After 5 days crossing delightful southeast England and then the uninspiring Flanders region, I had finally arrived at ‘La Meuse’ at the place where the river leaves France and enters Belgium, except I was going to go the other way – Belgium to France. I went upstream along the designated cycling path ‘La Meuse À Vélo’; this section through the Ardennes and along the Vosges Massif is very picturesque.
Remember you can zoom-in to see fine detail down to as little as 3m
Wednesday 17 August 2022. Hastière to Sedan |123 km|
There had been persistent light rain all night long at the Villa Hastière campground, with the bonus of a massive thunderstorm just after dawn. But at least I was able to have a filling breakfast – a baguette, 2 croissants and a bottle of milk – because Camping Castel Mosan adheres to the wonderful French campground tradition of being able to place an order in the evening with a local bakery for delivery in the morning.
I packed away my wet tent and headed out at 10.00 am after waiting for another storm to pass. Light rain persisted throughout the rest of the morning but the cycling, alongside the river on the well-marked trail, was really great and so the rain didn’t matter. I had all right the wet-weather gear.
I was all soaking wet again after a sudden late downpour by the time I arrived in Sedan after the enjoyable day’s riding. I couldn’t find a campground so I treated myself to a stay in Hotel Le Saint Michel for €80 – plus another €50 for dinner, they do pride themselves on their restaurant. But it was all worth it though – even just for a laugh – because the guy who ran all over the place doing everthing looked and acted exactly like Manuel from Fawlty Towers.
Thursday 18 August 2022. Sedan to Verdun |114 km|
The cycle path from Sedan to Mouzon was great, just like yesterday, but after Mouzon it loses the river and my GPS basically lost the plot too. I have no idea why, but it does happen sometimes. Near Laneuville a crotchetty old farmer even screamed abuse at me for daring to come up his driveway (but monsieur, I was only following the GPS!). He did calm down eventually and admitted lots of other cyclists make the same mistake. It’s obviously an error with the local mapping.
The last 15 kilometres or so into Verdun were on a gravel Vert Voie section of the “La Meuse À Vélo” trail. At least it was flat and rideable, but coming into Verdun it was really difficult getting my bike and all the gear up a long set of steep steps from the river towpath onto the D302B road bridge.
I was about to mention that an exceedingly strong woman, with her anaemic weedy husband looking-on, assisted me to get the bike up those stairs but I confess it was actually her who did all the heavy lifting. Thanks love.
Anywy, in Verdun I manage to successfully GPS- myself into a campground back down by the river in the outskirts of the city. It is called Les Breuils and has a nice pool and a restaurant, both of which I made full use of.
It obviously must be listed on all of the cycle-touring websites because there were quite a few other cyclists staying there, including my neighbours – a friendly 50-ish Dutch couple on one side and a rather prissy German on the other.
Friday 19 August 2022. Verdun to Hamonville |104 km|
Well, what a stuff up this day’s cycling was! Zoom in on my track just past Commercy and you’ll see what I mean. Go on – you know you want to.
It was cold and overcast to begin with, slowly climbing to 20°C in the afternoon, and with diabolical strong wind gusts at times. The Meuse cycleway basically ceased to exist at Commercy and I was obliged to travel mostly on the D964 and D31 main roads. Saint Mihel on the river about halfway along the day’s ride was a pretty town; the rest not so much.
At Euville I took a left-hand turn away from the river towards Toul to seek out what was touted to be, on my iPhone Google search, this fantastic campground, Camping l’orée de la Reine, but when I eventually found it – after wandering around aimlessly in the middle of a forest for an hour or so – it did not live up to it’s billing.
But getting there was funny – I was just about to give up and head directly to the small village of Toul instead when a grown man appeared out of nowhere riding a tiny bike with flat tyres in bare feet. He pantomimed how to get to the camping spot (Mandres-aux-Quatre-Tours, it’s called) but that was all too complicated so in the end he indicated for me to follow him, which I did, and at quite a dawdling pace. And just as well I did too, because the maze of overgrown tracks running off in all directions would have had me lost overnight I reckon. It was already getting dark by the time we arrived. On the map these tracks showed as normal through-roads all linking up but in reality most of them were narrow overgrown paths that finished in deadends with a barrier of heaped dirt blocking them off.
