When I turn 46, I say "No more nonsense": Granville to Avranches and Dol-de-Bretagne to Cancale (pay attention, I'm in Breizh now ;-)

I was getting to the point of doubting the whole point of this trip. Racing from town to town to town, with none of the towns giving me the vibe that I remember St Malo always gave me. Or was my memory playing tricks with me? Did I somehow remember Brittany as soooo nice, when in reality it is just like anywhere else? What could have caused such misinterpretation or false memories?

All that changed today. The rain already stopped last night

These worries thawed a tiny bit this morning, when I got up at 5 am and was at the beach across the street not long after. Beaches are so much prettier before sunrise ;-)

Yes, nice colours, but somehow there still was something fundamentally different that keeps pulling me back to Saint Malo.

I use the morning and the unbelievably blue sky for another tour around Granville, sans rain this time.

Old German bunkers are a good photographic subject

But somehow they work better when instructing the camera to only record blue and grey tones.

or maybe not

Ah yes, this is what brings me back

I still haven't figured out if the seagulls squeak more when I play Jean Michel Jarre's Oxygene on YouTube or whether there are seagull noises in the music ;-)

Riding out of Granville, the pictures speak for themselves ;-)

Giant Squid ?

This is why I put up with YVR security controls, Air Transat lost luggage policy, etc etc ;-)

The crisp smell of the ocean, the cool fresh air, the amazing range and hue and shading and intensity and joy of those COLOURS all of a sudden come to an end when the bike route deviates from the ocean and I follow an old railway track

Always take time to talk to animals!

When the inland trail hits the coast again, I am greeted by a familiar sight

There are quite a lot of racing bicycles on the road here. Riders of all ages, shapes, and weight classes, but they are united in their tight bike shorts, the tight fit of their imitation racing shirts (gotta shave off those milliseconds, and of course, their helmets. Reminds me of what those Gauls in Asterix and Obelix always used to say “The sky is going to fall on our heads!”.

Entrecote avec frites

The ride to Avranches is not very exciting and not too pretty, except for the occasional glimpses of Le Mont. The closer I get to Avranches, the denser car traffic gets, and the more impatient and rude the drivers get. I almost feel like I'm back in Vancouver, which is saying a lot, because up to now I was surprised how courteous French drivers are. If they can’t give you at least two meters space between your bike and themselves, they rather creep with 25 behind you on a 90 speed limit road. Even 18 wheelers do this all the time, so that quite often I've just gotten off the road so that I don’t have to hear and feel an 18 wheeler creeping just behind me.

Notre dame de Champs

Patton is following me

I'm glad when my train departure time gets nearer and I can leave Avranches. Bad vibes.

waiting at the train station

The train takes me to Dol de Bretagne, where I have to wait 45 minutes for the next train.

Killing some time with a cigarette outside the train station, I spot the hotel in Dol that I stayed in 2 years ago.

They have changed all the trains since I was here 2 years ago. Very nice modern trains that travel on regular roots as smooth as a modern TGV or ICE travels on their its tracks. But on this boonies-route, the train bounces and wiggles as if it’s hitting a giant pothole every 10 meters. Better not think of train derailments ;-)