Epic European Cycle : 2015-05-11 : La Véloscénie to Nogent-le-Rotrou

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Activity
Type Name Description Service Provider Cost Kms To Date Total Notes Actions
Cycle La Véloscénie Illiers-Combray / Thiron-Gardais $0.00 24.40 24.40 24.4km
Cycle La Véloscénie Thiron-Gardais / Nogent-le-Rotrou $0.00 19.00 43.40 Day 3: 19km: Total 128.4km
Accommodation
Type Name Service Provider Confirmation Location Cost Notes Actions
Hotel Hotel Sully Random walk-in Nogent-le-Rotrou $110.00 The proprietor is great! Fluent in English, very friendly and helpful. There is decent parking for bikes and we used the elevator to take our gear up to our room.


Trip Log

Notes Actions
TMI Alert - don't continue reading if it's going to traumatize you!
For this tour, I bought a bra with pockets in it to stash important things. I keep my orthodontic appliance in one pocket, and some plastic in the other. I call it the "boob safe".
Thanks to the boob safe, I have cleavage for the first time in my life, and man, is my skin ever PISSED about it! I am sweating up a storm while riding, and sweating into my poor squashed-together boobs. The swath in between them just doesn't know what to do with itself. It is red, angry, and covered in acne. Ugliest cleavage in the world! Maybe I need to start putting foot powder on it or something...
We got a reply today from the Schengen area folks. They confirmed a number of things, and provided a few surprising details:
- There's not really any such thing as a visa for Schengen longer than 90 days. If you get a longer visa for a specific country, it's only good for that country.
- There are two types of Schengen 90-day visas. Single entry and multi-entry. As Canadians, we didn't need a visa to enter, and we are considered multi-entry.

The final result is that we should spend no more than 90 days in the Schengen area. We will be in the area until mid-June (45 days) when we head to the UK, returning in mid-July to meet Laura. We'll be in the area again until we reach Budapest approx. 30 days later. That will give us another 15 days to figure out what we're doing next, and that is:
- If we're not done with the bikes yet, we will simply continue on EuroVelo 6 through Romania and Bulgaria to the black sea.
- If we're done with the bikes, we will ditch them and then either fly back to the UK for the remainder of our trip, or fly to Turkey and spend some time there.

It's all good. YAY!
I've had a tough few days trying to get into the groove of riding. I should have been wearing a heavy pack and put the trainer on a higher setting when I was riding at home over the winter. I have felt very weak and wimpy so far.
Today was finally better. I'm starting to feel a little stronger and a lot happier. I am looking forward to riding again tomorrow instead of wishing for a day off. Thank goodness. :)
Poppies along the side of the road. Sonofagun.
Rural France has some amazingly nice public washrooms... and at least one amazingly nasty one. Overall so far, top grades.
Our route today took us through some great countryside. Farmland and forest punctuated by gingerbread villages that made me think of Margaret Anne Elliott all day!
La Véloscénie is a fantastic cycle route! I highly recommend it, but if you do, be sure to get the book because if you try to figure it out yourself, you'll never find the streets and trails from the route, which are amazing!
We had a harder ride today, including a few significant hills. On the bigger hills, I had to do a bit of pushing, but, as Brent so lovingly pointed out, we're riding La Véloscénie, not La Velo-Sissy, so I'd better toughen up. Just kidding... I'm the one who came up with Velo-Sissy, but I thought it would be funnier coming from Brent. <3


Photos

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