If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world. J. R. R. Tolkien.
This is my way of saying that I am desperate for a good meal. As is common I am not staying in the centre of the local town tonight having found a less expensive place out in the sticks; Villequier-Aumont in this case. I am staying at a place with the Auberge label which I associate with good food. I have been living off McDonald's and supermarket picnics, which are open when I need to eat, and am now ready for a proper meal.
Today is a flat 93km (58 miles) and I am hopeful of a good route though we will have to wait and see. In terms of geography I am due north of Paris and a 76km bike ride from Notre Dame Cathedral of Paris.
It doesn't take long for me to realise that I need to manage my effort today so I resolve to pay attention to efficiency and that means lots of gear changes, that's bike gears not clothing and keep the pedals turning.
I am pleased to announce that I took the effort to double back and take a snap, in part motivated by the Boulangerie Pâtisserie out of shot.
After 15 miles I am still on the London-Paris Avenue Verte though I think this is the less used segment that loops further north. A solo touring cyclist approaches from the opposite direction and we exchange cheery and over-extravagant waves. Turning one particular corner I get the full force of today's headwind. Frustrating as I know the prevailing wind will return so in 2 weeks I will be riding home into a headwind. Of course the headwind isn't the problem it's my tired legs.
Almost halfway and riding alongside the river l'Oise I come up a ramp and am surprised to find myself in the centre of Compiégne by the Louse XV bridge. This was a planned lunch stop but I've already had a quiche with a good salty kick to it so onwards for me.
Coming out of Compiégne I see I have joined the Euro Velo 3 route, also called
La Scandibérique. This runs north-south from Norway down to the Pyrenees and then west across to Santiago de Compostelle in Spain and is the cyclists version of the pilgrim route to Santiago. It explains why my auto-generated route adopted a sweeping "S" shape.
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference
Robert Frost
Tomorrow is the 8th of May when it will be 80 years since Victory in Europe and I've noticed that war memorials have been swept, raked and flags put up ready for the day to be marked.
By 2pm it is warming up and I have just 10 miles to go as I rest to give my shoulders a stretch. As I am on a Euro Velo route there's a metronomic parade of cyclists; one every 5km. I am on a canal towpath and it's all very pastoral and tranquil.
Soon I am branching away from the Euro Velo as I head to my accommodation. The sunshine helps but the scenery is breathtaking as are the rolling hills. With 8km to go on a 93km day I give up on any thoughts I had to pedal 'round the block' to round it up to 100km.
I have managed just fine with regards language as the exchanges are familiar and well practiced though today the word règlement caught me out. It was used in the context of pay now or later. Another of these, which I am familiar with is ticket de caisse which gets shortened to ticket and pronounced TEE-KAY meaning receipt, as you would get in a supermarket or bakers.
What a fabulous day on a bike and with a table booked for 7:30pm it is turning into an epic day's ride.