Guingamp to Treguier

A very pleasant Sunday cycle.
43 km which was lovely on an ebike but looked like pretty hard work for Simon on his non ebike, known locally as a muscular bike for good reason! Not only was it non electric, it was also non functional in the lower gears, making dreadful thrashing noises and forcing him to walk the bike up the worst of the hills. I rang our local contact, Patrick, during our lunch break to let him know all was not well. “When did the gears start to fail?” He asked “from the start” I said, to which he replied “Shit!” Which leads me to understand that his grasp of English is as good as advertised.
The prettiest town we passed through was “Pontrieux” where unfortunately it was too early for lunch but we did stop for photos.

We are staying the night in a sadly soulless hotel by the estuary in Treguier. It’s big and they have a well regarded restaurant – sadly closed – and safe storage for our bikes, as well as a swimming pool which would probably be great in summer. But the rooms are tiny, and look at this ridiculous bathroom set up.

Fine for dwarves or dogs but not very functional for standard sized humans. Note the water on the floor. If I have the courage I will ask about changing rooms in the morning, although I’m a bit worried it might be a local cultural thing and I may cause offense.
On the plus side, a bike repair man turned up to look at Simon’s bike – on Sunday afternoon! Apparently there is some inherent flaw in the bike – it’s been cobbled together out of various left over bits. He’s done a temporary fix which will hopefully get us through the week. It appears that ebikes are so much the standard now that it’s awkward to want a regular bike. The bike repair man only spoke French, so he asked some other French people there if they could translate. My main problem was not the language though, but rather the technical jargon. The helpful bystander looked at Simon’s puzzled expression and asked if we wanted her to translate into German, which was hilarious because we’ve got a running joke about everyone always assuming my husband is German.
Dinner at a nice little local restaurant. For some reason these are very strict with their hours, everywhere in France  – 12 – 2 for lunch and 7 – 9 for dinner. So, there was a scrum outside from 15 minutes before opening time, when we stood in the rain looking forlornly through the windows, wondering whether we’d all get a seat. They fit us all in, though, and one hot goats cheese salad and a crème brûlée later, we’re back in our minuscule room and ready for lights out.