Bike: Chissey-en-Morvan to Moulins-Engilbert, 31 miles, 3000 feet of climb
Accommodation: La Grande Sauve B&B ( https://www.lagrandesauve.com); hosts Marc and Dominique Derangere. Double room, private bath, wifi, breakfast included.
Even with all our navigation and planning tools, we cannot foresee how a day will go, what surprises it will bring, who we will meet.
Helena made us a huge, fantastic breakfast with homemade banana muffins, pain au chocolat, bread, and jellies, plus cheese and meat from nearby farms, eggs from her chickens, juice, coffee, yogurt. We were her only guests, so we asked her to sit with us and chat while we ate. She is originally from Boston but has lived in Belgium and France most of her adult life. It was fun to talk to someone with an understanding of three different cultures and speaking English as a first language.
After we had checked in the night before, Helena discovered that a scheduling glitch on her Airbnb listing had blacked out the calendar on both Airbnb and her own website. It did not affect reservations through Booking.com, and she had had a few bookings through that platform, but not as many as she expected and none through Airbnb or her own website. That mystery solved, she gifted Ken a baggie full of muffins and we rolled down the road into the chilly, sunny morning.
We were hopeful that our baddish luck was behind us and this would be a great day. We were right. It was an awesome day.
I had remembered to confirm our reservation for this night. In the email from our host, Dominique told me she would not be at the B&B. Her husband, Marc, would be there and welcome us. He does not speak English, but we would figure it out.
Marc was awesome. He did not speak any English. With Google Translate, our very limited French, gestures, and smiles, he showed Ken around his blacksmith shop, where he stored our bikes, and gave us a little information about the maison (farmhouse), shop, and horse stables. He and Dominique had bought them 30 years ago. The farm itself was still owned and run by another family who lived in the house just down the road, and that family grazed cattle.
After dropping our bags, Ken and I biked back to the town of Moulins-Engilbert and bought groceries for a picnic supper. It was Monday. We were lucky the grocery store was open. Nothing else was.
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| Little villages and hamlets dotted the hillsides. |
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| Small roads and hedgerows wound through fields of mostly cattle and some sheep. We stopped at a church and ate our lunch on top of the stone wall surrounding the cemetery. |
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| The Morvan is beautiful. |
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| Eating our picnic supper outside the maison (our B&B). |