There were one or two other campers there, but well spread out. The site office was closed – it’s only open for 2 hours every afternoon til 4pm – and you’re basically on your own. There was a power connection at least, so I was able to charge the batteries. It rained all night and I had nothing to eat, so all-in-all quite a thrilling night. Not.
And no photos either, something must have gone wrong with my camera SD card.
Saturday 20 August 2022. Hamonville to Pagny-sur-Meuse |23 km|
Well that was a short ride!
At the first town I came to after the forest, Pagny-sur-Meuse, I pulled up outside what I thought was a shop to buy some food since I’d had no dinner the night before. But when I stepped inside the “shop” I found myself in somebody’s kitchen/ dining room. That somebody was Isobelle who was busy in her rustic kitchen preparing more food.
There were jars of cookies on the table so I asked in halting ‘franglaise’ to buy some. Anyway, to cut a long story short, the food wasn’t actually for sale – they only sold honey – but Isobelle and her husband Didier were busy preparing to celebrate their son Timeo’s 14th birthday that afternoon, and they insisted I pitch my tent in their lovely downstairs garden and stay for the party!
Didier took me on a tour of the town in his honey-van and showed me how his honey-making operation works, then promptly at 4.00pm around 16 people from the extended family pitched up and the party commenced.
There was a lot of mandolin, guitar and squeeze-box playing and karaoke – it was all good, old fashioned home-spun family fun – kept going with a never-ending supply of traditional french-style pizzas, (flammekueche française) and beer laced with orange liqueur that is called Picon. Isobelle’s 76-year old mother, Jaqueline, joined in and was a real hoot! They had a songbook (in French) and I had no excuse not to sing duets with one particular very sozzled lady.
Sunday 21 August 2022. Pagny-sur-Meuse to Montigny-le-Roi |116 km|
Isobelle prepared a big breakfast, just for me, while the rest of the family stood around me looking on eagerly: 2 eggs, a bowl of coffee (with honey), lovely home-made crusty bread, delicious terrines of pig’s head and of venison (caught wild in the forest backing on to their property), mirabelle plums and more honey and cake, and sent me off at 9.00am with more cake and plums. Two huge trailer-loads of chopped wood arrived to be stacked away for next winter just as I was leaving and I felt guilty about not pitching-in to help – a few other people had come around to lend a hand so I was obviously quite a big job – but they said it would take all morning and that I’d better get going.
The boulangerie in the village was open when I went past, so I pulled in to get a baguette and a quiche lorraine to have later on the way. It was an uneventful ride through rolling countryside with no sign of the River Meuse that I was still supposed to be following. Neuf Chateau was the only town of any size that I went through.
I arrived at the campground at Montigny le Roi, which is up at the top of the only hill for miles around, at around 4pm. The camp was unattended and I couldn’t pay on the auto check-in machine (I think it didn’t like my foreign credit card) although I did try several times and even rang the help-line number. So I just found a nice quiet pitch for free and set myself up, hoping that no one else would come along later to claim my spot and make a big fuss about it. [A few caravaners – plus two old geezers on an ancient steam-tractor pulling a caravan who were crossing the continent on some kind of charity run – did pull in, but no one wanted my spot or came anywhere near me.
Nothing at all was open in the town, it being a Sunday, and I thought I would have to content myself with the remaining food I was carrying – which by then was ⅓ of a baguette plus some honey and a ½-bag of mirabelles – but then at 6.30pm lo-and-behold the campground’s snack bar opened up for an hour and I got to have a mince-steak (very common in France, steak haché, basically a hamburger patty) and fries plus 4 beers for a ‘proper’ dinner. [The beer came in 250ml bottles, so not excessive!]
– ends –
Day 39: 2022 in Europe so far: 4,233 km in 37 days of cycling
Nights in hotels 21
Night on ferry 1
Nights in tent 19
Bike maintenance:
-
-
- Rohloff oil change (Toulouse)
- Repairs to rear kickstand (Toulouse)
- 12 punctures:
- 2 punctures rear (Toulouse to Agde)
- 4 punctures front (Toulouse to Agde)
- 2 punctures rear (Hull to Birtley)
- 4 punctures rear (Alnwick to Berwick)
- 2 new tubes (Montelimar)
- Two new Ortlieb Front Roller panniers (€140 Koblenz)
- 2 sets new brake pads (£8 Boston)
- Rear pannier rack broken; temp fix with cable ties (Bamburgh)
- 2 new tubes (Scremerston, UK)
- 1 new tyre (Scremerston, UK)
-