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Saturday 27th June 2015 Back to Narbonne Well delightful as Narbonne Plage was I was up and ready fairly promptly to get away from it as I had no wish to ride back in the 30+ degree heat of midday. Consequently I was away by 8.45 and had a straightforward ride back.
I locked the bike up by the cathedral and left it there, panniers and all, while I went for a walk around the now familiar centre, looking for presents. This process wasn't made easier by the French opening hours. Despite it being Saturday the shops didn't seem to lurch into action until 10.00 or later and by 12.30 they were shutting up again for a couple of hours. Fair enough but it takes a bit of getting used to. Also there was a disappointing dearth of decent T-shirts. Naturally I wanted one with 'Narbonne' or 'Mediterranean' at least plastered across the front - in a tasteful way of course. Instead the only T-shirts available all had 'New York' or 'Miami' or some such nonsense on them. Baffling but rather frustrating too. In the end I just got what I could for Trisha, the girls and Gordon and had to go without a souvenir for myself (I had a suitable T-shirt made up when I got home).
I didn't want to go back to the weird Hotel Alsace so I looked for something a bit better and found the Hotel du Midi - two stars, 69 euros and 9 euros for petit dejeuner. In the evening I went out hoping not to have a cheese omelette. I walked into the centre and past the cafes overflowing with couples and parties and steak and pork - and the cheese omelette option at the greasy spoon started to look increasingly likely. Then I saw a sign advertising 'Ma Maison' up in a side street.
I wandered up and it was perfect - completely empty except for the patron! Happily the patron spoke English as well as I spoke French so we were able to converse quite well, switching from one language to the other when we got stuck. He was prepared to bash something vegetarian together for me - well he had nothing else to do - and eventually produced a fine plat consisting of half salad and cheese and half egg and warm potatoes. Well it went down ok with a bit of fresh bread to chew and 25 cl of rose to lubricate its passage. Then followed a tiramisu and a long conversation with my host who turned out to be a keen cyclist himself; he was in his 50s now and a tad overweight but, he assured me, he had raced bikes in the past and still went out on them regularly.
We chatted about bikes, about his coronary and his time in England, in Lymm, helping a friend set up a restaurant. It was the longest chat I'd had with a Frenchman - a very nice chap he was. Then back to the hotel for the last night before the bus home. Bike computer: unknown GPS: 15.0 miles (to Narbonne centre. I then did a few odd extras riding round) 9.3 mph avg 16.9 mph max 508 ft ascent English miles: 117.8 French miles: 883.9 Past the 1000 miles! | |||||
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