Nancy, a lively and exciting city

September 27-29
Nancy

I wake up earlier than expected; the issue with the hotel booking probably hasn’t quite let go of my mind.

Breakfast is hearty and offers my usual favorites: muesli, yogurt, bread, cold cuts, juice, various jams, fried sausage and bacon, and scrambled eggs. I eat until I’m completely full.

During breakfast, I see via Booking.com that I don’t have to pay for the booking, which delights me—it amounted to 1,000 kronor, after all.

I’ve checked the route to Nancy Room, and this time I have Maps.Me with me the whole way. It takes only twenty minutes to cycle there. I find the door immediately; the directions I received were spot-on.

The door is locked; I realize that check-in doesn’t start until 2:00 PM. Still, I send a message via WhatsApp asking if it might be okay to come in and drop off my bags.

Nancy Room replies within a minute…
– Enter
– Make your self some coffee in the kitchen

I cross the street and push down the handle; the door opens… I’m pleased. I carry all my bags inside and place them by the kitchen window.

After a while, a middle-aged man appears—strange; I had pictured a woman. The name “Nancy” must have misled me a bit there… though technically I *am* in Nancy right now, so perhaps I wasn’t entirely wrong after all.

We make some small talk, and he asks for ID…
– Is a driver’s license okay?
– Yes, that works. I get room D21 on the second floor—a small room facing the street, with a reasonably large bed and a fridge. The shower and toilet are out in the hallway and look fresh and clean.

Down in the kitchen, there is a large stove with four modern burners; all the necessary equipment is there, and there is even a washing machine in the kitchen that guests can use for free. The bus into town—the T1—departs just a few hundred meters away along the street and runs roughly every five minutes. You just need to keep an eye on the stops, but the buses provide good digital information about current and upcoming stops. You are allowed to bring your bike on board.

After getting settled, I plan a route to the nearest bike repair shop, Cycle Minus, but it turns out to be closed. My next route takes me to Cyklomanika, located in the city center. Maps.Me proves helpful once again, and I find the shop after a 25-minute bike ride.

The mechanic takes charge of the bike, and I explain that the disc brakes are worn out and the rear wheel has a bit of a wobble.

He checks it himself and nods… I mention that I’ll be staying in Nancy tomorrow as well, so I don’t expect it to be ready this afternoon.

“You can pick up the bike around lunchtime tomorrow.”

He glances at his paperwork and adds:

“It costs 68 euros, and it’s cash only.”

Satisfied, I head into town. There are people everywhere; I stop at a café for a cold beer and then browse through various shops—the tourist office, a shopping mall.

Many streets in Nancy are narrow, often long and straight. The city is bustling with life and activity. As the clock approaches 6 p.m., I look for the T1 bus, and finding it is no trouble at all. The T-lines seem to be a sort of…
I’m going to make some dinner and then put on my headphones to listen to the football match between Sweden and Poland.
Tomorrow I’ll pick up the bike, and then I can really pick up speed on the downhills…

September 29

Picking up the bike and taking a walk in Nancy

I slept well in my big bed, even though the traffic outside was quite heavy at times. I have breakfast and get ready to head to Cyklomaniak. I need to take the bus, but which one? I walk down to the bus stop for line T1, knock on the driver’s window, and show him the address.

He thinks for a moment and says I can go to this stop—pointing to the map on my phone.

It seems to be near Place Stanislas, just a short walk away. Everything was correct, and I even recognized the pub where I’d stopped yesterday after dropping off the bike.

The bike is ready among the others; the brakes are working perfectly now, the rear wheel no longer wobbles, and the tires are inflated.

I pay the agreed sum of 68 euros and then cycle off. First stop: Place Stanislas for a coffee. I check my email, specifically looking for a reply from SvD. I only received an automated standard reply that offered no guidance regarding the subscription I wanted to cancel.

I found a phone number and called customer service, explained the situation, and stated that I wanted to cancel the subscription. I was told that by failing to reply to a different email, I had effectively confirmed the transition from the trial period to an annual subscription—which entailed 12 payments of 299 kronor.

I explained that I hadn’t seen the confirmation email and pointed out that it had likely ended up in my spam folder.

After some back-and-forth discussion involving myself, customer service, and the manager, I was informed that I only needed to pay for the subscription up to October of this year. I accepted this and was quite satisfied.

Then some more cycling around the area, heading into the large green park for more coffee and a cup of ice cream. Back through Place Stanislas and some more browsing.

I visit a market selling everything imaginable—and then some—and step into a huge food hall where you could buy anything; they had several cafés there, too. I didn’t buy anything.

Around 3:00 PM, I head up through town toward the railway station, near where the T1 buses depart.

On the way up, I encounter a massive demonstration; people are dressed in light blue and reddish-pink. It’s a trade union protest against the French government’s cutbacks.

Even dogs are involved—naturally. I arrive and wait; the T1 bus usually comes every five minutes, but there seems to be a problem now.

The information board displays a message in French, so I pull out my phone and the translation app.

I take a picture and the translation reveals that, due to today’s demonstration, T1 bus services are suspended between 1:00 PM and 4:30 PM.

I cycle up to the hotel where I stayed when I first arrived, book a table, and order a beer. I sit there until just before 4:30 PM, then cycle toward the T1 stop. I arrive just as the bus is about to leave. I steer my bike into the back section.

Fifteen minutes later, I get off at the stop near my room. Before heading home, I stop at a U-Express to stock up on supplies and then at a takeaway shop. I get some fried potatoes and a few chicken thighs.

Back in my room, I do a bit of prep for tomorrow’s ride to Attila. I eat the dinner I bought with a hearty appetite; it tastes amazing.

I watch a bit of French TV without understanding much. I look up information about tomorrow online, check out the government turmoil and the SVT teletext pages, before settling in with my headphones and the radio program *Studio Ett*.

I fall asleep pretty quickly.

See Yeah Later

// P-G
The Global Cyclist