Day 11 - Lonlay-lʼAbbaye

Normandy has a number of these structures and they are either attached to a house or they stand alone. My assumption is that they are wood fired ovens.

The weather is dry but decidedly cool, so much so that gloves and jacket are now on most mornings. I mention this as tomorrow I leave the gîte and its washing machine so today is laundry day. I will do this after today's ride and hope that my clothes dry enough to wear tomorrow without too much discomfort. 

This is my route which is one I've devised to take me out in the direction of Chanu where I havn't been yet, track over to Dompierre where I hope to get lunch, then back to the gîte via a roundabout way to add some miles and try new roads. As all the roads and scenery are predictably fantastic it is an easy planning process. Positioning the destination (the white circle) at Dompierre tells me it will take 1 h 52 to get there or three hours allowing for photo and coffee breaks. A 9am departure will see me there for lunch and if they are closed for whatever reason I have time to move on. 

For once there is space to photograph a church in its entirety; they are usually hemmed in by other buildings. This is at Larchamp.

These drovers paths are typical of the region though usually seen in quite short segments. 

This landscape is from an earlier day but is representative of today and the region generally. 

As I enter Dompierre at noon I see another pair of presses and wonder if they were used in conjunction, one to roll the apples into a mash and the other to squeeze out all the juice. 

Many of the restaurants in the area include Le Relais in the name. This comes from the days of coach and horse travel, ehen these relay stations would allow horses to be changed and travellers to get food. Lunch today is a €16 Le Menu and sausage roll (friand á la viande maison) for starter, pork for the main course, goid cheeseselectionand Floating Islands for dessert. Viande maison or House meat sounds a little bit Sweeney Todd but it is good and my guess is that it is the remains of Thursday's calf's head. So yes, very Sweeney Todd!

The ride today has been perfect, a nice short rest day before moving on, some rare straight downhill that allowed me to use the rarely engaged 11-tooth sprocket, catching a few more of the villages while enjoying the familiarity of crossing routes I have ridden earlier. Tomorrow is Alençon and a slightly longer ride with me carrying all my kit again and possibly wearing slightly damp clothes as today is laundry day. 

I came back via Saint-Clair-de-Halouze which was a centre of iron ore extraction and smelting from the 1300s through to 1978.

Though at 5pm I feel like crawling into bed the previous five days (days 6 to 10) mileage has been 43, 44, 43, 44 and 41 with total ascents of 810, 820, 660, 1130 and 710 meters respectively. 

Index

Day 12