Le Grand Tour: Day 44 – Lyon To Sault-Brénaz (81km)
I don’t like Mondays… Someone has beaten me to the song. I really don’t like Mondays in France as most places are closed. There is a special corner in hell for bank holidays that happen to be on a Monday in France. Today was one of the latter. Nothing open whatsoever this morning. We are celebrating the ‘Assumption of Mary’. Not being a man of religion I don’t know what Mary was assuming but perhaps it was that there might be something, somewhere that was open to buy lunch on a Monday bank holiday in France. There isn’t. Even the French are exasperated; one couple who were cycling in the opposite direction stopped me in desperation at around midday asking if I’d passed an épicerie that was open. I hadn’t. They broke down and sobbed beside the cycle path in desperation. I told them my plan was to survive on my box of peanuts until I could cook something in the evening. I scarpered as quickly as I could lest they use force in getting hold of the cacahuètes. When I did I turn to look, I could see them chasing after me using surprisingly fluent Chaucerian language vowing to prise the peanuts from my hands. The entente cordiale only goes so far… They were my peanuts. I digress.
