Largely sleepless night aboard the ferry. Reclining seats are next to impossible to sleep in comfortably, so we nestled up on the floor instead; this is, after all, closer to our normal sleeping conditions while camping. (Although many people camp with pillow and inflatable air mattress - they even have self-inflating ones these days! - we're doing without. It was not exactly comfortable the first few days, but we're mostly used to it now.) This, however, proved cold; rather than pay the information desk for blankets we wouldn't have room to carry, we instead found a laundry hamper full of freshly cleaned sheets and grabbed a couple. This may seem unethical, but I'd rather be warm and slightly unethical than frozen and even more exhausted than I am currently.
We arrived back in Saint-Malo at the sprightly hour of 0615. In case our previous posts haven't made this peculiarity of continental Europe clear, absolutely nothing in France is open at that hour - no bakeries, no supermarkets, often not even the petrol stations. As such, we had little choice but to head out of town towards Nantes, where we plan to be by June 19; since we were still vastly underslept, and since this is more than enough time to ride the 150 km or so to Nantes, we decided to take a rest day. In our context, of course, "rest" means "let's ride only 20 km with our fully loaded bikes, set up our tent, clean some of our gear, wash the sleeping bags, head into town to mail some maps home, cook a full meal on our stove, and watch a couple of World Cup games." When your average day consists of all this with "20 km" replaced by "100 km or more", this is in fact more restful than it might sound :)
So: another less-than-happening day. Anything else of note?
- In Europe, campgrounds follow a star system much like hotels, with different star levels denoting various combinations of facilities and conveniences. Our chosen campground for the day is designated 4-star, which means it has a heated pool with steam bath, a bar, a small restaurant...another reminder that "real camping" by vast-tracts-of-land North American standards of "real" is near-impossible to find here. We might run into it in more remote areas, hopefully...
- Spain lost to Switzerland 0-1, much to our dismay; after seeing one too many shoving violations committed by the Swiss brutes, we started rooting for Spain. Alas, their superior aggressiveness was no match for Switzerland's clockwork defense.
- Who red-cards a goalie, honestly?
- Did I mention that we finally have freshly cleaned sleeping quarters? Believe us, we are ecstatic about this one.
That's about all, I think. We're hoping to get a good deal of rest tonight so we can head out early tomorrow (actually, for once!) and lop off a chunk of the ride to Nantes.