The L'Anse sentinel. (L'Anse, L.S., Mich.) 18??-current, 1893-09-09

better, TO eat than chop or ST eak
when your machine is put up for the
night, upon far pleasanter place
than the English inn coffee room to
spend the hour between dinner and
bedtime.
All France is the cyclists paradise.
Normandy is the special corner re-
served for the English wheelman's de-
light. 1t is so near and so easily
reached-it comes within the posi-
bility of an Easter or Whitsuntide
holiday. 1t can be entered by Dieppe.
the port of all others to be preferred
by the man who travels with his
wheel. The custom house officials
there are men of common sense, and
this is consideration, since the French
custom house is strange and unac-
countable institution. do not pre-
tend to explain the exact law that
regulates the duty upon cycles. aud,
indeed, it matters little; an arrange
ment has been made by the Cyclists
Touring club here according to which,
nominally. the presentation of your
members ticket will act like charm
and admit your cycle free, but would
advise no one to rely upon it too inn
plicitly.
My experience is that whether you
are compelled to leave deposit or not
(the deposit to be returned If YOU go
out of the country within six months)
depends wholly upon the temper
of the officials with whom you come in
contact on the frontier At Calais.
for example, sometimes l have been
forced to paw; sometimes / have not.
But think the chances are, If you re-
member that a Frenchman, even If he
be customs officer. likes to be
treated with common civility. and
you learn enough French to be
able to assure him that you are
on pleasure. not on commerce bent,
you will be allowed to pass at no heav-
Ter cost than bow and a smile. How
ever, at Dieppe you can land with an
entirely easy conscience. No money
will be asked of you, because it has
long since teen realized that the OBJ
ject of the visitor who arrives with
wheel is to enjoy the roads, not to in
jure the trade of France.
Once the customs house ordeal is
over, only pleasure lies before the cy-
clist The real difficulty is to decide
what road to take, which route to fol-
low The country is charming, with
its stretches of woodland, its shady
OtChdluS, ITO ilhSS VI tlil BoplaiS ohu
its old chateaux and farms each en-
closed in a square of trees 1t is look
ing its best, perhaps. in the spring
when the apple trees are in blossom.
Normandy is the land of the apple, as
YOU know at once from the cider
that is set before you at the table
dhote, instead of the wine
OF the central and southern
provinces. From Dieppe, or from
Havre, to Rouen, you pass orchard
after orchard, at their loveliest when
covered with the ''fowery frost of
May" On the whole, this is the
journey l would recommend TO the
cyclist who has never before been in
Normandy, and who has but short
holiday to spend there. Outside of
Dieppe there are hills, but they are
not very terrible, and for every climb
there is coast. They give the touch
of variety which the cyclist loves and
the peasant cannot understand. 1t is
an easy days run from Dieppe to
Rouen, and you stop to lunch at the
village of Totes, where there is an inn
with most marvellous old kitchen;
the landladv may overcharge you but
the rafters and fireplace and the brass
and copper hung walls are worth a
little extra
Than Rouen there are few finer
towns in France; il you cycle into it
from the north, true your first impress
on is of an endless suburb, struggling
on either side badly paved street,
where little one horse tram crawls
drearily along. But while the town
itself, as everybody knows nowadays,
has kept many of its old streets and
timbered houses, it has its cathedral,