Melun to Nemours, through Fontainebleau

June 22, 2023 - Melun to Fontainebleau - rain

Last night was stressful, trying to figure out where we would stay for Thurdsay night. It seems like it's a lot more difficult to arrange overnight stays here in France than it was on our trip to Austria. I hope it'll get easier once we get to a more traveled part of the route.

The signage today was much better than it's ever been, I almost never needed to get out my mapping app (I'm using OSMAmd) because there were signs everywhere.

Left our apartment at 10.30 (their check-out time, I was hoping for later because it was pouring down rain.) But we packed everything into plastic bags, and put on some jackets (not waterproof), and started biking. The first stretch had a lot of traffic, it was a very busy route. Then we got to a quieter road, in an area where there were a lot of beautiful houses on the side of the river. Unfortunately since it was raining so hard, I didn't take it very many photos.

Got to Fontainebleau, and were able to get immediately into the hotel room (Ibis budget). Nothing exceptional, but predictable and comfortable, it felt good to get warm showers and put some dry clothing on. After rest and some lunch, we walked around the castle area. Very soon we were wishing we had brought our bikes because there's some beautiful tree-lined avenues to explore around the castle, but they're very long! It turns out there's a Django Reinhardt festival happening, we may get tickets for Peter 16th birthday.

A friendly older lady came up to us when we were looking around for street signs, on the way back to the hotel, asking if we needed help. We ended up chatting for 15 or 20 minutes. I think people in France are friendlier than an Austria and Germany; when we did our last trip, that type of thing just didn't seem to happen.

We had a restaurant picked out for dinner, Le Smile, it's right across from our hotel and had really good reviews, typical French food. But when we went there, there was a note on the door saying unexpected closure for personal reasons! So we went down the road close to the train station, there was a reasonable Thai place that we ate dinner at.

Turns out this was a prison, it showed up as a blur on Google maps

It was pouring rain while we were biking

White shoes - maybe not such a great idea

An abandoned looking government building

This tower picture is for Kenny

Around the Fontainebleau castle

June 23, 2023 - A day in Fontainebleau

I just had a huge long post written about our day in Fontainebleau but unfortunately Blogger deleted it. I'll try to recreate some of the highlights.

We caught the tail end of the breakfast buffet, and chatted with some people from Santa Fe who unfortunately got into politics. Then biked to the Fontainebleau palace grounds, beautiful trees, beautiful paths, not very well maintained though. Unfortunately I lost my phone through having it in a pocket that wasn't well zipped and biking on some rough paths, fortunately Peter found it again within about 10 minutes, in the grass along where we'd been biking, but it was a stressful time. Loosing my phone could have been a real disaster.

Then went inside the castle for the tour. Very impressive, especially Napoleon's campaign setup, the original glamping.

After our tour, we found that Peter's bike tire was flat. (I'm thinking it was from not being gentle when going up and down curbs, because I never had any flats, and Peter never had any more after this one, because he was more careful). We walked the bikes back to the hotel, and spent about 2 hours fiddling with patches and tubes. Got a little bit of help from Pat from Santa Fe, putting the bike tire back on, which was tricky with these bikes.

Then we had to leave to get to the concert. The concert was a good experience, I talked to a lot of people, a guitarist turned ER doctor from Mississippi and his Brazilian wife, a lady from California and her friend from Italy who were paying insane amounts of money for their hotel - 500 euros a night (and it was going to be raised to 1500 for the festival, but they moved to a different hotel). Peter enjoyed lots of the music, I did as well although it wasn't exactly my cup of tea.

I cleaned the rain spattered mud from the bike with a "brush" I made from some grass stalks

Around the castle

Some of the exhibits in the castle. Particularly interesting were Napoleon's camping setup

Flat tire! Luckily Peter was able to fix it

Lovely little canal in the Fontainebleau park

At the music festival

Dinner

June 24, 2023 - Fontainebleau to Nemours

It was a little challenging getting out of Fontainebleau, lots and lots of traffic. We met Pat and Sherry again, Pat guided us to where the bike trail split off - not that we couldn't have found it ourselves, but he was being helpful. It was hot! Got up to 90 degrees Fahrenheit or higher, which is not a big deal when you're in the shade, but biking in the sun was pretty warm. Beautiful terrain as usual along the Canal de Loing, which connects the Seine and the Loire. We are on the old tow path, which has been converted to a bike/walking trail. Overall very nice.

The signage was great, except where it was most necessary - there was one spot in Champagne sur Seine where the bike trail was closed and there was zero signage. As soon as it was obvious where the trail was, the signs were everywhere again. We stopped and Peter got an ice cream there, and asked the restaurant owner to fill up the water bottles. We had lunch at the beginning of the town of Nemours, in a nice park on the edge of the canal. As we were sitting there eating our bread and cheese, two people walked by, they both said "bon appetit". That must be the polite thing to do, whenever you see people eating, I think.

We got to the campground, which was about 2 km south of the town of Nemours. I was excited to stay in one of these "pod" buildings, but the reality was that it had been sitting in the hot sun all afternoon, and had to be aired out for hours in order to be cool enough to be habitable. Also, no power, until the campground attendant came by in the evening and as a special favor plugged in a cable for us. I gather that technically they're not allowed to do that.

Another thing was that there was a wasp nest over the front door. And another thing was that there was sap dripping from the wood on the ceiling onto the sheets. Oh well, it was an interesting experience, probably won't try camping again though. Also, it was 79 euros (including sheets, most people apparently bring their own), which I thought was extremely expensive for what we got.

We biked into town and had some dinner, then went to the Carrefour grocery store, which was the rattiest one I've ever seen. Also even though it was a small store, there was a security guy up front. I guess they needed it.

This is sounding a little negative, but even though there were some challenges today and discomforts, it was still fun and a beautiful ride. Lots to see along the side of the road, though definitely hot. Almost no roads where we were with cars, it was bike trail all the way. Peter and I talked a lot, he's reading a couple books on the Kindle that I've read as well, which provides things to talk about. We listened to a podcast together in the evening, an interview with Yeonmi Park.

By the way, I'm doing this all through voice recognition. My bluetooth keyboard was being problematic, so I tossed it in the garbage.