caen to fecamp

Route: Caen to Fecamp via Le Havre. Distance around 100km

Wow. Today I wanted to put up some big numbers in terms of distance, and I think I did. 100 km! Not intentional. Basically it resulted out of slowness in me to pick up the fact that once I left Normandy, I needed a larger scale map. I was trying to dead reckon based on a huge map of Northern France, and my generally good innate sense of overall direction. (Pause for laughter)
Basically I was riding roads really bad for cycling like freeways and major highways. Highways filled with trucks. Highways with no shoulder. I thought France was supposed to be the best cycling in the world! I knew it was only because I was completely lost. My circuitous route from the Omaha Beach, uphill and inland to Caen, downhill to the beach again, only to have to climb back uphill inland to find camping should have been enough tp make me realize this.
I was so amazed by the invasion beaches, and I had studied them so much through my reading, that I pretty knew the landscape by heart. Once I left Normandy yesterday, it was one wrong turn after another trying to follow signs that led me in all the wrong directions. How’s that for a life metaphor? I can picture some self-help guru saying something like “All you need is a bigger map people! Yay!”. To be shortly followed by “I sell maps”.
On one of these little wrong turns, however, I came upon a crossroads in the town of Pennedepie, near the port of La Havre. While stopped staring at yet another amazing 1000 year old cathedral, I noticed a little concrete line sticking out of the hillside to my right. Then I realized that it wasn’t a hillside at all, but an old German bunker covered with earth. This was a favorite tactic of the German’s during the war.
They would build a fortified position like a machine gun emplacement and cover it with dirt, then plant trees and grass on it so it blended in with the natural surroundings. Many veterans talk about how hard these were to spot until you were right on top of them. And here I was, basically right on top of it. If this had been a war, I would have been dead.
A lot of guys were killed this way. Patrols would be sent out simply to find the enemy. Today we would use GPS and real time satellite imagery to find this stuff out before ever risking a life. Back then, GPS and satellites were called infantry. A lot of the time during World War Two, their job was simply to go walking around a certain area and see if they got fired at. These were called reconnaissance patrols. One or two of our guys would probably be wounded or killed, but the higher ups would know were the enemy was, in what strength, ect.
I walked around the bunker and found that the machine gun apertures were pointed away from the crossroads inland down the slope of a field filled with cows, probably just as they had been 65 years ago. This was a rear guard position.
Then it occurred to me that it must be guarding something. The proximity of the crossroads to Le Havre and the English Channel made it an important center of travel which also came with a terrific view of the port. So, there must have been an observation post somewhere on the other side of the crossroads pointed toward the harbor that this pillbox bunker was guarding.
3 minutes later I found it. An old hollowed out concrete observation post complete with machine gun mounts, ladders and a linear concrete viewing platform protected by a coved concrete roof. All around the post, in the field below and out to the water, lay the scattered concrete remains of at least 6 other posts. This must have been a strongpoint in the defense network.
The ripped apart pieces of concrete, one of which was awkwardly jammed into a tree trunk next to the road, led me to think that they remained in pretty much the exact position they landed in after being hit by allied bombs or artillery. The farmer who owned the land probably didn’t have the money, or time, to try and get rid of such a massive pile of rubble, and so just worked around it.
It was in the little village of Hornfleur on the Seine, after stopping to gauze at the remains of the medieval fortress at it’s heart which was now mostly missing it’s pieces and had been re-used for several things over the centuries, that I found the treasure of all treasures for American’s abroad; McDonalds!
Yes! Finally some hot food that I can afford. And, what’s this? There is a bathroom with toilet paper and water and stalls! And, free internet?! And they serve beer??!!! No wonder Americans always go there in France. Its way more than a normal McDonalds, it’s like a little piece of America that you can visit when you need to check your email or go to the bathroom without having the hold your nose and hover while people of every gender listen impatiently.
Ok, so I went a little overboard, but I was tired and hadn’t eaten more than a few energy packs and a banana, so I got a Big Mac meal and went large on it. Over here, there is no jumbo or supersize. A large is simply a large. The drink was what I would consider to be a small. Whatever, it hit the spot! As I pedaled away, the faint smell of French fries and burgers floated after me, calling me to return. “You can eat us….its ok…you’re poor and cycling…we’re cheap and delicious....come baaaaaack….”
Fifteen minutes later, newly purchased roadmap in hand, I turned onto a brilliant stretch of road near the Seine River. No cars, just marvelous little villages with old style European thatched roofs tucked away into the little green valleys. In the distance loomed a large suspension bridge. After studying my new map, I realized that I had to cross here.
As befitting the nature of this trip, and Grandpa, the planning of it has taken on a bit of a military maneuver. As such, planning when and how you cross major natural barriers like a huge river, is paramount to the success of failure of the mission. Back at home, I just looked at the roads crossing the river and assumed that I could get across at any one of a dozen locations. They lay of the land is radically different.
First off, as befitting anything that happens in France, you can’t count on things like maps, bus schedules, or even the sun. If the sun were French, he or she may sound something like this; “uouuuuu je moname. I’m soo boored, naise pas? I don’t sink I will rise today tillllll ph du do tuan oclock in the pm. Oue?”
