Onward to the Loire

 I'm going to change my approach slightly from here on as it's getting difficult to keep up. So much is going on and I'm meeting so many people that it's getting more difficult to find the time to devote to the diary.

So here's a brief synopsis of where I've got to up until today.

After a comfortable night in the hotel at St James I spent a day in the town resting and catching up before checking in with another amazing warm showers couple, David and Caroline. Originally from Paris David has become the mayor of St James and his wife works there as a beautician, as far as I could tell. They fed me and gave me an education in contemporary French music. We had a great night together with their son Vincent who is soon heading off for a year in San Francisco having just finished school.

This is the back of their house one of only five in the town to survive a fire in the 18thC which destroyed the rest of the town 

I traveled South and soon found my way into a "Voie Verte" or green route, dedicated for cyclists and walkers. It was an old railway line which took me from Fougeres to the small village of Launay Villers.

Here I stayed with another warm showers host, the wonderful Carine Olivier and her little border collie puppy, the princess Zia.

Off again the next morning to Laval a large agricultural  centre, where I was caught in quite a heavy rainstorm. I took shelter under a bridge where I met a French couple who told me about the sudden death of our Queen Elizabeth 2nd the previous night. One of those moments that is so unusual that I'm not likely to forget. The path went through the ancient city and followed alongside the banks of the river Mayenne which gives its name to the département.

Very cool place to travel on a bike.

Several miles further down I left the river to travel across country, mostly by road, to Solesmes, a suburb of the larger town of Sable sur Sarthe and my next warm showers hosts, Bruno and Martine. I was a bit late having taken a wrong turn and got caught in more rain but they had prepared a meal for me and were very keen to hear news of my journey. They have been avid cyclists, and like me have retired from work now, and although they had stayed as guests many times with warm showers, they had only ever had one other guest previous to me, several years ago. So they lavished me with attention. Bruno was in a great mood and a very funny guy, we laughed a lot.

Next morning Bruno gave me detailed instructions of how to get to the town of La Fleche, avoiding main roads. It was a great route really interesting mostly through fruit growing country, stuffed with enormous orchards. I passed by this beautiful church of Notre Dame with a convent attached. Inside there were about twelve altars along the two knaves, each one covered in plaques with messages of gratitude. I don't think I've seen anything like it before in a church and it makes quite an impression. 

At La Flèche I picked up another one of the Voie Vertes , another disused railway line that had been tarmacked over, that took me through heavily forested country quite a bit of which had been affected by recent wildfires. The smell of burning still hung in the air. 

Occasionally there were old railway buildings scattered at the sides of the line. Some of them derelict and some converted into very desirable homes.

At Bauge I left the Voie Verte to take the road to the village of Mouliherne about 20k further on, and the home of Holy and Rob who had invited me several months before to call in on my way through. Holly is the sister of Peter, a friend of mine in Kingsclere, and she is doing up a beautiful old farmhouse so that she can run craft and music creative holidays in this beautiful part of the country.