Luckily it stays light until after ten o’clock in Normandy in mid-summer. This might seem strange, given that it lies south of Britain, but of course France is an hour ahead and the part of Normandy in which I am cycling is south of Surrey. So they get an additional hour of evening. I ride west from Chambois to Falaise, into long-angled evening light, along a valley of glorious, patch-worked gold and green. Forests top the heights either side. My road tracks along the southern rise, above the main road in the valley floor. I can see for miles.
If the most visible signatures of Normandy are its style normand buildings and arable fields full of poppies, a third key characteristic of the region is the lay of its land. From the high Norman plains, where water-towers and church steeples shout and beckon you for miles to the next village, I have descended into angled, folded, sometimes rolling country; it seems to have been thrown down impetuously, in unpredictable blocks, and then sectioned by waterborne wood-lines and hedgerows, all bumping up against itself chaotically. These are of course, the bocages, and they are so green and profuse that they remind me of southern England in many ways – yes, Devon and Dorset. Presumably they have the same skeleton of land anyway, joined under the Channel.
The poppies and plains are what we remember of the First World War. This was Lawrence’s time, though of course he was not in France, but I am heading into land better known for World War II. In fact I am passing through two weeks after the 75th anniversary of the Normandy Landings. Some mates even parachuted in as part of the memorial events.
Today’s beneficent-looking bocages came with a chilling intimacy for the Allied troops. Every hedgerow was a threat, as an ambush position; rises in the ground were treacherous, offering opportunity to a sniper, and every corner had to be cleared. Open country was one thing: each village and town could take days to dominate. Three weeks after the 1944 landings, the Allied troops had not reached this area, 40 miles to the south of the coast. They were still battling their way through Caen.
I mentioned castles and châteaux-forts and châteaux and country-houses. This afternoon I began to notice more and more of the latter, the châteaux for which France is so well regarded. The most famous are down along the Loire, of which more later, but grand country houses seem to be popping up everywhere at the moment. Just a few yards of cycling opens up an alleyway of trees, whose perspective guides your eye to a perfectly proportioned façade.
As the name suggests, Falaise (it means cliff in French) sits on a rise. It is nearly eight o’clock as I make it up the hill into the town, though tonight I ride around it to the south, heading for an out of town supermarket. My accommodation, acttached to a château, does not offer dinner and so I need to stock up. It feels odd to enter an aseptic, acid-lit and air-conditioned world after what seems like days of living with the wind in my hair. Have I gone feral already?
Fifteen minutes later, handlebars swinging with shopping bags, I leave town to the north, looking for my gîte. My gps directs me to a forest: what looks like a very nice woodland walk, but it is closed off and I have no idea if it actually leads to the gîte... An alternative route takes me around to the main drive. And there, suddenly, a spectacular looking château slides into view – definitely a decorative château, this one, not a château-fort – a neat little neo-classical palace, perfectly framed by trees and a line of topiary like green gumdrops. I must look like a tinker with my bags swinging.
The drive leads to the rear, where the gîte is located in the outhouses. The Domaine de la Tour. I pull up just as a gathering is breaking up. Time to rest the legs and re-fortify. It has been a rather long day. Seventy-eight miles, or 92 if you count the distance I had to repeat after my false start.