Martigny Courpierre to Val de Vesle

A good night's sleep in the yurt at Martigny Courpierre helped us get a reasonable start on the day.  Cycling on small roads and green ways, we were soon in Champagne country and the crops shifted from beets to grapes in short order.

Both Alison and I dislike large cities and so our intent was to stay out of Reims and move on to Verzelay or Verzy for the night.  On the outskirts of Reims, I had the good fortune to spot a Decathlon Store - this the sporting goods mega store in France.  After about 15 minutes of power shopping I emerged with new socks and touques for us both and some new gloves and super mega-padded cycling shorts for me.

We hadn't booked ahead for accommodation so it was largely on faith that we would find a place for the night.  The approach to Verzelay was hilly and on arrival there, we could find no where to stay.  Never mind, Verzy had lots of places advertised... more hills and nothing there either.   Not to mention no real food all day.  At our last stop in Verzy the kind proprietress called a few places and found a Chambre d'hôte 4 km across the highway at Val de Vesle.  By the time we arrived, I was spent entirely and suffering badly from not having eaten or drunk much for the preceding 80km.

And so... Val de Vesle is where we ended our day as well as our tour together.  People are complex creatures to start with - add emotional exhaustion, physical fatigue, hunger and bit of uncertainty to the mix and you have a recipe for... well, you know.  So... Alison will continue on a journey of her own and I am going to continue on the VF at least as far as Bescanson before returning to Ireland.  This is not what I had planned for, but then life is like that and we have to just keep rolling along and try to learn from the experience.

The one thing I am reminded of again and again in these treks is that you never know what exactly is around the next corner...  Hopefully it's something worthwhile.