Cycling to Sainte Foy: map & data
Total climbing: 1059 m
Total time: 04:26:30
There’s an imaginary 200m spike and drop on the graph above. Please, ignore it.
On Thursday Simon had the afternoon off from the Speaker and Language Recognition Workshop he was attending.
By then we’d cycled up and down the peaceful coastal path half a dozen times, so we ventured inland from Les Sables d’Olonne.
Off to Sainte Foy
Our first stop was at Château d’Olonne, a beautiful town bathed in the sun.
There we visited this church, and after faffing around for a bit we went to a nearby park. We spotted a table and bench, and had lunch in the shade.
Church of Saint Hilaire in Château d’Olonne
We cycled partly on dedicated paths and partly on roads, but there was little traffic.
A very quiet road
It was a gloriously sunny afternoon, like it had been all week.
Simon consulting the map in the blazing sun
Our final destination was Sainte Foy, a small town with a population of about 1,700.
It’s less than 10 miles from Les Sables d’Olonne, so we took some minor paths and cycled through a couple of farms.
Path through the farms
We soon arrived at Sainte Foy. It was siesta time and there was hardly a soul around. We searched for a cafe in vain, but only the corner shop appeared to be opened. Tough luck.
We bought some water and headed back to Les Sables d’Olonne.
Crossroads at Sainte Foy
On the way I took another picture of the ubiquitous Tour de France poster. Why not?
My bike dreaming of joining the big tour
We took a different route on the way back, and went through other farms.
Back on the quiet road
I didn’t know much about this part of the world before we left Edinburgh, but it turned out to be an excellent place to spend a week.
Our landlady said the weather is unpredictable and you can get a lot of wind all year round.
But, instead, we got a real summer that we hadn’t gambled on.
Cycling in the shade, sort of
A couple of days later, on Saturday, we left Les Sables d’Olonne. We took the train early in the morning and arrived in the pretty town of Douarnenez by lunchtime. That was the beginning of our walking holiday.
I took all the photos with the Panasonic.