D 18 Bourbon Lacy to Paray le Moniale

After escaping Godot's clutches we passed out final morning following the Loire, the last 'sauvage' great river of Europe (by which the French mean it's undammed U believe) - any other contenders out there? Anyway it certainly felt more like Africa than Europe on one of its many meanders today.

On teaching Digoin we enjoyed one final aquaduct across the river and then we headed East along the
Canal du Centre which joins the Loire navigation to the Saone and thence via the Rhone to the Mediterranean.

Navigation is a belt and braces process triangulating maps, Garmin GPS and signage. When all agree happy riding! When in doubt the compass bearing on the Garmin can determine - Greece lies to the South East! However there are times when the geography determines other less direct routes are preferable as less hilly!

The relief map encountered in the tourist office illustrates this well. I have superimposed my route this far with a swing west to pick up the Seine's route into Paris following it quite far East before cutting diagonally southwest to Orleans to pick up the Loire before abandoning it as described above and heading East to sneak into Burgundy via the mining region of Montchanin.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Parai le Monial took us right back to the world of charismatic Christianity which in the Catholic world equates to the sort of evangelism encountered in the Alpha course campaign of the Church of England. A young  nun met Jesus here in the 1920,s so when we dropped into the chapel of the visitation (incidentally after watching Geraint Thomas have another excellent day on the Tour over a couple of beers) there was a palpable sense of religious tension in a room thronged with people. Indeed there were 4000 faithful in town for a summer family conference and the next morning as we cycled out past the festival grounds there was a Glasto with a twist scene (perhaps more Womad!) of a standing spontaneous prayer circle. Anyway the full city meant we had to splash out on a rather posh bandb and nothing to do with the crowds we went to a Michelin bib restaurant for a fantastic meal -possibly best yet!

Notably in the important church there was a display of 2000 years of human history in a series of 20 boards as per this one for the 20th century featuring milestones in varying aspects of human history but the one constant interestingly displayed in the bottom line is the continuity of popes! We underestimate the continuing power of the Catholic church!