The wind has been blowing my way today, and I rolled 165 kilometres in five hours and 50 minutes! (Pauses not included.) At that speed, I totally forgot to stop and take a picture of my last sight of the Loire river - that was 12 kilometers back, and I'm not returning for that stupid picture (I have other stupid things to tend to, like doing an additional 120 kilometers after my arrival in Strasbourg).
During today's stage, only one event occured: it started raining. A lot. It started at about 100 km, and lasted 10 km.
The city Paray le Monial is another story. It is quite small, and my search for a charger to recharge my camera ended quite fast - without any luck. Thus, I looked for places to eat, but didn't really find anywhere tempting - I'd been told that the local speciality is snails and beef - at least that's what they produce in this area (passing through Digoin I recall a sign indicating snails as a regional speciality). The end of the story was a manifestation of a thought I got on my way from Sancerre: I ended up having dinner at the hotel's restaurant (note that I'm staying at the Grand Hotel, as that was what I found on the internet back home - at a fair price). And here they don't only have snails and beef, but also frogs legs as shown in the picture. I actually asked for frogs legs in the restaurant where I had dinner in Orleans, but the waitress there didn't understand the question ("avez-vous des grenouilles?")... So, today's dinner is a mix of Bourgonge and Alsace, as frogs legs apparently is of Alsacian origin (they also have foie gras de canard on their list of regional food - and I'm going there...)
Closing words: americans certainly knows how to talk out loud...
