|
Friday 12th June 2015 Le Neubourg to Mortagne au Perche There was some rain forecast for today so I wanted to leave early and get as far as possible before getting wet. We had a pretty awful breakfast - a couple of croissants and jam, a pain au chocolat, a lump of bread and coffee - and set off together at about 8.50. We bowled along and made good time to Beaumont Le Roger where our paths were to part. Andrew went off to the nearest train station and I carried on through Rugles and Aigle to Mortagne au Perche. Shortly after leaving Beaumont Le Roger I passed through an extensive forest area and saw a couple of wild boars crossing the road in front of me. That was quite a surprise and a bit alarming as I had no idea if they were dangerous or not and was rather reluctant to find out first hand. As it was they blithely went their way and I went mine.
I stopped at Rugles and bought a cheesy-bready thing from a boulangerie then found the local church and sat by it munching away. There was too much to have all at once but I sampled more bits during the day as I went along. Rugles looked a fair enough town to have stopped at whilst Aigle, from my admittedly cursory, passing look, seemed a bit less so. I didn't dally there though as I was still expecting the rain so I powered away and the miles sped by easily for there were virtually no large hills and the odd uphill bits were only short and at an easy gradient. Or maybe my muscles were hardening up as I got further along on my trip. Even so the humidity increased as the afternoon advanced and the clouds hazed up and grew darker at times. As it was I was just coming up to the 50 mile mark when the first drops of a light shower began to fall. As today's leg was 52 miles that was a pretty good outcome.
I freewheeled down the last mile and reached Mortagne au Perche at the fairly early time of 14.40. It was a very nice town and when the rain had stopped I had a walk round and went in the large, ancient town church - L'Eglise Notre Dame. A massive building for the size of the town.
I got fixed up for the night at the Hotel Restaurant Genty in the town square - a bit nicer than the previous two dumps but then I was paying 65 euros - about the same as it was for Andrew and myself combined at those. It's only money though, eh. There were only a couple of sachets of shampoo and shower gel in the room so I went out and bought a bar of soap so I could wash my socks/underpants/cycle shirt. Bike computer: 52 miles GPS: messed it up | |||||
 | |||||
