turkish flair by the addition of some lettuce and an enormous, pale green pepper the size of a carrot.
A bunch of English blokes arrived while we were eating, turning up in a Jag convertible and a BMW sports car - expensive machinery. I heard them mention Le Mans and as the race, by coincidence, was due to take place over the coming weekend I assumed that that was what they were here for. I had intended to stay in Le Mans myself but it occurred to me now that there were probably not going to be any hotel rooms left so I decided that tomorrow it might be better to divert to St Calais, a small town about 20 miles east of Le Mans instead.
Andrew and I arrived in Le Neubourg, a nice town with a central square on which stood our hotel for the night, the Hotel Au Grand St Martin - a snip at just 65 euros for the two of us. It was basic but still slightly better than the previous night's hotel in Rouen, the Hotel Sisely which had been 62 euros.
In the evening we had a reasonable meal sitting outside at a restaurant and watching the clear skies slowly become hazy, humid and rain-like. There were a couple of lightning flashes and distant rumbles of thunder as we ate. After the meal we walked around town looking for a bar but rather surprisingly they had all closed! All shut up by 9.15. The only option was the hotel at the end of the main street, the Hotel Soleil D'Or. There we managed to get a couple of drinks and sat alone playing crib after the couple of diners had left. Meanwhile it had started pouring down and we had to wait and sprint back to our hotel to avoid getting wet. Andrew goes home tomorrow. Bike computer: 29 miles GPS: 29 miles - inadvertently reset so no further details | |||||||||
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