A more pressing problem presents itself as the afternoon wears on: I’ve determined to make it as far as Meaux this evening, and indeed pass into the region of the Île-de-France just before 3 p.m., which is like entering the Home Counties en route to London, so synonymous is it with the capital at its centre. Unfortunately, I’ve forgotten all about Disneyland Paris, which means that, though campsites are plentiful, they’re also bloody expensive, and most make no mention of tents among the glossy pictures of chalets for rent, kids’ clubs and heated swimming pools – plus the minimum stay is three nights. In three nights, I’ll be almost home.
In the end, I pin all my hopes on the Camping le Pont in Trilport, just across the river from Meaux proper, which I find briefly mentioned on one online camping directory. There’s no answer on the phone number it gives, and Google doesn’t seem to know exactly where it is, but I figure the name should be clue enough; find the bridge and the campsite will be obvious.
Unfortunately, this does not prove the case. With apologies to its residents (I’m sure there must be a nice part somewhere), Trilport has the sad distinction of being one of the least pleasant places I visit in the entire country – one long traffic jam in the direction of Paris. The Camping Municipal signposted down a steep side street is nowhere to be found. I go back up to the bridge, where lorries are queueing bumper to bumper, and peer down to the shore. No sign of life on either side. I try my luck on the other bank, tetchily weaving through the stationary vehicles in pursuit of a sign for an alternative campsite, which proves to lead to some overgrown sheds that look very much like a crime scene.
After 20 minutes of increasingly furious circling, during which time I curse France and all who sail in her in several different accents, I finally discover the entrance down an unmarked track cunningly concealed behind a huge pile of gravel. I ride in, wobbling around the potholes, and find that, though the site is full of caravans, the shed daubed ‘reception’ is shut up. I quickly check my phone for alternatives, regardless of price – but too late. Madame appears from nowhere, smiling and wiping her hands on an apron, and instead of the Campanile in Meaux, I’m stuck here for the night. Sometimes, British politeness feels like a distinct handicap.
On the plus side, the site is right by the river (though a row of dilapidated vehicles block any view) and seems to be home to several small free-range dogs. Negatives include the large number of workmen drinking beer while watching me put my tent up, and the worst bloc sanitaire I have ever seen – festooned with thick cobwebs, and so dirty I’m loath to take my shoes off in the shower, which lasts exactly three seconds and veers between icy and scalding with cunning unpredictability. The loo floor is covered with grass clippings, which makes more sense when a fat topless man begins mowing the site at 7.35 the next morning.
Having made the best of a bad job, I go out in search of dinner … and instead of a restaurant devoted to the delights of runny cheese, I find a truckers’ stop full of lone men, which looks like it might do good couscous with a side order of unnecessary stress, two pizza takeaways and a late-night shop of the kind so rare in France that I walk past it twice without realising the door is open. The nice man inside is either so bored or anxious about thieves that he insists on following me round, helping me find things I’m not sure I want – and then politely puts back the melon I’ve selected in favour of a better one. I stick the new, approved version and a piece of cheese on the counter and look around vaguely. ‘You want a drink?’ he asks solicitously, gesturing in the vicinity of a fridge. I take out a can of Perrier. There’s a pause.
Screw it. I’m not French and I don’t care. ‘Do you have any beer?’ I ask. He’s delighted at my uncouthness. Yes! Yes, he does! So, after being guided through the modest selection on offer, I end up dining tentside, to the music of six or seven blaring televisions, on a can of 1664 and a packet of Pringles (with which I try and fail to entice a miniature Yorkshire terrier to sit with me for a while), followed by a melon and cheese sandwich, all seasoned by the unmistakable aroma of high-strength insect repellent. To add to its other attractions, turns out Camping le Pont has mozzies, too.
As I lie in my chemical-scented tomb trying to sleep, but feeling very vulnerable all of a sudden in this unusually unfriendly environment, where the only other woman I’ve seen for hours seems to have gone home for the night, it strikes me that this will be my last campsite of the trip. I can’t say I’m sorry – though I’ve felt perfectly safe elsewhere and have laughed off comments online about how lonely my little tent looks, now Gemma’s gone, it does feel a bit weird sleeping alone, with only the flimsiest of nylon layers between me and the world.
