Amettes to Arras

After a rest yesterday afternoon, we visited the local church and musee of St Benoit.  There were even a few relics - in this case it was St Benoit's worn shoes, which is entirely appropriate given his apparent wanderlust.  Here are a couple of photos from that experience.

St Benoit at varying stages of his life

Last night we had a nice meal with the Gevas family - all food from their farm and very tasty it was.  This morning was no different - left over plum tart was a feature at the breakfast table for me, along with endless slices of toast, Mme Gevas's homemade preserves and coffee.

Le Petit Dejeuner

At 42.3 km, it was not such a physically demanding day today and lets just say that the parts that connect to the saddle and the knees are feeling ok.  I am tired however, and glad that we didn't try to ride on as we almost did.

Aside from a few fairly steep hills the route today was relatively uneventful.  There were some oddly perfect pyramid like hills along the way - I can only assume since this was mining country, they were man made.  The roads here are very quiet and the traffic is minimal until one gets close to a major centre like Arras, where we are now.

Oddly Symmetrical Hills

The real excitement began when we arrived here in Arras.  The plazas were loaded with sound equipment and carnival rides - never a good thing in my books.   Then we had tremendous difficulty finding the home of Madame Bonnal, with whom we were to stay, pre-arranged by our hostess in Amettes, Madame Gevas.  Madame Bonnal said she could not take us in after all, and sent us to another place, which turned out to be some sort of home for wayward girls.  No Madame Bonnal - just because we are on bicycles does not mean we are wayward girls, and there is no need for an intervention.  And furthermore, even if we were wayward girls we couldn't really get into much trouble anyway - we're too tired.

Anyhow... to make ourselves feel better we checked to a real hotel - the nice people at the Arras Ibis did not look at us strangely, the room has a bathtub in the room and there is a courtyard for the bikes.

Bernadette has rather a noisy squeak in her back wheel (not unlike her owner) around the brakes so I have left her into Veloland so they can have a look at her.  Veloland man was somewhat cool in his reception - perhaps wayward girls with their Canadian bikes don't measure up to French standards?  Anyhow, I think the brakes are just out of alignment - hopefully aloof bike man can fix her up without a big bill.

Tomorrow it looks as though it might rain - a 60% chance of precipitation and 60 km to encounter it.  Chances are...