Ante Predović stories: September 2023

Since I stayed with my guests somewhere in the middle of Paris ( which is quite a big city ), I first had to ride about 50 km to get out of the city.

Unlike the previous day which was Sunday (when the traffic seemed all over the place with cyclists and pedestrians skipping red lights like they please ), this morning actually went pretty smooth using cycling lanes that took me out of the city and everybody behaved very well in traffic, sticking to their own lanes, which is crussial, especially in a rush hour.

The path onwards took me through Fontainebleau which was a nice surprise!

To an ordinary person this might seem like another national park, however me being a climber, I was immediately looking forward to seeing some rock and climbers.

The route took me through very nice and calmy woods and I was immediately greeted with many rock formations. I havent seen any climbers nor I have gone deeper to explore this area, but I was pleasantly surprised with quality of the rock which was very grippy (climbers will understand:)

It didnt take long for my thoughts to wonder how it would be very nice to spend the night here in those woods but as it was only the beginning of the day I simply didnt feel like staying and continued my journey onwards.

Btw, I forgot to mention but from all the disciplines climbing offers (sport climbing, big wall, alpinism, winter climbing etc..) , bouldering is the only thing I dont really like. Hard to explain but this is just the way I feel about it.

And then the path continued onwards using these river canals following the river Loire ( which in turn ended being Eurovelo 3, which I was not planning, I only pointed towards Torino and Komoot did the rest ), was actually very nice and super peaceful, because mostly this is only a cycle path and no other vehicles are permitted.

Komoot sometimes seems to mix bike ride with serious offroading. The picture doesnt show the real offroading that took place here. I cannot do this with all my luggage.

Old French towns

Game of reflection

Game of reflection 2

Sleeping next to quiet river

Morning mist

Even this sign says Eurovelo 3 :)

Also you get these tables often where you can sit and if you decide to stay overnight ( which I often did ) you get a table for dinner :p

Keep in mind that the river canal often avoids the city center so if you want to see cities make a detour when the river passes through cities.

Never ending canals never get boring

Lovely small French towns

The food that gets me ove the day :) I wont eat all this in a day but it gets close :P

Plenty of tables for resting

The seven abandoned locks of Rogny-les-Sept-Écluses

Little bit of French arhitecture

Now thats a reflection

Another quiet night

More canals

Streching my legs everday is a must. Without this my knees would be fucked.

Sleeping under the bridge.

Not really hiding like always but more 23-07 o'clock , keep it clean and leave no trace camping as I usually prefer.

Military graveyard

One day the river path stopped and the route took me over a very quiet country side, but at the same time it involved a lot of climbing.

Have you noticed the hills ?

It may not seem like that in the pictures, but believe me, last time I climbed so much was a long time ago.

In fact, I had to stop and think when was the last time on this trip that I climbed so much and I realized it was waay back on the beginning of the trip in Slovakia!

Is this possible? (I ask myself)

I guess it is :)

This was the message contained in one of Warmshowers hosts who I have sent a message prior to arriving in Paris.

I was looking forward to visiting Paris from a long time ago.

Not sure where my mindset comes from ( whether it is from some of the romantic movies filmed there or simply all the fame surrounding it ) but its simply one of the towns that makes my heart warm.

After enduring a few annoying days filled with constant headwind coming from Netherlands and Belgium, then a few rainy days, I was really exhausted and looking forward to having some rest in Paris.

Arriving to Paris at night

Finding a Warmshowers host was not easy mind you because if you open the map on their website you get hundreds of hosts in and around Paris. The biggest problem is that most of them are not active so I had to search through tons of them to find somebody I would like to visit.

To make matters worse, it seems that last couple of times whenever I wanted to find a host, it was always a weekend, the worst of days because obviously people work over the week and when the weekend comes you expend them to go out and relax.

Luckily, after several messages sent I got a response and was able to look forward to meeting new people in Paris and have some rest.

And the rest came with Michael and Alex, a lowly couple from France living in the outskirts of Paris ( read: a quiet neighborhood ).

They are also vivid travelers and have cycled across Asia for 2 years before.

We had lovely dinners full of interesting conversations.

I decided to spend 2 days in Paris which would enable me to take one whole day exploring the town with an empty bike.

It was Sunday the day I decided to explore Paris and since the weather was good, a lot of people were on the streets.

My hosts were very kindly provided me with a rough guide on how to cycle the town to make the most of it and this helped me a lot so I wad able to enjoy it to the fullest.

Some were exercising, some were doing drugs, a lot of police sirens driving around all added to the interesting atmosphere.

The town feels dirty, streets are narrow and crowded, marijuana smells at every corner but all this hasnt changed the way I feel about it.

The morning started quietly, but around noon the wole town exploded and there was millions of people on the streets, which I was expecting since it was Sunday and it was good weather.

Saint-Ambroise, Paris

Both pedestrians and cyclists were heavily skipping red lights , but despite all that, the traffic was functioning well, including quite a bit of car horning ( both polite and non so ).

Mind you, the cycling infrastructure in Paris is quite good, but still a lot of city center consist of narrow roads on which both cars and bicycles are permitted, so it can be a bit of a drama.

It does remind me a bit of riding in Italy where everybody are zipping around.

From there the title of this topic comes from ( if you dare to cycle Paris :)