More on that obnoxiously stereotypical comment later…
My new map told me basically that if I didn’t cross here, I would have to go to Rouen, which was more than 120 km out of my way. Good thing I checked. As I turned onto D6180 and headed around the last hill before the river valley, I was struck by how big the river actually was. I could easily see how something like this would present a significant barrier to an army.
Grandpa’s unit, the 7th Armored Division/48 Armored Infantry division, had been only the second American unit to cross the Seine in 1944. This was just before Grandpa joined them, and it was a very successful crossing. There were few casualties and a correctly sized and reinforced bridgehead across at Verdun was established. Shortly after this action, the unit’s Lt. was killed. His name was Micheal Conti. He died when his armored personnel carrier hit a landmine the day after the river assault. He had been with the unit less than 48 hours.
These thoughts were spinning through my head as I was nearly sandwiched by too freight trucks after passing through the complicated roundabout that was the entrance ramp for the bridge. It was a close call. Very close. I looked up at the bridge and saw, in typical French fashion, that there was no shoulder at all. There was a very narrow walkway, maybe 2’-6” wide, on either side. Swallowing my pride, and embracing my will to live, I stopped at an opportune moment and hefted by laden beast over the 18” high concrete siding. Once on the walk way, I slowly pushed the bike up the slope of the huge bridge.
Below, the patchwork countryside faded away and I could see the river gleaming in the sun. A straight, obviously man-made, canal exited the river from just under the bridge and disappeared over the horizon in an unnatural straight line. To my right, juxtaposed between two little hills above a modern city complete with stacks and freeways, was a castle. It stood with one circular tower rising above the other square ones in typical Norman fashion. The wall was complete, and the building looked like it had been maintained since it was built. It perched in the hills, above the gritty modern city below, like a fairytale.
After the apex of the gigantic suspension bridge, I decided to ride the rest of the way down. After all, it was a downhill and I’m not here to walk! So, being careful not to hit the side, or fall off into nearly constant truck traffic, I eased my way down to the toll booths below. I was happy to see a sign which read “cycliste gratuit”.
By this time, I had covered 70 km, and was getting tired. The day was winding down, and it was getting increasingly windy. Wind, especially a headwind, can just take whatever strength you have right out of you. This area is famous for its soul bending headwinds, and as night was approaching, the weather was kicking up a little. Next stop then was the town of Bolbec where I hoped to find camping, or at least someone who could point me in the right direction.
When I finally got here, as the sun was definitely beginning its downward fall in the west, I was not too thrilled to find a little dump of a village filled no stores open, mostly punk looking kids on un-muffled two stroke dirt bikes. They whole place had a general creepy feeling. Crap, I thought as I read the sign which indicated Fecamp was 35km away. But, it was on the coast, and the coast seems to be where the camping is here, so Fecamp it was. I breathed hard, took a shot of energy drink, and pedaled back up to the roundabout.
Those last kilometers to Fecamp are a blur of country highways, screaming trucks and a nasty little headwind. The weather was now fully shifting, and the calm little sunny pedaling I had enjoyed in Normandy was definitely behind me. With a headwind, there is nothing you can do except gear down, go slow and just keep at it. It’s really no fun. It’s like riding uphill all the time. Then, of course, when you are actually riding uphill into a headwind, it’s even worse.
This is where my love of ACDC, especially the Bon Scott years, comes into play. Nothing takes your mind off of pain better than music. I like to listen to my ipod while cycling. I know some of you out there are going to think I’m unsafe and whatever, but at times like these it really takes the edge off.
I was pushing 85km and the wind was making my whole body strain to keep moving forward. Even with everything I could give it, I was making around 12 kph. Pop in the ACDC, and voila! Perfect cycling music because of its simple 4/4 rythm. I have this great live album called “If You Want Blood” recorded in 1978 in Glasgow during the height of their rock power. I just kept the rhythm with my cadence, and the kilometers went by one after the other.
Before I knew it, I was whizzing down a long stretch of road coming into Fecamp, screaming “Hell ain’t a bad place to be!” along with Bon on the chorus while bouncing up and down to the beat. I must have looked like a madman because several reserved French townies stopped in their tracks and stared. So much for manners right now, I was tired and wired. 100 km.
I found the camping spaces, and selected one overlooking the English Channel. Sitting in a natural amphitheater sat little terraced tent spaces filled with twenty-something Europeans out camping, I wrestled with the tent. The clouds were out, and the howling of the wind was non-stop now.
I read Grandpa’s letters in the tent, while hoping that I didn’t blow away. In them, he always stresses how much he misses my grandmother, and how much he really just wants to come home. He wants the war to be over, and for us to win, but he really can’t wait to start a real future. I feel him on this one.
I’m starting to wonder why I came on this trip. I wanted to put myself through an ordeal in Europe. I didn’t want to simply come here, ride the train, stay in hotels, and miss out on the hardships of having to hump your gear the full width of the continent. This is what Grandpa had to do, while also being shot at. Granted that at times they rode on trucks and on tanks, but their general pace of advance was way slower than mine.
I just wanted to feel what it was like to be tired here, and to experience the landscape in a way that you can only do on a bike. You become more involved with the land and the culture when you step outside of the tour bus or the train. I haven’t got to the places where Grandpa first saw battle, but they aren’t too far in the future. For now, it’s just putting my head down and riding the bike into the wind.