As Sid pedals energetically up the hills, Doris glides serenely upwards, assisted by a discreetly-humming electric bike. Which gives more time for thinking…
Blessed Are the Cheesemakers. Arriving in Normandy we see a statue that may have inspired some lines in the Life of Brian.
Villages Sans Commerces. There are occasional signs in the countryside to a “ville toute commerces”. Slightly desperate smaller writing might boast about its two pharmacies, one hairdresser, a bakery and a cafe. But more and more often are the villages sans commerces, with closed cafes, hotels, bakeries, and only a gleaming mairie (town hall/small regional admin office) and a notaire (useful for administering wills) left open. The latest way to disappoint your faithful duo is to put a sign to “pizza available 7 days a week” which leads only to a Pizz’Automat.
Double Summer Time. France runs on double summer time which means that at 8am in June the sky is a slightly disconcerting pre-dawn grey (whatever the weather) and at 10pm it’s still broad daylight. We were reminded of this when trying and failing to stay awake to see the Chartres Cathedral illuminations, which didn’t come on until after twilight at 10:30pm.
“Say what you like about the French… they do a good river.” This is one of those mysterious family sayings that nobody can remember the origin of. But the geographical background is that France is approximately a hexagon, with mountains along some of the edges. So it does have a large number of wide, long rivers, many of which have been used for navigation and trade for at least 2,000 years and which are spanned by lots of interesting bridges too. And as we go over each of these bridges, often after having cycled through a village sans commerces, we pause, look down and say… (all together now)
And finally… Loading Gauges. The Loading Gauge is the size of vehicle, in width, height, and turning circle, that can fit down a length of road, rail or indeed canal. You may remember that the French made a costly error a few years ago buying 2,000 trains which fitted ok through the tunnels and under the bridges but alas couldn’t scrape alongside the platforms in many of the stations. 
We were reminded of this when looking at the loading gauge of a sternly practical French canal and comparing it with the tiny bridges over our cute little British ones.