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Tuesday 23nd June 2015 Grisolles to Villefranche de Lauragais And yes, it was another fine and sunny day - I was starting to think there was no other kind.
Breakfast was fine enough in the Logis and I appeared to have escaped without any bites - I'd been a bit suspicious of a couple of dark dots on the bed-sheet which I thought had moved when prodded but it was probably all in the mind. The bed cover hadn't looked too clean either but all had turned out well in the end, thankfully. I got away at 9.04 and was soon at Toulouse where I'd anticipated it would take a fair amount of time to get through the city - it's huge and placed right across my route. As it happened it was very easy to get through, I just followed the cycle way along by the canal. The Canal des Deux Mers comprises two canals: the Canal de Garonne (also known as the 'Lateral') and the Canal du Midi. They meet in Toulouse and although the signs were not perfect it was reasonably easy (aided, it must be said, by the GPS) to get from one to the other.
In the centre of the city I stopped at an artisan Boulangerie and bought a spinach and goat's cheese tart and a rather messy mille-feuille cake which I ate further along the route - at under 5 euros it was a lot cheaper than eating at a bar-restaurant.
I then stopped at a waterfront bar for a tea. It was the usual French version of tea - they bring you a pot of hot water and a box of various tea-bags. Usually you have to ask for milk and when that turns up it's often hot. Anyway the selection of teas included 'thé verts' with various options - citron, thingy and whatnot… and only one 'thé noir'. And that included citron too. There was also a 'thé Mille et Un Nuits', the Arabian option presumably. Well I thought I'd give that a go, took the sachet and dunked it in the hot water. Yuk. Just some deuced foreign muck, Carruthers! All spicy and not tea-y at all. So I fished the bag out, chucked it to one side and popped in the 'thé noir avec citron' instead. Well at least it was black tea and should taste of something. Well it was hottish and did have a slight tannin edge to cut through the fuzz of the day - but any roadside snack bar in the UK would do a better cup of tea. Toulouse was sure enough large but it was easy cycling and once through it I was left with less than 20 miles to go that day. Unlike the rather exposed stretches I'd cycled through yesterday, bombarded mercilessly by the afternoon sun's rays, the canal path from Toulouse onwards was lined with a double row of trees which provided a very welcome shade and made riding so much easier.
Near Baziege I met a walker who told me he was 'from Hong Kong' but then admitted he was really American. I thought he was probably English-speaking as soon as he stopped me and started to mangle the language of Voltaire in order to ask me where Baziege was. I replied in English and we then had a bit of a chat. He was 73 and had been walking part of the St Jacques de Compostelle trail for 19 days with his wife who was booting around somewhere nearby although he didn't seem quite sure where. I used the GPS to show him where Baziege was (he'd gone slightly past it) while he told me how he'd spent a year in Hong Kong after graduating and then just stayed there. He also told me he'd cycled across the USA three times, doing 5000 miles in 75 days on one trip, so about 67 miles a day. Not bad going. A bit later while I was stopped, sitting on a form eating something, a middle-aged female Pilgrim Walker, complete with backpack and Nordic walking poles, turned in mid-stride and asked me something in fast French. It could have been anything - sounded like 'how many frogs does it take to change a lightbulb?' so while I was trying to answer 'probably three frogs' the woman looked at me as if I was an idiot then muttered some reply before moving on. Well if she does ask a silly question… As I approached Villefranche I passed a few school groups with kids of about six years old cycling erratically along under the charge of a couple of teachers. Future Tour de France winners to a man, no doubt. Villefranche seemed a nice enough place. I cycled up and down to look at the options then checked in at the Logis hotel. It was quite nice, clean and well-appointed although once again with a startling lack of a hair-drier - how on earth do they expect cyclists to get their washing done! (I hung it up by the window and let the light breeze do the job).
The meal was ok - cold couscous, radish, carrot, cauliflower, beetroot and gerkin for entrée then double fried egg for main course, with sautéed potatoes and green vegetables plus bread and water and a half-bottle of rosé. I had a banana split to follow and a cup of tea; ordinary black tea but it still came with hot milk. Riding along the canal on a sunny day, yesterday as today, I was struck by the sound all around me. The blaring hissing-buzzing of (presumably) crickets and the chittering of the swarms of swifts which barreled along feeding off the flying bugs above the canal. It was cacophonous. Bike computer: 42 miles GPS: 43.5 miles 11.8 mph avg 20.6 mph max 1059 ft ascent English miles: 117.8 French miles: 773.5 | |||||||||||
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