Today we think the name of our trip needs to be changed to Detour d’ Europe!  If you look at the track log above, you’ll begin to see why.  We estimate that out of our mere 57 km of riding, about 20 km was detours.  In fact, we are only 30 km from our starting point.

 

At first we accidentally ended up riding through the large town of Douai, but were delighted to see that it had good bicycle paths along its major streets.  This however ended abruptly the moment we left town.  In fact, we were dumped on to a 4 lane freeway which did not appear to be ok for bicycles.  It reminded us of U.S. bike paths, which lead nowhere and leave you stranded. 

 

So, from that point, our next detour was to find a parallel path to the road we could not take.  The closest road was 5 km away, as we had to get around a very large Renault factory.  You can see that detour as a bump southwest of Douai.  That detour also led us past a military area where we could hear gun shots nearby.

 

All of our remaining detours had to do with simply finding food for lunch, either a Café or a store would do fine.  But none were to be found.  After 12 km of searching, we ended up southeast of Arras, and a Tavern patron told us that there was nothing ahead of us.  Our only choice would be to go back to Arras.  After back tracking another 7 km, we finally found a restaurant and had a late lunch, but only after having to hang out under a tree during a rain shower. 

 

So, as we ate lunch we thought about our options.  We were now on the outskirts of Arras.  The detours had meant that we would not be as close to Paris after this day as we intended.  Frankly we were not enjoying this cycling (perhaps a bit too spoiled by the Netherlands).  And we were planning to be near a rail station for our last leg to Paris by tomorrow anyway.

 

So, we made the decision that it is time to head to Paris.  We cycled the rest of the way into Arras, which ended up taking us past a Haagen Daz factory!  We found a hotel next to the rail station, and intend to explore the town tonight, and be in Paris tomorrow.

 

And of course we realize that despite our difficulties today – we really can’t complain.  It is still France!  It’s a beautiful country.  We are having fun, and even Jon is getting to put to use all that French he’s been attempting to learn!