293 km (182 miles)
After our night at the delightful B and B in L’Ile Bouchard, our destination was Granville on the Normandy coast of La Manche. It is actually in the Manche province. We picked the town because it is close to Mont St Michel.
I had not really explored the B and B’s property when we arrived. It was absolutely beautiful with massive willow trees and roses throughout the place that were in bloom. There was one flower that smelled like jasmine, it could have been jasmine, but we could not find it.
There was a working water wheel on the property. It is now used to drive an air compressor that is used for glass blowing. It had been used for a wheat mill in the past. The surrounding fields have lots of plots of wheat along with corn and other crops.
I was surprised to see that the water wheel was pushed from the bottom. The water is damned and then a stream is released to turn the water wheel at the bottom of the damn. I’d noticed the same damn structure in the town with the historic mill a day earlier but how the wheel turned had not clicked. Apparently, there are three types of water wheel – undershot, horizontal, and overshot – just ask your mum. I guess I’ve seen the first, now, and the last. I guess I’ve seen need to find a horizontal to get a full set.
It was another hot one today. At one point, we stopped for coffee and water in a small town. We all decided that the chairs outside the cafe were too hot and the locals inside had taken all the chairs. As we were getting our gear on I noticed a water puddle under the pannier on Martyn’s bike. I asked him if something was leaking in the pannier but he had nothing there. It turned out that it was actually the top box. A water bottle from an earlier stop and leaked and was dripping down. Most things were okay apart from his spare set of gloves sitting on the bottom
After checking in at the Brit hotel – Brit Britany, not for the Brits staying there – MacBean and I walked into the town about a mile away. Can you guess where Martyn, Mr Dozzle, was? Our goal was to check out places to eat and find somewhere for dinner. Many of the restaurants do not open on Tuesdays. It seems Monday and Tuesday are the typical days that restaurants remain closed in France.
We stopped at a bar that served food but decided to move further around the harbor. We then found another place with great reviews that was quite a bit more expensive. Given that most chefs are off on Monday and Tuesday, we wondered who would be cooking at the expensive place. We decided that we might as well go to the bar and have the food there given we would probably not have the regular chef at the expensive place.
