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Thursday 25th June 2015 Carcassonne to Narbonne Well I got here, my main destination and pickup point for the bus journey home. Not quite at the Med yet but more or less; I'll do that tomorrow. The forecast for today's ride was 29 degrees Centigrade and actually it turned out hotter than that - one roadside display I saw indicated 31 degrees and that was only about 12.00 to 13.00 (which is really 11.00-12.00 allowing for Summer Time). Anyway I knew it was going to be hard work if I let the cycling slip into mid-afternoon so I forwent the pleasure of investigating the castle and old town of Carcassonne at close quarters, tempting though it was. The castle is a hugely impressive building seen from below, towering over the area and really dominating everything else. A walled mini-city really, with the peasants' hovels clustered around it.
If I'd stayed for a look around though I'd have ended up cycling at the hottest part of the day so I took a few photos and set off. The photo of me on the old bridge over the Aude river was taken by a passing American. The first five miles of the ride went well but then the joystick broke off the GPS and made it difficult to use - the rubber cover over the joystick had already broken off a week or so earlier. Not so good as this was the GPS's first trip since new. It scrolls so slowly when the focus is some distance from your current location that you have to keep the joystick pressed to one side and I think that's what wore it out. A detailed map (1:50000), lots of track points and waypoints and probably not enough memory / processing power even though I'd bought the latest version. Ah well, at least it had got me to Narbonne.
I wasn't using my pre-programmed route as that followed the canal route and I knew now that being a rough towpath rather than a paved cycle-path it would slow me right down. Instead I was using the 'Goto' function which just displays a straight line from where you are to where you want to go. This means you have to scroll down a bit to see which roads are best to take and of course this wasn't easy with a broken joystick. At one point I did come upon the canal again and as it didn't look too bad there I rode along it for a while. It soon deteriorated again though so I carted the bike across a lock-gate and got back on a proper road. This led me to a nice, fast road which quickly became a rather demanding nice, fast, busy road. There wasn't much I could do but try not to wobble and hope the drivers were having a good day. Most were fine, some cut it fine. At midday I stopped at a boulangerie for a courgette quiche and yet again I found it had those rotten 'lardons' in it - bits of bacon. What a pain. The strawberry tart I got there was nice though.
There was not a single cloud in sight now and trees were far between. With no shade from the sun I was dehydrated and burning up but had to keep going anyway. Well it wouldn't have done me any good to just stop. It was becoming grueling. I left the fast road and sought easier ways but the resulting diversions probably added a mile or two to my total for the day. Also it seemed that whenever I spotted a wall with some shade and stopped to check the route a mad dog would instantly appear and start barking and growling at me till I left.
The other annoying thing was the noise. The noise of what must be billions of cicadas, as I later discovered them to be. It was thunderous! I couldn't believe how loud it was, it would drive me nuts if I had to live amongst it. Sometimes it was just a 'chitter-chitter-chitter' homogenous drone but at other times the monsters would get in sync and it would become 'CHITter-CHITter-CHITter', like a marching band. It was especially loud near any trees, which must have been absolutely full of the things, but also loud throughout the acres and acres of vines laid out in the fields around there. I was surprised there was any greenery left at all with all that insect population to be fed but learnt later that cicadas are sap-suckers rather than leaf-munchers. Finally I came to Narbonne and happily the last three kilometers were all downhill. At the first café I came to I stopped and, somewhat to the surprise of the lady proprietor, ordered a lemonade and a cup of tea, both for me. I also had a wash there which refreshed me a bit.
I spent about an hour and a half riding round looking for a hotel, finding the bus pick-up point in the process, and finally checked in to the Hotel L'Alsace. This was supposedly a two star hotel, whatever that means, but this time there was neither hair-drier nor air-conditioning.
In the evening I went to look for a vegetarian restaurant I'd found on the internet but it turned out to be just a shop. I went back to the hotel, waited till 7.30 then walked to the town centre to find an Indian restaurant recommended by Google. I found it but they were fully booked. Everywhere else in the centre was bustling with people and it was depressing to go there on your own to dine. I walked back to the hotel, passed a greasy spoon and went in… to have another cheese omelette and chips. Wonderful. Bike computer: 44.9 miles GPS: 40.6 miles (as at arrival at the centre, not inc riding round looking for hotels) 10.5 mph avg 23.5 mph max 1505 ft ascent English miles: 117.8 French miles: 854.1 | ||||||||||||
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