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December 18 Sunday Bicycle touring France from St Raphael France to Adrets France The drying room is broken. It cost 30 francs to use the electric dryer and they're still not totally dry after an hour! We cycle a short distance down the road toward Cannes and find a beautiful pull-off with a great view. There's even a place to pitch our tent by the water which we would have found if we had gone another quarter-kilometre. Oh well, if we had continued last night it never would have been there. If you know what I mean.... We try to decide if we should cycle into Cannes to look for the Verrerie Hotel or if we should head into the mountains -- the Massif Esterel to Adrets where the Hotel Verrerie is located. We opt to check out the hotel in Adrets, so we cycle back to Frejus and cycle RN7 up some incredible mountains which leads us through a thick forest with stunning views over the side. A car lays upside down at the bottom of one valley, looking not much larger than a Tonka toy. As darkness falls, we reach Adrets and locate the Hotel Verrerie at the bottom of a steep narrow passageway. We ring a buzzer at the gate. Darkness and silence fill the gloom as fog surrounds us. I spot a key on the inside of the gate and open the gate. There is a car in the driveway. A glimmer of light peeks out from behind closed shutters. As I approach the door I hear yelling from a fight going on inside and hesitate to knock. As I stand there pondering what to do, I hear footsteps approaching the front door so I quickly knock. A man opens the door. "Fermé," he says and waves the back of his hand at me to go away. I try to explain we are looking for friends at the Verrerie. Does he know if there is another hotel by this name in Cannes? He tells me there are other hotels in town. My limited French and his non-existent English combine for a mess of misunderstanding. Not that he is too congenial of my situation in the first place. He keeps repeating 'Fermé' as he waves his hands in front of him. Shoo. Shoo. Out bad Canadian! He escorts me to the front gate, closes the gate behind me, locks the gate and then he pulls the key from the lock and chucks it. With a clatter it skids across the driveway. No more uninvited visitors tonight! One lead in our search for the Hotel Verrerie has been eliminated. We slip and slide as we push our fully loaded touring bicycles up the steep wet slope back into the main part of town. We park our bikes outside a patisserie and go inside to buy bread. I ask the baker if a particular item is good. He starts to choke with laughter -- I guess it's hard to condemn your own work when you've made it. Some salesman. I buy it anyway. Sharon phones Madame Mayer, Sonia's landlady, since I've already had the courtesy of being hung up from her. Besides Sharon's French is better than mine. We want to see if Sonia is there or if a message has been left for us. She says Sonia is on vacation with her parents in Italy and goes to hang up, but Sharon somehow manages to keep her on the line to ask her if a message has been left for Neil Anderson. Yes, there is! She reads off 6 Rue de la Verrerie, but there is no name or phone number. Another tidbit of a clue. Now we have the address. We waste no time calling the operator to give her the address. The phone operator tells us it is an address in Cannes La Bocca and gives us the phone number. We call it. No answer. It's like the phone cuts off when the party on the other end answers. Each time we try, it deducts a franc from our phone card. It's not supposed to if there is no answer or if the line is busy. We try five times with the same result. Sharon said she saw a parking lot off to the side as we were cycling to the hotel. After using the washrooms in a community hall, we go back there and set up our inconspicuous bicycle touring tent in the shadow of a tall tree next to a ravine. We fall asleep in the quiet village, thinking it would have been much easier to have just sent Roger and Suzanne a postcard. |
