Voie Verts and Canals

Travelling by bike, the route, the bike, my fitness, and of course the weather determine the experience.

The route: 800 miles from northwest Bretagne to the frontier with Spain. My bike: strong, stable, capable Papillon. The fitness: blah, bad. The weather: it will do what it will.

The route is flat, but long. I need to average 40 to 45 miles a day to complete my trip on time to make my train back to Paris. On a fully loaded bike, riding a rough surface not always paved, with not such good fitness, this is a challenge.

But the route. I have spent three days riding first along an abandoned train right of way, then along the Canal Nantes-Brest and am now about 120 miles south of my starting point. With far more days it would be so sweet to make photo studies of the architecture.

Along the railways, train stations in every town with a stop. Now sometimes abandoned, sometimes with a newly devised life.

And the canals. At each écluse, or lock, there is a small house. Once the residence of the lockmaster, some are now serving other purposes (often holiday rentals) some are unoccupied.

And between those functional, historic, buildings, nature filled with birds who I do not recognize, but whose songs are so beautiful.

Humans enjoying the route in these tourist wagons.

This donkey patiently carried his human's gear, reminding me of Robert Louis Stevenson's book,Travels with A Donkey, about his walk in the Cevennes.

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