Bike: Chateaunruf-en-Auxios to Chissey-en-Morvan, 31 miles, 1800 feet of climb
Accommodation: Strawberry Hill (B&B website https://lamaisondemamie-morvan.fr), host Helena Snow. Blue Room: double room, shared bath with one other double room, pool, wifi, access to kitchen and washer. Host Helena is from Boston, moved to Europe in 1991. She sent links to bike route info.
Dinner: La Rosarie in Lucenay l'Eveque
Happy 46th anniversary to us!
We had planned a very fun day, cycling on little roads through the Morvan Natural Park to a lovely B&B, checking in mid-afternoon, showering and relaxing, and then biking about three miles to a nearby town for a set-menu (surprise) dinner at a little restaurant run by a Dutch family.
The first half of the day was pretty much idyllic. Then we hit a section of unpaved trail that turned out to be a very rough jeep track along the hedgerows of some remote grazing fields. We made it through the first bit, mostly walking.
A few miles later, we hit a longer stretch on even rougher jeep trails, and our mapping software told us to turn onto a track that was so overgrown it was not passable even on foot. Ken opened Google Maps and was able to figure out where we were, and found a route through more rough jeep trails to a highway.
All that took a couple of hours.
It was after 16:30 when we finally arrived at our B&B, The gate was open but the door to the house was locked, there was no car in the driveway, and no one answered our bell or our texts or our phone calls or our emails. We had made the reservation for the B&B the first week of July. Usually, I reconfirm reservations a few days before we arrive, but this time, I had forgotten. We were concerned that either something had happened to our host, or something had happened to our reservation.
After about half an hour, we called the restaurant where we had dinner reservations, explained the situation to them, and asked if they had a room (they also run a hotel). They were fully booked, but invited us to ride on down and have aperitifs while we waited for our dinner to be served at 18:30.
We were a bit concerned about biking back to Strawberry Hill at 20:30-21:00 not knowing whether our host would be there and whether we really had a room. When we booked our room in July, we had trouble finding a place to stay because we were traveling through a park, and the few places we found had already been booked.
Biking in to Chissey-en-Morvan, we had seen a sign for La Cure Chambre-d'Hote. We searched the internet for a phone number but couldn't find one. Finally, we decided to just stop there on our way to the restaurant, and knock on the gate.
We knocked on the gate. Walter (also Dutch) let us in. We explained our situation. Yes, he had a room available. He knew Helena. He tried to call her with no luck. He sent her a text message with no luck. We all decided that Ken and I would go to dinner, and whoever heard from Helena first would circle back to the other party.
We were a little stressed out, but glad we would not be camping in a ditch.
The wonderful Dutch family at the restaurant let us sit in the dining room near the wood fire and drink sparkling water and chat while they set up for dinner. Before our meal was served, I got a call from Helena. She remembered our email exchange in July, but for some reason, our reservation never made it into her calendar. She was so sorry. Walter had gotten ahold of her. If we agreed, we could definitely stay with her that night. She had no other guests and would love to welcome us.
I called Walter back and thanked him. Ken and I ate a marvelous anniversary dinner and then biked up the highway in the dark, with our bike lights blazing, and checked in to an absolutely wonderful B&B with Helena, who was fantastic.
By 22:00, we were showered and snuggled under a down comforter, eating homemade cookies provided by Helena and reminiscing. The night of our wedding, we had a reservation at the New Prague Hotel. We drove down there from Anoka after our reception, arriving about 1:00 (am), exhausted and still in our wedding duds. The hotel had misplaced our reservation and was full to the brim with visitors for Farm Fest. They moved someone out of their room and us into it. We did not get the bridal suite, but we didn't care at that point. Our apologies to whomever we displaced that night!
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| Looking back at Chateauneuf Chateau as we headed out of town in the morning. It was cold! Only 37 degrees. |
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| The first part of the day we were on the canal, whistling and laughing and having a grand time. |
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| Occasionally we left the canal and were on small paved roads and highways, Or nasty jeep roads. We didn't take any pictures of the jeep roads. |
