Down Time Wednesday 15th September

What an epic and hectic few days it’s been, since we left the Pink House at lunch time last Friday. Unfortunately, my vertigo and tinnitus has not cleared up and it’s causing me a lot of difficultly on the bike as you could imagine.

We arrived at the Ferry terminal at 13:00 and boarding commenced at 14:00 the sea was flat calm over the duration of the voyage to Roscoff, France and before we knew it we were been called to the vehicle decks to disembark. Leaving the ferry terminal at 07:15 in the morning it was pitch dark and quite cold. As we headed through the French Countryside towards our first port of call Argers, we had to pull over and put on some extra layers, As the sun started to rise the landscape started to take shape and we were treated to amazing fog banks lingering a few feet above the fields. In fact our visors completely fogged over on the outside causing some distraction.

The stillness all around as the French slept caused my mind to wonder back to thoughts of the second world was and I wondered what it must have been like living in the small villages we passed through and the occupation by the German army. Looking at the old churches and other old buildings you could make out shrapnel damage from small arms fire and the odd mortar damage quite surreal to be honest. We stopped at a small modern cafe around 10 for a well needed break and some hot coffee and of course a filled baguette. What could be nicer than fresh bread in the French Countryside.

We arrived in Angers around 14:00 unloaded our luggage and parked up the bikes for the day. Angers is a lovely rural town South West of Paris. What we didn’t know was that everything closes in France and I mean everything on a Sunday. We wondered around the city taking in the sites and eventually settled into a lovely cafe, one of the only ones open in their city situated in a lovely square, for some food and drink. Thats when the fun started. We drank a number of beers before we moved onto the Wine and Champagne. Several bottles later and having had our dinner we decided to leave, and yes we were the last customers in the place.

Ivan had a surprise in store. A few years back he had discovered a secret bar and earlier in the day we searched for it and found it. You can’t get into the bar unless you have the code for the door of the shop which leads to the bar.

One of the staff in the cafe we were in, all evening text his friend and he came back with the code. You simply cannot get access to the bar unless you have the door code to an empty shop. Once you enter the shop you have to step into a wardrobe and enter a secret corridor and at the end of this you enter the best bar I have ever seen. The bar staff couldn’t believe that two Irishmen, one for Dublin and the other from Cork would suddenly appear into this well kept secret. The other two lads had already had enough and missed out on this delight.

The manager of the bar had only worked in Dublin for the last eight years in the Merrion Hotel no less, and as the bar had ordered 1,000 bottles of their own gin the only decent thing to do was purchase six bottles as presents, and a reminder of this lovely place. So that was the first day over and next stop was a trip to Bordeaux.