After arriving in Nantes on Monday most of us took Tuesday very easy, and some of the group started to head home.
Martin and I spent the afternoon at the chateau of the Dukes of Brittany, which is now the museum of the City of Nantes, and in randomly wandering on the bikes.
Wednesday we hopped a late morning train out to Saint Nazaire with the bikes but minimal baggage, took the bike-rack equipped bus across the 5km bridge over the mouth of the Loire, then rode back into Nantes, about 65km.
With this leg, we’ve both ridden clear across France, from the Swiss border to the Atlantic Ocean!
The first two thirds of the trail back to Nantes is quite nice, through farmland and along an old shipping canal, but when you hit the outermost edges of Nantes the official trail goes completely to crap, wandering up and down hills, along narrow gravel paths, and generally thrashing around randomly. We wound up alongside motorways to get back into central Nantes after missing an important turn, which wasn’t the nicest way to end the ride.
Off to Paris tomorrow!