The next morning demands a positive mental attitude, however. Not only is it my final full day on the road, but more importantly, it’s my birthday. Friends and family have worried about me being on my own – though not, I note, to the point of coming out to surprise me with champagne – but actually, though it would obviously be a delight to wake up to a friendly face, furry or not, it feels like an excellent excuse for complete self-indulgence. Possibly I’ll even have two croissants for breakfast if they’re good enough to merit it.
Packing up as quickly as possible, while the temperature is still a few degrees shy of actually boiling, I collect a croissant and a scalding coffee from the bakery on the main road and wobble my way over to the town hall car park, where I sit on a wall in the sunshine and open my three cards: one shoved in my bag by my parents back in the Alps and two given to me in Reims by Gemma: one from her, one from her parents and Wilf. One bike themed (my parents), one dog themed (Gemma’s parents) and one just plain rude (guess who). The croissant, meanwhile, proves a mere 7.5/10: crisp in parts, a bit sweet for my liking, and there’s not even a Paris–Brest on offer to make up for it. Time to skip town, I think happily. Surely Meaux has more to offer on my big day?
Most immediately, along a bloody big road, it offers a thrilling, generously air-gun-pelleted sign reading ‘PARIS 46’, which I stop to photograph – the end is so near I almost feel sad about it – and then, in the centre, a standard-issue Gothic cathedral and a patisserie opposite selling plump strawberry tarts. After I’ve demolished one with a coffee and spread crème pâtissière all over my face like a proper grown-up, I respectfully zip up my jersey and go into the church. There’s an exhibition on to mark the centenary of the end of the Great War – Meaux, I learn, was the site of the Battle of the Marne, in which two million fought, almost a quarter of whom were wounded or killed – and a strangely affecting memorial, tucked away in a side chapel, to the memory of the one million dead of the British Empire, ‘of whom the greater part rest in France’. When you’ve been away from home for a while, you cry quite easily, it seems.
Meaux boasts Europe’s largest museum to the conflict, built on the site of the battle on the outskirts of town, but I’ve come here on the strength of its world-famous Brie, the ‘roi des fromages, et fromage des rois’, so delicious that Louis XVI, stopping for dinner while fleeing the murderous forces of the Revolution, couldn’t bear to leave before he’d finished his cheese course – and ended up captured. Meaux itself doesn’t boast any particular recipes using its most famous creation, but I’m happy enough to stuff it into a sandwich to go (if only Louis had thought of that).
I pedal over to La Halle aux Fromages in search of the good stuff, but, today at least, the marketplace is full of cars rather than cheese. Not to be defeated so easily on my birthday, I decide to go straight to the horse’s mouth: the Fromagerie de Meaux Saint Faron, picturesquely situated on an industrial estate some way out of town.
It seems I’m just in the nick of time: though Madame is closing for lunch, she generously opens up again for me, and gives me a brief overview of the process. ‘Come back tomorrow!’ she urges, bringing back depressingly damp memories of another failure of timing in another city on the other side of France – ‘I’ll give you a whole tour!’ The walls are covered in certificates, the shelves with
trophies, many of them cow-shaped, and in pride of place is a team photo of a group of men in white robes wearing curious cylindrical white hats, who’d look remarkably like a far-right cult if it weren’t for the pennant above their heads declaring them to be the Confrerie des Compagnons du Brie de Meaux.
I tell my new friend, once we’ve discussed how far I’ve come to taste her cheese, that I’m after some Brie to eat RIGHT NOW. She carefully assesses the selection in front of her, and I point at the least promising looking, which has the ashy complexion of something recently dug up from a plague pit. ‘Ah, the Brie Noir!’ she says. ‘You’ve never tried it?’ As she cuts me a sliver, she explains that this cheese is aged for up to two years, during which time it loses almost a third of its weight. It’s the colour of mushroom soup, and tastes strongly, but not altogether unpleasantly, of ammonia; more reminiscent of a blue than a Brie. Interesting, certainly, but I go for a younger cheese for my lunch, because it’s my birthday: the one day of the year I’m not obliged to try the weirdest thing on the menu.
