Day 22 – Tue 01 Jul 14, Sarrebourg to Nancy (France)

July 01, 2014

Forecast: 9-24 deg C, mostly sunny; Listed distance: 80km; Actual distance: 83km; Cumulative distance: 905km; Av speed: 16.3 km/h; Sarrebourg: 12 deg C; Nancy: 27 deg C; Start time: 8am; Stop time: 2:30pm; Ride time: 5h00m

After a gut-filling breakfast (included in the nightly rate) we left at 8am. About 2km later we were on a nice path beside the canal. That didn't last very long as we were then onto the road and then back onto a canal path which was really nice, then just ok and then just plain not ok. It probably used to be a nice walking/cycling path, but has fallen into disrepair over the years and is now very rough and overgrown with grass, which had been recently mowed though. After about 20km of this, Greg decided there must be something better. Keep in mind that not 5 minutes before, Wendy was telling him that although it was rough and slow going, it was preferable to the road with hills and cars/trucks. Greg found an exit off the canal path onto a road - the D2. Although it was a pretty quiet back road, it was HILLY!!!!! Not just one or two, but many. This quiet country road wound its way through very well nurtured wheat, maize, sunflower and rapeseed fields. The villages weren't cute by any means as they were working towns, but they had a certain rustic charm about them. As the road was a series of roller coaster rides, the trick was to go down fast enough to get momentum to make it up the other side. Good in theory but it didn't always work in practice. We still made better time on the undulating road than on the canal path though.

We stopped just outside Enville for mornos (a pretty late one) and St Nicholas de Port for lunch where we sat on a park bench looking at a lovely canal boat flying an English flag. We also watched as their dog wandered around the boat and let itself off to undertake the call of nature! As we sat, we worked out that seeing we pay a total of Euro 9 for brekky and lunch we each get '5.5l/100km'. This is worked out considering the price of fuel here; so it costs $11 per day to run our 'motors'. However if we had hired a car and filled it with juice, (hire + fuel costs) we'd still have to eat anyway, sooooo.... we are spending very little on transportation costs. Maybe with the depreciation on the bikes, wear and tear on the tyres, tubes, chain etc, it may be a little more, so back to reality.

After lunch, we only had just less than 20km to go and the lovely quiet, no-stress road turned into a monster road with heaps of traffic all intent on pushing cyclists off the road. This was not a good end to the peaceful, albeit hilly, day thus far. Fortunately, Greg found another quiet road which lead us onto a smooth paved canal path leading into Nancy. With the help of Google Maps we found the hotel (Ibis Nancy Centre Gare) without taking a wrong turn and were checked-in and unpacked by 3pm. As we entered our room, we both recognised the stale smoke smell of cigarettes and cigars. So, Wendy went back downstairs and asked for another room and got one! The new room (410) was slightly bigger than the first shoe-box sized room. However, despite the smallness, both the room and bathroom were quite functional. The room had good soundproofing and an efficient aircon. It was then time for a slow wander to stretch the legs and find: 1. an ice-cream and 2. potential restaurant for tonight, in that order! We found the ice-cream and saw lots of restaurants. As we were in the lift coming back to the room, we saw the in house menu so decided to give that a go. Well, what a mistake that was. The meals were TV dinners prepared in the microwave - aaaagggghh!!! The beer was good though.

Nancy is a large busy city of over 400,000 people. Signs of first settlement date back to about 800BC with a fort being built in 1050. It seems that the occupants of today derive their pleasure from shopping. There are plenty of shops in an extensive mall network, where only trams, buses and people can go, and the people can satisfy their spending addiction. Alas, with only sufficient space in our panniers to carry our meagre possessions we won't be buying anything extra, not that we actually saw anything we would like to buy anyway! So we avoided the soldes (sales) and headed for the central markets, the very impressive city square and the main park just to have a look. We try and do a walk soon after arriving at the motel just to use the different muscles in our legs and stretch them out.