Day 13 - France cycling trip : Vouillé - Maisonnay

"I'm siiiiiiiiiiiiinging in the rain!" That is today's theme song.  Had a steady rain the whole way from Vouillé to Maisonnay. It actually  wasn't that bad though. It was pretty warm (at least while moving), so it basically just felt like a really, really long shower. Now I like to take long showers, but this one must be my record : a 6.5 hour shower. Of course, when I arrived in my room at Maisonnay, the first thing I did was to jump into the shower :-)

My gps is waterproof, but I'm sure there must be a limit. I think that to certify a device as waterproof, it has to pass certain tests, like being submerged completely for X minutes, or being hit by a shower of water at Y liters/s for X minutes. But I somehow doubt that they test showering a device for over six hours. So, to be on the safe side, I limited my gps usage today and navigated a large part of the trip via my fold-out map and signs on the road. It wasn't too hard: I had to pass through a list of 5 or so small cities each separated by 5-12 km of roads. The signs on the road were clear enough. I basically just used the gps when inside the city. The advantage of navigating this way was that I wasn't looking at my gps screen as often, so I looked around at my surroundings more.

Inspite of the rain, I was feeling pretty upbeat.  The birds were chirping, so if it was good enough for them, it was good enough for me :-)

I may have to stay the day here tomorrow, as the forecast for tomorrow calls for scattered thunderstorms in the morning followed by high winds in the afternoon, neither of which I'd like to be in :-)

I didn't take time to take photos on the road today,  so I'm just sharing a few photos from the hotel.  Dinner seemed to be a family meal: one choice for the main dish (faux filet with potatoes), a salad, a plate of cheeses from which to choose, and a few desserts including fruit yogurt. It felt just like a meal made by my boyfriend's parents :-) Yum.

I noticed that the owners of the hotel had an accent, so I asked them where they were from.  Usually it's the other way around : people asking me where I am from because they detect an accent :-) It turns out they are from the Netherlands.