A haze of drizzle
Can't keep us out of bike shops!
Closing hours can.
The timing of things in France just becomes more and more unfortunate every new place we go. Today we arrived to Nantes (after a freezing drizzle followed us for the 30km or so from our campsite to the city centre) at around noon, only to find that the youth hostel here closes from 10 to 15:30. What?? So we had to kill some time in a botanical garden nearby, then spend some time wandering around in search of food and WiFi and whatever it is that makes the town tick.
We didn't find much of note, so we headed back and checked in to the hostel a bit after they reopened. We puttered around, exploring the space and showering and the like, then headed out in search of a bike shop. We've been wanting to get cycling shoes and toe clips for our bikes for some time now, but it seems that French people don't really care for sports of this variety, so the only store we've been able to find that sells anything similar to what we want is Decathlon. And let me just comment that their customer service has been... lacking... at every location we've visited.
We arrived to said bike shop at 17h10. And wouldn't you know that it had closed for the evening. Lovely. Thanks, Nantes.
So we touristed around instead. I guess Nantes was a haunt of Jules Verne at some point in his life, so there's a museum (which was closed, figures) to him, and also a really striking statue of him in his childhood looking at a statue of Captain Nemo. Man, I would love to be Captain Nemo. I'm afraid people simply don't get funded to adventure in this day and age, though.
There's a pretty nifty school of architecture in Nantes, too. This means that they have several rather interesting buildings around town, and also that there are a lot of people wandering around pretending that they find the buildings interesting. They claim that no resident in Nantes is more than 500m from a public park of some variety, so the town layout is really green and quite pleasant for strolling. We were pointed at a gourmet café during our search for WiFi that served amazing tea and Incan hot chocolate. Mmmmmmmm.......
We also sat around in a pub for a bit in the evening, electing to watch the Danmark/Cameroon game instead of wandering around in the increasing chill of the evening. It was a pretty good game, but I'm super excited for the France/South Africa game coming up. :D