Tuesday, June 4, 2013

Day three Creil to Compiegne

Distance: 36 miles
Hills: two difficult

Today I took the long bike route and William stayed on the barge to do laundry and rest.  On the long ride  through the forest we took several small unpacked paths that led to small villages. One of the villages housed the 13th century Chateau Raray, a  hunting chateau that is now a golf club, wedding reception site and restaurant. It is the site where the early French version of the film Beauty and the Beast was filmed. The chateau has  garden in front enclosed by walls. On top of the walls are statues of dogs which chase a wild boar on one side and a stag on the other, signifying the fact that it is a hunting chateau. 


We rode through forests for a long time and then ended up at the site where Germany signed documents surrendering to France at the end of WWI on 11/11/18. Then, I. June, 1940, when Hitlers forces conquered France, Hitler made the French sign surrender documents in the same rail car.  The original rail car was taken to Berlin to be exhibited to the German people and was destroyed in the bombing of Berlin in1945, so the one we saw today was a duplicate. Outside were a WWI tank, other WWI armaments and a monument to the fall of the German Army, represented by a fallen eagle. I wasn't allowed to take photos of the railroad car in the museum. 
After we saw the rail car, we rode about 5 miles back to the town of Compiegne, where the barge is docked. 

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