Le Mont to Villers-sur-Mer a.k.a Hills Suck

Lush, rolling country -
the road dips with each river.
We love the downhills.

The last few days have seen us hit the 650km mark of our trip, as well as us finding every single high-point in the Normandy region. We seem to have a nose for finding the great big bloody hills instead of the sneaky paths that cut around them... ah well, ca vaut la peine. Apparently, anyway.

We left Le Mont and headed east along the Voie Verte to Mortain, where there was a camping ground... that didn't open until Easter (this was a week or so ago). So we wild camped in the surrounding hillside (I should add that Mortain is one of those towns perched on its own little hill, so every direction out of the town involved an admittedly fun downhill followed by a painful trudge up the next) surrounded by beds of bluebells.

After that, we continued north to Vire, where again, the camping wasn't open yet (once we found it), so we said to hell with it and stayed in a hotel. Hey, it's a holiday, not SAS survival training!

We took it easy the next day, heading north for St-Martin-des-Besaces, where we found a lovely campsite called Le Puits, run by Peter, who turned out to be from Finglas in Dubln. Despite that, he was a very nice guy (sorry, Dublin joke) and we ended up staying two nights there for a rest. You could even order your morning bread and he'd take a run into the village. Trés chic, non?

Since that pleasant rest, we've done two big pushes (for us) to reach Villers-sur-Mer up on the coast north-east of Caen. The countryside has changed slightly from bigger rolling hills to more gently rolling hills, more fields and fewer apple orchards. Still plenty of cows.

From here the plan is to head pretty much straight east until we hit Les Andelys and then Giverny, followed by a final push to Font and two months of climbing!

Short break on the Voie Verte.

Lashings of ginger beer anyone ?

Relaxing in the bluebell woods

Our own private woodland - well it was until the school group of mountain bikers arrived as we were breakfasting the next morning !

Oh so pretty bluebells.

Hmmm

 

Viaduct built in the 1880's, now used for bungee jumping.

The lovely Le Puits, St-Martin-des-Besaces

Japanese maple, Le Puits.

Roadside chapel and flowering apple.

Curious cows

Lunch time.

In the Calvados low lands we saw many of these old half-timbered buildings.

Neil's bike again - this time, the back rack.