Day 4 Rennes to Messac (46kms)

Today it all got better, for a while, in fact, for most of the day. The hotel breakfast was remarkably good with fresh fruit and really nice bread. I managed to find the bike path out of Rennes not helped by a complete lack of signing. You really do need to have your wits about you all the time. The bike lane tracked over a bridge but I knew I wasn’t supposed to cross the river but I had to look hard to spy a very obscured signpost to the bike path, and I also asked a Monsieur on a bike. He agreed it was down there, but that meant down a set of quite steep steps onto the river path below. Hmm, a French monsieur, I thought, he will offer to carry my bike. But he didn’t, so I went to do it, not really sure that I could, and then realised there was a kind of metal runner for bike wheels running down the steps under the handrail. You put your bike wheels in it and then brake hard while you walk down the steps. It kind of worked well and at least Monsieur waited at the bottom to make sure I was OK before scootling off.

He was the first of very many not so friendly men today. Being near a city, the first few kms had lots of runners/walkers out doing their morning exercise. All men, no women. Very intense in their lycra with their eyes on their watches. Trying to get them to say Bonjour became a game. Only about half would reply to me. In fact this went on all day with fishermen, the occasional cyclist, runners etc, even a man having lunch at the same time as me on the next bench who walked past me really close twice. I said Bonjour to him both times and he didn’t answer. He was this close away! I don’t get it but yesterday’s Irish lady knew all about it and it was her humour that kept me going through it all today.

But the countryside was nicer: there was less forest and bigger views, bucolic pastoral scenes of wide meadows with cows lying lazily munching amongst the buttercups, and cuckoos (sorry coucous although they sounded just like English cuckoos to me!) calling from the trees. The Vilaine is a river and rivers are more interesting than canals; they meander, they wend, they sprawl, they lie still a while and contemplate, then they turn in great sweeping curves; in short, they have a mind of their own and they do stuff. Canals do nothing except what they’re told to do. There were also lots of interest points like 18^th century water mills and weirs, and elegant country estates running down to the river, pink rhodendrons crowding over high stone walls, as well as the usual lock-houses. I complimented one elderly Madame, who came out just as I was taking a photo of her house, on her choice of shutter colours which she was very pleased about.

Again, apart from deaf runners and desultory fishermen I saw no one all day. I did come across a couple canoodling, well, embracing, they were well into their fifties after all. So intent on it they were, standing in the middle of the narrow path, that I had to use my bell three times before they realised and tore themselves reluctantly apart.

This track south of Rennes to Redon is not yet allowed to be officially called a voie verte or bike path; it is just the towpath, the chemin de halage, and a tourist office person had told me by email that it didn’t go through all the way. The Tourist Office in Rennes weren’t sure but didn’t think so. Incroyable! So I asked a man on the job - an éclusier (lock-keeper) himself - whom I happened to come across near the start. Yes, he assured me, it went all the way to Redon; not all of it was great but it would be OK. He was right. I came across deep mud, deep gravel, deep chip, but no deep water today, and, in fact, the surface was probably faster overall than the past three days. Maybe because there was a slight wind behind, or some good road surface, or, aha, the river is running downhill now, though quite imperceptibly, but there were parts where I seemed to positively spin along.

There was even a lovely spot for lunch down by the water with the sun out (for most of it) and views across to an island and weir. Today I had supplies: goat’s cheese, cherry tomatoes and fresh baguette. Madame had been very happy to cut a loaf in half for me and liked the fact that I chose a local speciality, a far Breton, a sort of custard tart with prunes, for my morning tea (an unbelievably cheap one euro sixty-five for both ($2.70!). It was good, but I think tomorrow I might have a huge, sticky croissant aux amandes instead! 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 

So today I was well fed at least. I mucked up my choice of hotel though. I had booked it last night via the internet. Yuk, yuk and yuk again. Messac seemed an obvious choice being half-way from Rennes to Redon but it is one of the most ugly little towns this side of Columbia. Forget what it says in the tourist brochures. God knows who writes them. Obviously someone who’s never been out of Messac. It’s a pit, and so’s the hotel. I thought at first it might be a whorehouse but I haven’t seen any women yet so maybe not. There are men everywhere; in fact where are all the women in rural France? The only ones I’ve seen so far have been working in the boulangeries. Anyway apart from the men and the road and the ugly ugly décor, the stupid place has an acclaimed restaurant (which is why I booked it so I could be sure of getting some food), so I’m trying that tonight and hoping for the best. Will be out of here early in the morning.

Footnote: it was passable but any one of Tony’s everyday fish meals would run rings around it!