Suddenly oddly embarrassed to admit I’ll be lunching alone, I buy enough for two, take several recipe cards in a vain attempt to pretend I’m not just going to eat it straight from the paper (‘Try the croque monsieur!’ she urges. ‘It’s really good!’), and then follow her directions to a roadside fruit stall, where I get a huge punnet of cherries. Along with a baguette from a boulangerie voted the best in France (four years ago) and a bottle of local cider, it feels like a decent celebratory lunch, especially after a birthday dip in the River Marne, the water a vivid chalk-brightened turquoise. Watching children shriek as they run into the water and lovers canoodle by the rowing boats, I wonder why more British riverside towns don’t open something similar. It’s quite delightful, despite the odd dog poo on the beach.
I’m sitting on a clean patch of grass, working my way through both portions of the cheese, which has melted to the delicious consistency of Laughing Cow in the afternoon sun, almost like a croque if I shut my eyes and imagine the ham, when a policeman on a bike pauses on the other side of the fence. ‘Madame, c’est du vin ou du cidre?’ he asks, pointing at the bottle.
Suddenly, I feel about 13 again, my heart in my throat. ‘Cidre, monsieur?’ I say hopefully, showing him the label. Thank God it seems to be the right answer.
‘Bonne après-midi!’ he calls over his shoulder, before I have a chance to explain that it’s my birthday, and I don’t make a habit of it and honestly please don’t tell my mum.
In an ideal world, I’d then be on my way – I have a restaurant reservation on the outskirts of Paris, and I’d really like to look nice for it. (Hell, I’ve even brought some new nail varnish for the big day.) First though, I have an appointment at the Maison du Brie de Meaux, which offers a daily tutored tasting between 3.15 and 3.30 p.m. When I get there, however, the young man behind the desk apologises: they have a special party in today, so the tasting will be private. My face falls. My lip may even have quivered. If you’re quick, he says as I turn to leave, I can let you see the film before they start, and then you can go round the museum afterwards?
Beggars, I think, can’t be choosers, and really, I have eaten quite a lot of Brie already, so I agree.
Minutes later, I’m left alone in an auditorium with three large platters of the stuff, watching a video about cheese production. I learn that it takes 25 litres of milk to make one cheese, and that the best season for it is the summer, when the cheese made using the rich spring milk is finally ready to eat – I nod in agreement; my lunch was indeed very good.
Suddenly, the door creaks open and a couple of men appear wearing – I am thrilled to note – the same faintly sinister white robes I’d seen in the photo at the cheesemaker’s; the crushed cream velvet hats, it’s now obvious, are supposed to represent rounds of Brie. They look at me, surprised, and then ask if the sound is loud enough. Am I sure I’m getting it all? I say yes, yes, it’s fine, at which point one of them springs forward! ‘But you are German!’ My hair has gone quite Saxon-flaxen by this point, which may well have helped with this not uncommon assumption. ‘We have the film in German.’ No, I say, I’m British, but French is fine (if you stop talking over it).
They confer quietly in the corner, watching the film attentively, and then when it’s over, introduce themselves to me as Monsieur Troublé (with a jaunty moustache to match his name), Grand Chamberlain of the Confrerie du Brie de Meaux, and one of his lieutenants, whose name I don’t catch, but who probably rejoices in a title like Grand Cutting Officer, or Grand Minstrel. (These are all actual positions in the hierarchy of the Brotherhood.) Another one of them appears, the ‘Grand Ministre’. I make a whistling noise intended to convey my great honour. ‘Ah oui, on est tous des grandes,’ Monsieur Troublé concedes modestly.
I tell them I am on a Brie pilgrimage, which pleases them no end, and we discuss the availability of decent Brie du Meaux in the UK (good) and the novelty of the Brie Noir, and then the difference between Brie de Meaux and its many poor relations, with particular pitying reference to British lookalikes. It’s not about the cows, they tell me, no, no, you can use almost any breed of cow, though here we like Prim’Holsteins. It’s the grazing land, the terroir, that makes the milk special. The inferiority of our terroir is implied but tactfully left unsaid.
