NANTES to NORT-SUR-ERDRE

TUESDAY, 28th MAY, 2019

Leaving the hotel in Nantes this morning was a bit of a challenge.  Mike rode in the lift from our floor down to the underground secure car park to retrieve the bikes but wasn't able to do so as the hotel staff had misplaced the remote control for the garage doors (3 of them as the car park is shared with other businesses).  One of the staff went down to help and managed to open two of the doors but not the third, so we had to squeeze the bikes in to the lift one at a time and then wheel them through reception.   Having done that and put the bags onto the bikes, we headed off through the town and to the start of the path but....the path was blocked by extensive road works so we had to ride on the road until we were able to find our way to the Erdre river and the path which would take us close to the Nantes-Brest Canal.
The path was quite rough though riding along a boardwalk section was relatively easy,

and we encountered many runners, walkers and joggers and a couple of groups of elderly people out for a stroll.  We rode through a most beautiful park which boasted a very good path

but at the end we were back to the rough stuff and I mean really rough!  We had to lift the bikes over huge tree roots on a couple of occasions and were relieved when we emerged to find a bitumen road.  Thwarted again!  That was the end of the path and there was no way through so we followed the road into a town, found a cafe and stopped for coffee and then continued along the road (in the dedicated bike lane) until we reached Suce-sur-Erdre.  By this time we were ready for lunch and found a cafe away from the river (those along the riverside are way too expensive) where we ate a delicious meal.  The cafe was full of working men and a couple of young women, long tables so diners sat together, all very jolly and most enjoyable.

On leaving the cafe, we donned our raincoats as there was a black cloud hovering, stopped at the post office (yay...we finally found one) and were on our way again.  Most of our ride today was on the road, sometimes with a bike lane, always with courteous motorists and a little way before Nort-sur-Erdre, we came across the path to the canal.

Having reached the canal, we then rode down to the first lock at Quiheix,

watched a boat begin its way through,

then started to retrace our steps but didn't get far before the huge black cloud dropped its load onto us.  We had no choice other than to carry on, past the second lock and just before the third lock, turned off the path onto the road into and through the town to our accommodation. By this time, the cloud had gone and the sun was shining!