Cycling for culture : Loiret a velo and cultural heritage (part 2)

Loiret is the territory of our Green Routes Project ethnography, and it is a space rich with cultural heritage. Not only the heritage connected to the turbulent history of French nobles and kings (though one could easily say that Loire Valley was, once, "the" place to be if you were or wanted to be someone), but the heritage of a space that has seen lengthy and rich human occupation over centuries. Here, the histories of life with unpredictable water mingle with memories of fancy hunting lodges and castles built ornamentally on the grim, far more defence-oriented bases of the times before; the physical, material, passes into intangible where the memories of flood are marked upon old houses, and occasional festivals commemorate trades long gone and art and crafts of the region and all it connected to.

To say that to live in Loiret as an anthropologist is to be surrounded by cultural treasures is an understatement.

While France is heavily oriented towards cars, it also has, surprisingly, a great love towards le velo... the bicycle. Cycling has long been a part of French culture... so much so that it is almost stereotypically presented in pictures depicting the essence of Frenchness. Striped shirt, a baguette, and a beret? Check. Eiffel Tower (or sometimes a local landmark) in the background? Check. The person or at least one other person in the picture cycling? Check. And there is a reason for that. Even now, when cars make up the obvious majority of transportation here, cycling is a part of life for many, be it as a way to get to work, to visit traditional markets that are still held every week, or, for that matter, for sport. To this end, France is full of cycling-friendly paths and routes, and the great thing about those is that they serve, at once, as a way to connect towns, villages and cities, and a way to experience the surroundings, in particular cultural heritage, locally and further.

The joy of experiencing France this way, whether you are a local or a tourist, is that you are experiencing spaces and landmarks that are relatively devoid of crowds, but also of expectations. The large cultural and natural landmarks everywhere can come with a risk, a risk of having been presented to us over and over and over, and that means we have formed, even if completely subconsciously, a mental image not only of what they must be like in real life, but how exciting being around them might feel. This image doesn't always survive well when in contact with reality. The landmarks appear as less than; the Grand Canyon is less rugged, the Taj Mahal is less ivory, Eiffel Tower is less tall, Fontana di Trevi less bubbly, than we have expected. In reality, of course, this is perception : not only are these and other landmarks definitely impressive, I expect that different personalities will experience the peak of expectation, finally meeting with a landmark in person, so to speak, differently. But long building of expectation also comes with a large crowd in most of those spaces - other people who may be jostling around and projecting their own expectations and disappointments at us, which, again, may impact how we may experience those landmarks. And of course, there is the approach : many tourists never really experience the space they visit. They land in a plane, or perhaps step off a train or ship, then board a bus or shuttle to a hotel, and then, likely, board a tour bus to the next stop... a landmark. This does not allow for any immersion, and the cookie-cutter expectations of everything - the people, the country, the smells, the effort of getting somewhere under one's own power to see something, and of course the end goal landmark itself - takes over... and often doesn't fit the hype we not only hoped for but knew we were expected to feel. Cycling is different. It takes us effort and creates an adventure for us even just while being en route; that way, we are immersed into the space completely, or, if we are feeling like we want some solitude, as far as we want. It is perfectly possible to cycle in this region and not see a single soul for a while, or, for that matter, merely nod companionably at other passing cyclists.

It also takes us into the heart of the space. We may experience landmarks that are well known, or indeed the ones we have heard nothing about. We will follow footsteps of people's stories from long ago - see the lines marking the flood levels and the year on old houses; pass a monument with no or very little information that will leave us wondering at its story. The landmark we are hoping to see at the end will still be the end goal, but it will become a part of a whole, a whole we immersed ourselves into to reach. And, by doing so, we will hopefully become enmeshed with the space and its history enough to become a citizen custodian... aware of the deep importance of cultural (and natural) history and its place in not only the locals, but international lives... our lives.

In terms of developing this sort of tourism, accessibility is the first thing to consider. How accessible are these spaces, and how does one decide to access them? The first requires some reconsideration in terms of disabilities especially, as well as gender, age and weather. Much of our region is very exposed; trips where the weather sours or where the sun is hot or where the wind is strong can become complicated, even dangerous (think dehydration in hot summer and potentially hypothermia in colder months, because getting wet and the wind factor will rapidly lower your body temperature). As far as age and gender go, and some disabilities, the lack of toilets for kilometres is something to consider if travelling with small children, older people or anyone who needs a toilet frequently. This is also true for being female - especially if you are hydrating enough, or if you cycle around, well, your cycle, the expectation that one can simply turn towards a bush or slightly off the road and aim is unfortunately present in a very real way for long stretches of the route. From the perspective of deciding to visit, a lack of internet presence, or only some presence in French, can be considered a downside. I will also add that what I am missing is the lack of inviting to connect.

We interact with cultural heritage monuments and spaces for various reasons; most prominently, they inhabit a sphere of sorts in our soul, a narrative that we want to tap into. Either a complete lack of presence or very poor presence disable this narrative. When we connect, we connect with people and their times and spaces because we see ourselves in them. Presenting cultural monuments too dryly, or very briefly, disengages automatically... and that impacts not only the tourism but also the local and global perception of importance of safeguarding cultural heritage.

If I speak for myself, this project made me realise how fiercely I loved cycling the region, and how curious I was about it. It was almost funny, even writing this article (or rather, rewriting it, as an internet glitch lost me the original Part 2), feeling the love for the whole thing... the research, the questions that arose and will keep arising while researching, the surprise small monuments we found along the way, the joy of travel, even every mile of scorching sun and rain and wind when we pedalled to exhaustion and got lost when Google Maps failed us. If I want one thing to be remembered from this ethnography, it is this. And for myself, I would love to see our efforts help others find an adventure that links them to the past themselves.