Instead, they insist (I don’t put up much of a struggle) on giving me my own private tasting of the cheeses intended for the poor old delegates, whom I can already hear gathering outside the door – they sound like they’ve also had a boozy lunch, so perhaps they won’t notice a few bits missing. We spend several minutes pondering the particular qualities of each age of cheese, a process which stretches my vocabulary to its limit (what is the French for slurry pile?) and then, still cooing appreciatively about what an honour it’s been to make their acquaintance, I bid farewell to their Highnesses and slip away past the throng and into the museum. Here, after admiring the fabulous display of Brie packaging through the ages, I discover that in 1992 the Brotherhood entered into a ‘symbolic’ (as opposed to actual) marriage with the Brotherhood of the Vines of Henri IV, a dynastic alliance intended to defend the big names of Burgundy and Brie against, one assumes, the massing forces of barbarism. The party afterwards looks like the best wedding reception EVER.
Somewhat reluctantly I tear myself away. Paris may be within my sights, but I’m keen not to rush this last afternoon in the saddle; I want to savour every lazy minute.
Croque Monsieur de Meaux
A croque monsieur using Brie instead of béchamel, as recommended by Madame at the cheese factory, because you can never have too much cheese in a toasted sandwich. Traditionally it’s made with soft white bread, crusts removed, but, rebel that I am, I prefer this version with sturdier bread, crusts and all. Probably best served with a green salad for the sake of your conscience.
Serves 2
2 tbsp melted butter
4 slices of white bread
2 tbsp Dijon mustard
2 slices of good ham
60g Gruyère, grated
About 160g Brie, thinly sliced
Preheat the grill to medium-high, line the tray with tin foil and brush one side of each slice of bread liberally with melted butter. Put under the grill, butter side uppermost, until golden and crisp.
Spread the untoasted sides of half of the bread with mustard, then put the ham on top, followed by the Gruyère, and pop under the grill for a couple of minutes until the cheese has melted.
Top with the remaining bread, with the toasted side uppermost, and push down, then top with the sliced Brie. Grill for about 5 minutes, until bubbling and golden, and serve immediately.
Four hours and 70km later, I arrive snivelling with self-pity, having survived a pitched battle between my two direction-finding apps, Komoot, which wants to take me on the terrifying N3, a road so chocka with huge lorries that I lose all sensation in my fingers from gripping the brake
s so tightly, and Google, which firmly recommends the Canal de l’Ourcq towpath, paved with huge spiky rocks. I zig-zag pointlessly between the two, always convinced the grass is greener on the other, lose all phone signal and see my longed-for dinner disappearing from my grasp in the Parc Forestier de la Poudrerie, which I’m sure is lovely for an afternoon wander, but will forever represent, for me, a forested hellhole with no 4G. Stopping in some nameless village for a lurid blue ice pop, I find the supermarket under police surveillance – I’m almost surprised not to be arrested myself, the way this afternoon is going.
On and on I pedal, yet Bondy, where I’ve snagged a cheap room for the night (excitingly described on TripAdvisor as ‘an especially unappealing and inconvenient suburb’) never seems to get any closer. Finally, I find myself bumping along a busy dual carriageway, and, after executing a terrifying U-turn by a vast IKEA, I arrive at where the hotel should be to … nothing. Nothing at all to suggest that there ever was a hotel here; in fact, 90 Avenue Gallieni is just a shed. I cycle round the block. Rien du tout. This is the point where I feel like hyperventilating. Dismissing Google, I click on the map on the booking app, which shows the same address about 1km to the east back along the unpleasant main road.
Sure enough, there, through my tears, I see the hotel in all its magnificently ugly budget glory. By this point, it’s 8 p.m. – the exact time of my dinner reservation, 20 minutes ride up the road in Aulnay-sous-Bois, a name known to me only from the 2005 Paris riots. I check in, shoving Eddy by the lifts without so much as asking permission (the security guard looks like he’s considering saying something, then sees my face and turns on his heel), and passively aggressively ‘inform’ the check-in clerk as he dawdles over my booking that the address on the app is wrong – ‘Just thought you ought to know.’
He’s interested, in the way a sloth or an elderly tortoise might be interested – let me see, he says. He slowly scrutinises my phone. No, that’s right. I show him their location on Google. Yes, that’s us, he agrees happily, though the two are clearly entirely different places.
One More Croissant for the Road Page 28
