Most of our trip today was on a decomissioned rail bed, which meant we were in a beautiful green canopy most of the day, but saw pretty much nothing of the countryside and villages. I prefer the route on roads where we can check things out more - this was more of just a bypass day, which is disappointing. The trail was good, hard-packed pathway most of the way, but when we got within a couple of kilometers of Mortagne-au-Perche, there was a section, probably less than a km, which was washed out and extremely rough. We had to push through most of that section - we couldn't ride it - which was a disappointing slog at the end of the day.
From the book it looks like most of tomorrow will be on the same rail trail, but then before we reach Alencon, we'll switch back to roads for a while.
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The trail doesn't take you all the way into the town of Mortagne-au-Perche - it bypasses it to the south. When we got there we realized why. The town was built on the tippy top of a steep hill. Of course we had to take our bikes all the way to said tippy top in order to find an info centre, and a map showing where our hotel is. The hotel is a little ways town from the tippy top, but not much.
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The hotel (Hotel du Tribunal) is, coincidentally, in the Logis line, which is the same as the place we stayed last night. It is great. It's very old, and first thing when we got there, they offered to put our bikes into the courtyard, which was fantastic. They have a bar and restaurant on premises as well.
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Another gear addition for today: A corkscrew.
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