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Saturday 20th June 2015 St Aigulin to La Reole Breakfast at L'Art Dit Vin was 5 euros and pathetic. A tiny wadge of yoghurt with a shaving of carrot on it, 2 lumps of toasted bread, 1 pat of butter, 1 sachet of apricot jam and a croissant. Anyway I shoveled it all down and got on the road by 9.15 or so. I had to ad lib a route back to the master route as going back via La Roche Chalais would have been going uphill. All went well until I came to the railway line. According to the map the road came up to it and continued on the other side. Unfortunately in real life there was simply no way across - hedges, an embankment and an electrified line were deterrent enough for me. I had to turn round and find another way, so another mile on today's total probably.
The roads were fairly level and fast and I made good time - it was another nice, blue-skies day by the way. I crossed the Dordogne river at Castillon La Bataille and half an hour later came to an old, disused abbey near Blasimon so I got off the bike and had a look round. I stopped for lunch at a village called Sauveterre de Guyenne, a picturesque place with a fine central square lined by the inevitable bars. Just as inevitable was the omelette au fromage I had there, complete with chips and a lemonade and a cup of tea.
Suitably refreshed I pressed on and was soon at my destination for the day, La Reole, on the Garonne river. It seemed a nice enough place but I couldn't see any hotels and when the first two chambres d'hote I came across didn't answer the door I started to have a sinking feeling about my chances of accommodation that night. I got out the list of likely places I'd obtained from the internet and went off to look for 'La Parenthese', another chambre d'hote. When I got there I rang the bell and a few moments later an upstairs window opened and a dark-haired, 40-ish lady looked down at me. Somehow she identified me as English straight away, before I even spoke, and said in English that she'd be right down. Her name was Anne and she told me she'd learnt English while staying with friends in Enfield, just 10 miles from Ware.
The room she showed me to was very nice and available at a fair enough price of 70 euros including breakfast (£52.50 at current rates). Anne also explained that there was a music festival on that day and that there would be music everywhere in the town that evening. She gave me the name of a restaurant where I should be able to get some pasta but warned that everywhere would be very busy. It was.
The restaurant Anne mentioned was only doing a set menu that night and I could either have a vegetable pizza or nothing. I opted for nothing and walked on. The tapas restaurant which had also been suggested was fully booked and politely told me to clear off ('desolee…') so in the end I resorted to an awful cheese Panini at a café in Liberation Square and an overpriced 33 cl tiny Heineken for 3 euros while an overpumped PA system blared out music. There was the local equivalent of Morris Dancing going on in the square with men and women in traditional costumes cavorting and leaping up in the air, and after they had finished a Zumba class began an exhibition.
The decibel level of the Zumbians' music was enough to vibrate my fillings loose though so after a while I went to the supermarket, bought a box of jaffa cakes, a can of Leffe and a tiramisu in a 'free' glass tumbler and went back to the B&B. (In the end the free tumbler ended up being my only souvenir item to take back home). At some point in the evening I also walked round to take a look at the abbey but it was barred off too. Still the Garonne flowing past there looked impressive in a muddy sort of way. No Charente though. Bike computer: not recorded GPS: 52.0 miles 9.5 mph avg 32.1 mph max 2673 ft ascent English miles: 117.8 French miles: 623.9 | ||||||||||||
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