Week 3: It’s raining, it’s pouring
Route: Tours – Limoges – Sarlat
344 kilometers
The cold and rain continued. We heard BBC reports that this has been the
worst weather France has had in 100 years. One evening, we camped in a stand
of trees on the side of the road in rain that must have been driven by the
wrath of God. It was too wet even for the slugs that usually crawled all
over our gear whenever we stopped for the night. In the morning, I emerged
from our tent like Noah from the Ark to see the small patch of ground we’d
camped on in the trees had turned into a mud pit.
Feeling a bit worn down by the weather, we took a train from Limoges to
Sarlat, a nice town with a lovely historic center. We had luxurious camping
accommodations in the back yard of the youth hostel, and spent one day
cycling without our trailers to several different Cro-Magnon caves in nearby
Les Eyziers. A few were hokey tourist draws (picture a wax caveman
thrusting a spear into a giant, wax bear frothing at the mouth) but others
had interesting archaeological items and cave drawings.
A few days earlier, Bob nearly purchased a loaf of pate at a chocolate shop.
He thought the woman was trying to tell him it was a chocolate entree, until
he finally understood the word “liver” and ended up with the eclairs
instead. In Sarlat, though, we bought liver on purpose at the wonderful
Saturday market, thinking that we might as well try foie gras in the goose
liver capitol of France.
Week 4: Which way to Spain?
Route: Sarlat – Bordeaux – Biarritz – St. Jean Pied-de-Port – Pamplona
388 kilometers
The roads have been a bit less friendly. On the main road to Bordeaux, we
kept passing life-sized black silhouettes of people with red blood spilling
from cracks in their heads every few kilometers. Finally, we saw large signs
explaining that 60 people had been killed on this 50 kilometer stretch of
road in the past few years. We then headed for the nearest train station to
make it the rest of the way to Bordeaux, where we got a cheap one-star hotel
for two nights so we could spend a day riding without our trailers around
the vineyards in the Medoc region.
We had one glorious morning of sun before the rain started up again.
Determined to get to the coast near Spain for some much-needed sun and some
surfing time, we took another train to Biarritz. Having learned how to surf
last winter in the cold water in Washington state, we were excited to try
surfing in France. However, the surf was just too big for our rented
longboards, so we cut our stay in Biarritz short and headed for San
Sebastian in Spain. At least, that’s what we thought.
We didn’t have a good map for this region, so we tried to navigate using
tourist brochures. We thought we were headed for the St. Jean on the coast,
but we ended up at the St. Jean in the Pyrenees. Fortunately, it was a good
mistake to make. We followed the first part of the Camino de Santiago, a
pilgrimage route starting at various points in France and going hundreds of
kilometers to Santiago on the northwest coast of Spain. We saw more cyclists
on this route than we have on our entire trip so far. George, a Frenchman
who was doing the entire pilgrimage route, spent one day riding with us to
Pamplona in his Levi’s.
Next up: culture in Madrid.