Etape 14 Les Sables d’Olonne to St Jean de Monts

It’s Monday morning after the night before and the Promenade George’s Clemenceau has returned to normal. The chanting, banner-waving Marseillaise singers have all disappeared ( most probably still in bed with a hangover) and the seafront has been returned to the early morning joggers, crazy morning dippers and dog-walking grannies. We sailed along with ease en route northwards to St Jean de Monts, passing from the front prom into the older port area at the northern end.

The problem with travelling from south to north on this trip is that the prevailing winds are from the north-west and today we covered about 36 miles into a strong blustery headwind (or vent de tete as we have discovered). Even the downhill bits felt like uphill!

The coastline is pretty spectacular with a combination of great long beaches, rocky outcrops and wooded headlands. Generally the cycling provision is really excellent with dedicated well signed routes right along the coast including through the towns where traffic has often been reduced to one lane with the other lane given over to bikes. (Derek -don’t come here for your holidays!!).

However the persistent headwind, strong sunshine and rolling nature of the route ‘forced’ a cold beer stop in a small beachside bar called Chez Yoyo’s at Brétignolles-sur-Mer. The cold beer stops at lunchtime and the obligatory ice cream stop in the late afternoons have become ever more frequent on this trip and have replaced the Kaffe und Kuken stops which were so much a highlight from last year’s trip to Slovenia. Mr Yo-yo promptly poured out two very large beers (I’m sure I asked for small ones) which we just had to gulp down in his shady, sand-filled bar. We spent a slightly woozy afternoon careering through twisty forest tracks and battling the headwinds over the cliff tops. Eventually St Jean de Monts hoved into view and using Google maps navigated our way to our hotel called Babord-Tribord (Port – Starbord). The thing about Google maps is that it doesn’t tell you which are the busy streets full of people and which aren’t and the directions sent us along Rue Neuve which turned out to be the narrowest and busiest pedestrianised street in the whole of Poitu-Charente! It was absolutely mobbed with families coming off the beach, families still heading to the beach, queues of people lined up in their hundreds waiting to buy ice creams, barbapapa (candy floss – literally fathers beard), chips, paninis, burgers, chi-chis (horrible finger shaped donuts covered in sugar or dipped in chocolate), croustillons (horrible round shaped donuts covered in sugar or dipped in chocolate), gauffres piled high with chantilly cream, crepes smeared with chocolate, rubbery unchewable sweets stretched to the length of an Amazonian python, sugary fluorescent coloured granitas that stain your lips, flip-flops, gaudy shorts and tee shirts, buckets and spades.

In addition there were 3 shops in close proximity offering you the privilege of letting small fish eat your feet to nibble off unwanted skin (I reckon that if I had stuck my sweaty cycling feet in one of those tanks the small fish would have lost and turned belly up) and also this street supported a mini fairground incorporating dodgems, a kiddies mini thrill ride, fishing for canards and three large slot machine arcades! All this was happening in a street about 5m wide along which we are trying to push our fully laden dust ridden bikes to find a hotel. ‘Pardon, exusez-moi, oops desole, excusez-moi,pardon’. Eventually gave up and turned up a side street and escaped. This place is like Largs on steroids!

Fortunately, despite our hotel being near to this boisterous gastronomic hell Le patron has created a charming green oasis of calm with a small garden adorned with coastal artefacts and beautiful plants and after a welcome aperitif and a homemade sardine pate we were recovered enough to head out once more for a shot on the dodgems (joke)!