Day 02 – Blois to Vichy

Hello good evening and welcome to Day 2 of Le Tour de la Liberation!

Today has seen us survive on 4 and a half hours sleep – not hugely different to the previous night really! Its worth pointing out this wasn't because we were in the bar drinking beer to the wee small hours, but in fact because we are dedicated to the cause and were up doing our daily updates!

Apologies to anyone who received more than one email yesterday –interest in the trip is so popular that we have over 100 people on our distribution list now, which appears to be more than our mail provider allows us to send to. But don't panic; we've worked around the technical limitations and fear not, you will (should?) all continue to receive the daily notifications!

The day started when Mikes alarm woke us up at 7.30am. We ignored it as long as we could, but finally gave in to its calling and did what had to be done.

Breakfast was the usual French affair; strange looking sausages, raw bacon and mushy eggs. With a mug of luke warm stale coffee thrown in for good measure.. delightful!

First important task of the day became finding a decent cup of coffee.

After receiving our days clues, we rectified last nights technical issues, packed up our bags and retired to the car to begin deciphering the days location clues.

This took a while due to the sleep deprivation, and we didn't actually leave the hotel until gone 10am. And just for a change, we were the last ones to leave!

Our first stop saw us heading to Cour-Cheverny (Cor! Revolutionary heads towards New York) where we had to search high and low in a beautiful Châteaux for our first answer of the day.

The clue itself was "In the big house who gets imitated in red leather".

We started at the top and worked our way down (more because the lady ushered us to the top than through any choice of our own), where the answer was eventually traced to a small leather bound book in a glass cabinet with the title "Imitation de Jesus Christ"

More than happy with our answer, we headed onwards (having failed to find our much sought after cup of decent coffee) – obviously at the back of the pack again – to the next location – Mennetou sur Cher (Blokes take www to where in France).

As the clue was "At the beach what would you be on if you were legless and had lost your head", we followed signs to La Plage and parked up. This was my kind of beach – not a grain of sand in sight!

Unfortunately for us, Chip had never ventured all the way to the "Beach" to set his clue, and after over an hour of searching every rock, bin, tree and anything else in sight, we returned to closer to where we had first turned off the main road and started searching there. Eventually we found the following signpost, and of course the answer clicked almost immediately!

Finally released from Clue 2, and still failing to find that coffee, we headed back over the canal bridge we had crossed over long ago, stopping to admire the view…

…and made our way to the next location of Saint Florent sur Cher (Holy man ends up not paying anything for his accommodation).

First stop was the Café for lunch followed by that coffee. Ahhh… decent coffee at last!

After a relaxing lunch we set about the search for our third answer of the day. The clue for this one was "At the town's hotel memorise how many rams you can earn"

Obviously the clue was pointing to the Hotel de Ville, so we headed in that direction, and soon found a collection of Urns (flower pots really!) with Rams heads appearing on some of them but not others. We walked around the grounds to ensure we hadn't missed any, and after a few counts and recounts, settled on our answer.

For the first time today, we left a location before someone else! We headed onwards to "Not far to an all-French cat with water and nine" – also known as Châteaux Neuf – and with the clue "In the holy house what time will it be in half an hour?" we made a bee-line for the local Church, hoping to find a stopped clocked somewhere inside it. And oh boy were we happy when we found one within a few minutes of entering the Church! Or the Basilique to be precise.

We quickly added half an hour to the time shown on the stopped clock and left, feeling duly smug with our brilliance.

We weren't feeling so smug later on when it was pointed out that the answer was actually the time shown on the clock; as the clock was stopped, the time in half an hour would of course actually remain the same! Doh!

Full credit to Chip for his cunningness however; no one got that one right!

Anyway, we headed to the final clue of the day, fortunately not aware of this fact, and soon arrived in Bourbon-L'Archambault (A drink for jazz musicians) (neither of us knew the relevance to Jazz, but seeing as Bourbon was the only alcoholic drink on the map in anywhere near the right area, we took a chance and it paid off!)

The clue itself was "Ruined! What time is it in Moulins?" - so we headed for the ruins…

…and started our exploration. There were three tall towers that required climbing, and for the first time this trip we picked the right one first time around.

At the top of one of these towers (the tallest no doubt) we found a small stone carving in the wall showing a church with the inscription "Moulins" in the bottom corner. On the church tower was a clock showing the time. It was debateable as to whether it was 3 o'clock or 12.15, so, in true Play School style, we ascertained that the big hand was pointing to the 12, and the little hand was pointing to the 3. Even if the big hand was only minutely longer.

Still delighted with our amazingness at cracking the previous clue so quickly, we thought we'd balance the camera precariously on top of the tower and take a picture of ourselves!

After this, we decided we'd make hay whilst the sun was shining, – which it had been all day – infact it was positively sweltering..

…so pausing only to purchase some healthy sustenance for the remainder of our journey (well, Smarties, in keeping with the Play School theme) we then headed to the evenings destination of Vichy, making a short but very important stop en route..

Yes, you've guessed it… we saw, we jet washed, we said goodbye to 400miles worth of French insect splatter!

Shortly after, we arrived at our hotel, not particularly surprised to find out we were the last team home and checked into our luxury accommodation. The view from the window was stunning to say the least!

No time to spare, we headed straight down to dinner, caught up with the other competitors and swapped the days tales.

After a pleasant evening meal, Chip summarised the days successes and failures, obviously rubbing his hands in glee at having achieved setting us all a clue that no one answered correctly!

At the end of Day 2, the leader board stands as follows:

3rd Place: Robert Jones & Ben Warner 200points

Equal 2nd Place: Matt & Steve Barnes 220points
Jock Taylor & Frank le Maistre 220points
Guy Le Sueur & Ed Bennett 220points

1st Place: Garry Taylor & Mike Nolan 246points

That's about it for tonight's updates, and as one person (thanks Mark W) has been good enough to tell us that the 'Daily route' was a good idea, you can all suffer and have it again!

Thanks to those that have put entries in the guest book – keep them coming!

Tune in again to Channel 103 for live updates from Alan and Jackie between 8 & 9am on the Breakfast show, and 5 & 6pm on the Drivetime show.

We're off downstairs to use the Hotels "free highspeed internet access" – although we have to pay for it.. go figure!

Goodnight until the next exciting installment!