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Yeah it's called la Beauce, dedicated to large scale grain farming. It has its charm but lucky for you it wasn't harvest season, the building-sized machinery has no mercy :)
Epic ride btw, having a look regularly at this thread makes me wonder how people do this
Glws-
Thanks, a good term for me to google!
I part grew up on a farm so I find it interesting to see the agriculture. It was clearly a very big deal there, pretty intensively farmed and, as you say, loads of grain. Also a bit of salad / vegetables: lettuce, sprouts / cabbage and carrots.
A lot of the grain got watered at night by massive water jets, which is fine, but they also water the roads which was a bit annoying when I got sprayed. I saw some big bits of farm kit, but I bet the combines are the size of houses.
In that area I managed to beg some water from a gypsy. I was running low and passed what I thought was a campsite and went in to ask if I could fill my bottles from a tap. But there wasn't a tap. A guy came up with a bottle of water and chatted a bit, and he said he was Gitan. I only knew that as cigarettes, but then I worked out it meant Gypsy, and it was a travellers' site. Have to say it looked a lot better than the equivalent in the UK - but obviously not on mains water. Felt a bit bad as paying wasn't appropriate and I didn't have anything to give him in return at the time.
Further south, in the Loire, they were harvesting strawberries and asparagus - lots of guest workers being bussed in.
frank9755
I did it.
Having beer in Dieppe waiting for ferry, having beer.
Route was ok but there is a boring, flat bit of France between Normandy and the Loire that I'd forgotten about.
I'll write a bit more shortly