Villages and Hamlets

France: Tour de Manche Stage 4 – Sat 25th July 2015 – Vire to Saint-Quentin-sur-le-Homme (48 Km)

Route PhotosSt-QuentinDuceyOSM MapTrip Maps
 

Having GPS navigation gives you the courage to be more adventurous without fear of getting lost. Last night I looked at the official Tour de Manche map and decided that the 72 Km route from Vire to Ducey was unnecessarily long and contained little of interest except the towns of Sourdeval and Mortain. I therefore created, using Garmin Basecamp software on my laptop, a much more direct route of 48 Km which not only shaved 24 Km off the day’s journey but enabled me to pass through some delightful little villages and hamlets (Champ Du-Boult, Saint-Michel-de-Montjoie, Saint-Pois, Brécey, and Saint-Quentin-sur-le-Homme).

Rather than riding on gravel and compacted dirt bike paths along a disused train track, I cruised along on perfectly surfaced, secondary and tertiary roads through some beautiful countryside, featuring lots of cornfields and of course the ever present cows and hydrangeas (which you will notice are mostly blue instead of pink). The road surface was so good I imagined I was riding the Tour de France rather than the Tour de Manche, except there was no peloton or cheering crowd to carry me along. There were menacing looking clouds all around and the road was wet in places, but amazingly I completed today’s leg without getting damp. It was so cold though that I called in at Brécey to get some horrible French coffee just so I could thaw out my numb fingers on the hot cup.

I have been in France for five days now and have met very few French persons who are either able or willing to speak English. Monsieur Ralph Hunter at Wodonga High School must have been a very good teacher because, even with all the brain cells that have decayed over the last 55 years, my French vocabulary is just about good enough to enable me to make myself understood (with the help of some sign language too). I am finding the main words merci and bon jour are coming to my lips quite spontaneously now, though sometimes I come out with grazie and buongiorno or, even worse, thanks and g’day (which always elicits a disapproving glare from the French).

I arrived at Saint-Quentin-sur-le-Homme (near Ducey) at around 1 pm and have checked in at a most delightful place just out of town called Chambres d’hôtes Les Vallées. Currently I am sitting in a lovely sitting room (with TV and Wi-Fi) that is exclusively for my use, helping myself to cups of tea while I write these words on my laptop. Now that I have finished I will go and stroll around the fabulous garden, then hop on my bike and check out the towns of Saint-Quentin-sur-le-Homme and Ducey. I think I could get accustomed to this lifestyle!