July1 Carnac to Auray 35kms
Last day of cycle touring today. After a shower and good breakfast we were ready to hit the road. I hadn't checked the road out yesterday, so with my great sense of direction headed out the wrong road. Saw a sign to where we wanted to go, but the road was closed due to road works, so it was back into town to start again. Fortunately we only travelled a couple of kms extra. The right road took us down to the beach road for a pleasant ride around the coast. The road became busier until we turned of to Locmariaquer to see more menhirs and dolmens. Visited and walked (stooped) into a couple of dolmens, and on the way out of town I detoured to view from the outside a huge dolmen. I caught up with Sue at the junction with the main road back to Auray. Again the traffic reduced the enjoyment, but apart from the last 4 kms, the road was easy. The last 4 kms contained a few hills to remind us at the end that cycle touring is not all easy.

Our riding ended at the Auray railway station. Almost 5 weeks and 1050 kms.

It has been a wonderful holiday, a good mix of riding and looking at the towns and villages we rode through, having coffees and relaxed lunches along the trail. On reflection 5 weeks has been a bit long for the amount of riding preparation that Sue was able to undertake and she has become fairly physically tired. She also has become a little sick of living out of panniers each day.
Next touring holiday we will probably select two or three places to use as a base and ride out to explore the surrounding countryside and then spend maybe a week on the road riding between base towns.

Although we have finished pedalling around France, I will continue the account of our travels in Spain and Croatia on the same blog.

We again were able to put the loaded bikes on the train for the short trip to Vannes, although this time we had to lift them up quite a height into a special carriage where they were locked. At Vannes we booked into a hotel just around from the station. We booked in for 3 nights before starting our train journey to Bilbao to meet son Cameron.

Although the owner is a bike rider, with a very nice carbon Colnago, he still charged us for parking our bikes in his secure storage area.

After tidying ourselves up we walked in to town to find the Information Centre, which is down on the waterfront. Used their internet to book in to an Ibis hotel in Irun - one of two reasonably priced hotels in Irun, although above what we would have liked to pay. On the way home we called in for dinner at a small restaurant recommended by our hotel manager, and enjoyed a very good, reasonably priced meal provided by a very personable owner and his cook wife who came out of the kitchen to greet us and shake our hand.