En France

This could only be France, but it is not the part that we had intended to visit!

There were 4 in our cycling peleton and we had planned a trip cycling and camping in the Alsace. I had tried to do the same last year but gave up because I couldn't find trains that would take our bikes to Strasbourg. This year after much time and research, we found out that the thing to do was to avoid the TGV's. So we were booked into slower inter-city trains. But the night before, after discussing the French train strikes and floods to the South and East of Paris, we decided to cancel our tickets and see if we could travel West from Paris.

We duly arrived at the Gare du Nord courtesy of Eurostar (another story) and cycled across Paris to find a very busy Gare de Montparnasse with a sign saying that all trains that were running were full. Our intention was to travel to Brest, which is as far West as possible, since the weather forecast was for continuing rain and thunder storms in the East. Someone suggested that we try to board and pay on the train, but a desperate ride down the platform was thwarted by a guard who simply said "Non." All of the few trains running that day were TGV's. No bikes unless they were in bags.

I had noticed that there were suburban trains at a lower level, and so we descended the escalators and found a train that was running to Rambouillet. After buying tickets and getting stuck in the automatic barriers, we were on our way. One hour west out of Paris on a stopping train.

From Rambouillet we cycled further west to Chartres, where we camped for our first night in a pretty wet campsite. Chartres was lovely at night, with many of its buildings lit up with light displays, and we came across a very friendly fresh couple who recommended an excellent North African restaurant. They had recently returned from a trip to Skye, where the weather had been dry and warm.