Walk: 4km; total: 280km
We knew we had less than 15km to ride today and only needed to be out of the apartment at midday, so we made the most of the luxury and had coffee in bed this morning. After breakfast Greg checked on his front tyre that developed a slow leak yesterday. It was very flat this morning. He changed the tube, put the wheel back together, pumped it up and it went down almost straight away. There was a leak around the valve stem. This was a new tube he purchased at Hervey Bay a few weeks before we left; very annoying! So, he had to patch the old tube, take the wheel apart again, blah, blah, and then put it back together again. He also decided to give his chain, cluster and chain rings a good clean and got a lot of stuff out. This seems to do the trick and there was very little clicking after that, much to Wendy’s relief. We left the apartment under grey skies with medium drizzle about 10am.
About 2km down the path, the drizzled became rain, so we stopped so Wendy could swap her spray jacket for a raincoat. Onwards we travelled on an beautiful bitumen cycle path beside the Centre Canal. Plenty of cattle along this stretch and not much else. We didn’t stop until we reached a bike shop at Paray-le-Monial that Greg found on Google last night. Conveniently, they had a little shelter out the front of their store, so while Greg took his bike inside to ask them to check it, Wendy set up shop in the shelter. We were there for about 45 minutes when the mechanic came out and test-rode the bike. He reckoned that the chain was still good and all that was needed was to tweak the ‘change speed’. No more clicking; for the time being anyway.
We arrived at the hotel (The Priory Hotel) about 12:30pm, hoping to dump the bikes, get changed and venture out for lunch, as check-in was between 3-4pm. When the lady checked for the booking, she was all excited because the room was ready; Wendy was excited as well! She showed us to the bike shed, about a cut lunch and six-pack away from the hotel, and we carried our luggage back to the hotel and to our room, #225. Wendy had originally booked a hotel about 2.5km out of town but last night found this place that is listed as being 550m from the centre of town, so booked it and cancelled the other one. Thank goodness for free cancellation bookings. We are now really glad we did, as it is just down the road to shops, restaurants, and tourist sights. And yes, it is an old Priory that was connected with the Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, that is right next door. In all our travels we’ve never encountered a cleaner, better maintained hotel, it’s immaculate.
After unpacking, changing into a dry set of clothes and waiting for the rain to ease, we set off to find lunch and found Brasserie du Théatre (Theatre Brewery). Had a look at the menu board and got a sniff of what was cooking and decided that this would be a good place to eat. It didn’t disappoint. In France, they have a menu formula, whereby you can get a starter and a main, or a main and dessert for the one price, or all three plates for a little more. Greg spied a muscle salad as starter and canard (duck) for main. Wendy ordered a faux fillet. All dishes were yummy and warmed us up after riding in the rain.
Next stop was the train station to book our tickets to Dijon on Monday. We couldn’t see a rail employee anywhere so decided to try the ticket machine that didn’t have an English button. After getting pretty close to what we wanted, we decided that perhaps we should come back early on Monday and speak to an actual person. Just then a train arrived and a rail person appeared speaking excellent English. He pressed exactly the same buttons we had done, and got the same result - €44 for the two of us (bikes go for free). So we have our ticket for Monday.
As we’d had a large lunch, we decided that Carrefour salads were the go for dinner, so went home via the tourist office and Carrefour. We had been home for a few minutes when the skies opened up again, and continued until just after 5pm. Greg went out to find an optical store to see if he could get new silicone nose pads for his glasses. The original pads are disintegrating and the glasses are not even 12 months old, shoulda not have gone to Specsavers!
Sheltering under a bridge to change jackets
Bike shop right beside the canal
Their little shelter
Paray has lots of flowers
The geese like the rain!
Slow day for scenery so you get food instead
Our hotel
We booked a Garden view room, more like a courtyard
Couldn’t get into the ‘garden’ so had to take a picture through the glass, our room in the red circle
Each room has a different Church from around the world
We think the hotel has had a refurb recently as it was opened as a hotel in 1986 and everything looks a lot newer than that
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