2025 Tour Day 26 - Rain, rain

 

"There's a darkness on the edge of town."

Tough weather day. 

On and off rain all day. 

No photos from the ziplock bag inside the rain jacket (my phone). Or from Marc's phone as it guides our navigation from under another plastic bag. 

But the cycling gods provided a covered picnic table for morning snack. 

 

And when we stopped for groceries there was even a glimmer of sunshine. For about 5 minutes.  

But, I had to take shelter with the shopping buggies 😜.  People really talk to you when you are taking shelter with the buggies. 

We found a quiet dry bench for lunch, in the garden of a museum. 

The museum was a beautiful building.

These two lovely (braless) ladies were the welcoming committee 😳

A different ride this afternoon, through smaller towns and smaller wooded areas. This tree was enormous and so healthy. 

Not everywhere is well kept. But the structures are all so interesting with original wooden beams still holding on. 

We found smaller roads today, alleyways and farmers roads. 

And one old city with a city wall, that we had to ride right through. 

We made it to our campsite in relative calm, checked in at the bar and we were told to take whichever available pitch we wanted (there are lots of semi-permanent trailers here), and to help ourselves to a table and chairs. 

This little campground has a pond with fishermen, free range chickens walking around, and our pitch has a view to the cow pasture! Woot woot. 

We got our tent up, almost in time and (you guessed it) the skies opened and we jumped inside to avoid a downpour. Regardless of the rain, the cows came to check us out (photo taken from the tent). 

When the rain lessened we went to see what was happening at the bar, we could tell they were setting up for an event. And yes! It is Bingo night. 

So we bought our 6 cards (for 10 €) and participated. Woot woot. I actually called bingo when I got a row - in a game that you needed the full card. Oops. Language barrier what can I say?  It was fun. They had a full house - about 50 people complete with their own special coins to use on the cards, and metal sticks to pick them up after the game 😃. We were given a cup of beans to use.  Great way to wait out more rain. 

Quick! Stop playing bingo and go and make dinner. We saw a brief weather window and took advantage of it. Hot meal tonight - white beans and Ratatouille - perfect for this "real feel" of 11°

Marc cooked it up and we had our "table and chairs included" to relax in. 

The cows came by to see what we were having (luckily we were eating vegetarian). 

The cows were fun to watch, chasing around each other, in what looked like a game of tag. 

We had to fast track dessert to avoid yet another down pour. We really are hoping this weather turns into better weather tomorrow. The tent is nice and all.. but really 🙃

Strava stats for another day. 

I am afraid our theme song for this Tour might end up being "it rained, and poured, for 40 days..."

Here's to sunshine tomorrow.