8th of August we got up really early to be on the road before the heat would start boiling us. We were by 8:30 saying good bye to Daniel and Günther who spoiled us for the last days with “living like God in France” as we say in German (which is “living the life of Riley” in English).
But by now all these languages are mixing up in my head anyways and the funniest misunderstandings create the best laughter for all of us. One example happened to Robert at Chateauroux where Marie-Hélène walked into the isle and tried to turn on the light, but the bulb was dead. She said : “Oh une autre ampoule est morte” and Robert was shocked “un autre poule est mort?” (=another chicken was dead?)
Well roosters still crowed early in the morning and we made our way to Niort where we passed through the town along the river Sèvre on a nice bike path. We checked for the fish market again and it was just in preparation as it was still early. We had a second breakfast and got us some sandwiches for the tour before we were leaving Niort. The temperature already picked up and we were exposed to the sun in the fields without shade. Following from village to village there was again no shop no bakery nothing just sometimes nice architectural discoveries like the church of Saint-Jean-l’Evangeliste of Marigny.
Before we reached the forest of Chizé I thought it was already on fire but the closer we got we just saw a farmer creating with his tractor such a dust clowd that he had to stop again and again to gain some vision. The soil was completely dry and our bikes started to look like we joined the Rallye Paris-Dakar. Even in the forest the roads were dusty but we were at least in the shade of the trees. The name of the village “Vert” by the river Boutonne gave us hope to find our bike path along the green River being the border line between the Department of the two Sèvres and the Charente-Maritime.
Along the river beautiful castles were highlighting the passage like the renaissance château du Dampierre-sur-Boutonne, chateau de Mornay, where Richelieu already must have seen the plane and oak tree during his visit in the parc being more than 400 years old, or chateau de Vervant.
Arriving at Saint-Jean-d’Angely a lady had pity with us and invited us into a church being used as an exhibition hall. It was a former abbey of Benedictines. We were even allowed to bring in our bikes and have our sandwiches within the cool rock walls. It was a real relieve to get our body temperatures down and find some energy back. Remembering my friend Christiane’s birthday who gives me singing classes I had the idea to record Mozart’s “Ave verum” in the acoustic of this neo-gothic ambiance. Back outside in the afternoon heat nothing kept us staying for a lot longer at Saint-Jean-d’Angely.
We had to leave the green shores of the river Boutonne and climb some hills with fields and forests where each time the temperature shock between the shade under the trees and the wall of hot air being exposed to the sun got more and more intense. We took some shelter in the cool of the church of Notre-Dame de l’asssomption of Fenioux where a man from the village pointed us out as pilgrims whether believing or not. His name was Albert and explained us the uniqueness of this church having a death lantern like only three others along the Saint James trail. He could have told us much more, but we still had an appointment in Saintes with the Rotarian president.
At Taillebourg we finally could reach the river of Charente. We had usually filled our two bottles with enough drinking water. One with isotonic drinks added and one with pure water. But in this heat I realized just drinking pure water dried out my mouth and gave me the feeling of no refreshment at all. It must be the loss of minerals which can’t be replaced so quick when you just have pure water. We stopped by a Ginguette at the river side for a drink and informed Michael Dardent that we are getting close to Saintes but wouldn’t make it before 7:00 pm to town. The last kilometres along the river was without a lot of ups and downs and beside being dusty we advanced all the way to see the heart of Saintes by the Roman triumphal arch.
We were lucky that we still found a hotel by the railway station where our Rotarian friends picked us up for dinner by 7:30. The symbols on the Rotary flag of Saintes include the Roman triumphal arch and the cathedral Saint-Pierre. We had a photo together with José, Michael and his wife Fabienne in front of the cathedral. They invited us for dinner at the “insieme” where we found us suddenly in the southern life style of a century old city. The sky was full of starlings and they settled in the huge Plane trees by the cathedral and created a noise which I at first blamed to a Harley Davidson motor not being turned off. But for someone who comes from a town called “starling mountain” this was an unheard experience. I couldn’t imagine starlings being so loud. When we left to the Roman triumphal gate the full moon was rising into a hot night.
Back at the hotel it was hard to find sleep after 130 km of biking and still having hot temperatures. We needed to open the window to get some air but that invided the mosquitos. They were driving me crazy even managing to bite through the plantar venous arch of my foot. Robert couldn’t calm down, because he thought his cell phone was dead as it didn’t charge anymore. But hours later after being awake he found out that the plug in the bathroom itself was dead. Bonne nuit? Far away from what we would have needed to recover.
