Day 12: Alencon - Caen
Our last full day’s cycling in France as tomorrow we take the ferry home. Our route out of Angers is a little difficult and we come out on the wrong road which means a couple of extra miles to get back on route – it’s always difficult to find the minor roads when in the towns as they are not usually signed posted. At Colombiers we pick up the D26 and are back on track and after a few miles we begin cycling through the Foret d’Ecouvese, which is nice and cool. The road then starts to climb and we continue to ride uphill for the next 4.5-miles, it isn’t too steep but it goes on and on and on. At the top there is a French wartime tank and a memorial to the fallen; in 1944 a fierce battle had been fought in this wood. We spent a few moments reflecting on how different it must have been for those young soldiers compared to what we were doing to-day.
The great thing about cycling uphill is that there is usually a downhill afterwards and we were not disappointed, a long sweeping downhill road meant we whizzed along to our first stop just outside of Argentan. Once again the stop was by a busy road but no less welcome as tucked into biscuits, wagon wheels and tea/coffee. Very soon we were off on our way again, for the next ten miles we had to cycle along a very busy road as there were no minor roads going our way but thankfully we got through this without any trouble and within an hour we were back on the quite road and riding into Falais. Falais was the site of major battle in 1944 when the Free Polish Army took the town from the Germans and then suffered a great number of casualties as they defended it until the were reinforced by the Canadians – a lovely town and well worth a visit. Lunch was at Augbiny and as always on this trip it was delightful and perhaps more special because this would be our last roadside lunch in France.
After lunch we followed the minor roads and at Grainville-Langannerie we stopped to visit a Polish War Cemetery, a very humbling experience. After quietly paying our respects to those long dead heroes we carried on to Caen with perhaps a little sadness as we were now nearing the end of our cycling in France. We arrived at the hotel at 3.10pm having completed 67-miles cycling. For a few of us there was still more cycling to do; last year Mark and I had planned to run 65-miles from a wartime glider base in Dorset to Pegasus Bridge at Ouistreham, as part of the D-Day Landings 65th anniversary celebrations. Unfortunately Mark was hit by a car whilst we were out cycling a couple of weeks beforehand and we had to pull out of the team. For us there was some unfinished business, so along with Matt and Old Paul we set off on our bikes for Pegasus Bridge, which was about 7-miles away along the canal. At the bridge we met up with Valerie, Chris, Stuart, Melissa and Sean who had driven out to meet us in the little café which was the first building in France to be freed from German occupation in 1944. Afterwards we cycled with Mark to the village of Herouvillette to see the grave of his Grandfather who was killed a few days after the initial landings by glider near Pegasus Bridge.
View photos from our twelfth day: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bikeride2010
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