Orleans II

July 01, 2024

First day without Ellie and first full day in Orleans. We decided to bike today. Surprisingly, there are no bike shops that will rent bikes by he day, only by the week. However, there are city bikes to rent by the hour or day. So we went to one. We dutifully downloaded the app, but it would not take our credit card. So we found the office, and marched over to inquire, only to be told that while they could not rent a bike by the day, the macjomes qould.take our credit card. Several tries later, we were on very heavy bikes. We found the bike paths along the Loire tow path, and sailed along. We found a beautiful little Riverside restaurant and tried to lock up our bikes with the codes we had been given. We had been given codes but no instructions, so we spent 15 min trying various things, and finally figured it out. You out in the code, pull up on a red plastic collar, and then pull the lock out.

We have had so many of these experiences where we know what we are trying to do is possible, and we know we have all the pieces, and yet we are missing a crucial piece of information, like pull up on re collar after putting in the code. It is so frustrating...for a few minutes I thought we would have to call and try to explain that our bikes were a mile or so out of town, and that we could not get one locked or the other unlocked, and maybe lose our $200 deposit. It is one of the many signals that we are where we do not belong, lacking these crucial but unwritten bits of information. Do we need reservations for the Louvre? We can get them, but do we need them? How do we know which metro tickets have been used and which are not yet used? Why is Montmartre closing at 9 if everyone is clearly there to see the sunset which happens at 10?Does the card icon over the toll lane mean a credit card or some other kind of card? We have some French, enough perhaps to ask the questions, but not enough to necessarily understand the answers. These little things can be very frustrating, especially piled on top of each other. This is why many people take package tours or hired guides for experiences. Without those things, we are on our own. But Phil figured out a good analogy...it is like an escape room. There is a time crunch, a puzzle and a definite answer, which we may or may not figure out in time. That helps to assuage the frustration and make it more potentially fun.

The biking was lovely. We mostly stayed on the river. It is a wild river, meaning not used anymore bas a means of transport, so no dredging, etc.

We found a pretty good restaurant and had a big 3-course lunch, then found a bit of grass and had a little nap.

At one point a long the ride, they fenced off the riverbank and has a sign explaining that they were using goats for land management. They created less pollution and helped keep down invasives. And they are fun to see.

This was right in the city...with an apartment block on the other side of the street.

We checked out the cathedral, which has origins in the distant past but was largely reconstructed in the 17th-19th centuries. So we have seen some medieval churches, an early modern reconstruction, and a very modern church.

One set of stained glass windows told the story of Joan of Arc.

We also did some Geocaching and followed a cool "Witness" trail with QR code poetic stories scattered around the city. One stop was both a geocaches and a story stop.

We ended the day with a drink in a sidewalk cafe, and decided to have a light dinner at home. We stopped at a natural food store for some supplies. They had a bulk cleaning supply/soap section.