Thursday 9th November 2017

It was quite cold in the night at Guilberville and there was frost on the grass in the morning. We serviced the van and checked the tyre pressure in the one with the missing valve cap before leaving. We traveled south east on minor roads passing through beautiful rural areas with marvellous autumn colours displayed on the trees.

We stopped for the day at the town of Bagnoles De L'Orne in southern Normandy. This town is a spa and has been attracting the sick monied elderly of France for well over a century. It offers various non strenuous activities such as tea dancing to fill in the time between "taking the waters"!

Here's a view of the main square.

At the lower end of town there is an ornamental lake surrounded by gardens. We decided to walk round it.

On the way round the lake we spotted a petrol station and made a short detour there to buy a couple of valve caps which would probably cost about 10 cents each. When I offered the guy a 5 euro note he seemed unhappy so I withdrew it and Ann produced 1.70 euros in coins which he immediately pocketed and bid us good day! We were so flabbergasted that we cheerily thanked him and left. It's so easy to rip off foreigners!  

Here's a telephoto from the far side of the lake looking back towards town.

There are some nice trees in the gardens surrounding the lake.

Attached to the railings around the lakeside gardens are an interesting display of numerous enlargements of century old postcards sent from Bagnoles. Here's an example showing the sort of clobber worn by circa 1900 posh people. (I'm not too sure whether the person pushing the wheelchair was very posh.)

There are some interesting modern statues in the gardens.

Here's the casino. When we passed by it seemed to be serving old age pensioners bargain lunches.

This was once the spa's main hotel where all the thermal treatments took place. It is now an apartment block.

We went back to the van and got our bikes out. We took a ride along a forest track which led away from our parking place.

We reached a priory in the forest. Ann went inside the chapel which is conveniently dedicated to the saint of cancer sufferers! Very handily situated so close to the spa.

Maybe this is an effigy of the cancer curing saint?

We cycled back through the forest. I stopped off for a while to admire the autumn trees.

Ann soon came zooming along to join me and we continued back to our parking place. That was it for the day as it started drizzling. 

Today we traveled 53 miles (85 kilometres) We are at N48.55829 W0.41303

Bagnoles De L'Orne