Camping Touristique De Gien, Gien

Now the weather is a little cooler, we don't need to set off so early which suited Angela this morning. Four French people behind us decided to ignore the 'tres calm', (silence please), signs after 11 pm signs and talked, guffawed and shooshed each other loudly until midnight. Then at 5 am the shags awoke on the island out in the river. Great. She was awake now, her body clock used to a 6 am start wouldn't allow her to return to her slumber.

Our morning coffee stop was at the nearby bicycle and motorcycle museum where we were joined by our German neighbour. We exchanged information on various cycle routes before departing. The morning ride was pleasant, we had a tail wind and flew along. Was this how it felt riding an e-bike?

At mid-day we happened upon a pretty little spot. Then a shock message from home. Someone had tried to break into our house via the back door! We couldn't believe it. Now we had no choice we would sadly have to return home.

Five miles from Gien fuelled by adrenalin we made our way straight to the towns railway station which thankfully on this Sunday had a man at the ticket office. Parley vous Anglais? We had no time for our bumbling French. 'Non'. After much franglaise, hand gestures, writing and Angela's understanding of French the man printed out our options. He even enquired about a taxi to Cherbourg which would take over five hours and  arrive too late for tonight's sailing to Poole. We decided to board a train to Cherbourg anyway. It would mean a change in Paris involving a five mile ride across the city around 8 pm. After a while the very helpful ticket man said he wasn't happy for us to be in Paris at that time because of the troubles. So we booked the evening ferry to Poole for tomorrow and a train just before 8.30 am from Gien, changing at Paris.

We could do no more so booked onto the town campsite, paying extra for a lodge so we would not have the pressure of packing our tent in the morning.

Ate a fantastic meal in the restaurant, realizing we'd not celebrated our wedding anniversary yet as we were too I'll at the time, then walked around the site talking to other cyclists, some Polish on a charity drive to Portugal. They left Poland yesterday, rotating three drivers, arriving in Portugal this Tuesday. Amazing. This evening we enjoy the stunning view across the river to the town. We are sad to have to abandon our trip just as we were about to cycle pastures new, the Briare canal to Paris. Hopefully that will now happen in September. Meanwhile we must try and stay calm. We told our neighbour the code for our key safe, and she has gone into our house and switched on some lights. We have since learnt some cars were broken into last night in the road behind our house. Whatever happens from now on is out of our control, hopefully all will be, O.K.