Had another bumpy night with gale force winds and as the forcast
was for it to continue we decided to head inland again and find a place to base
ourselves for a few days of cycling and
R & R. We headed up to
Perpignan and made a left following the D11 as far as Lavelanet where we headed
north past Castelnaudary and into Soreze, 6k from Revel.
Soreze is only 4k from ‘Le Lac de Saint-Ferreol’ which is a
source for the Canal du Midi.
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Found the perfect camp called ‘Camping Saint-Martin de Soreze’ and
settled in!
15.09
Spent most of the morning with the blog (trouble downloading
pictures for some unknown reason) . In
the afternoon jumped on the bikes and cycled into Revel for a look at the
markets, described as some of the prettiest in France.
16.9
We cycled uphill to ‘Le Lac de Saint- Ferreol’ which is one of the
lakes that controls the water flow for the Canal du Midi. We strolled around the Museum and Park
dedicated to ‘Pierre-Paul Riquet’, the architect of the canal commissioned in
the 17th Century and constructed over a 15 year period. We continued exploring on the bikes
completing a circuit of the lake and enjoyed the downhill leg back to
camp.
In the evening we cooked on the camp BBQ and met a couple from
Belgium who were cooking a huge leg of beef!
17.09
A stroll around the pretty village of Soreze with it’s old Abbey and
then a ‘blobby’ day in camp around the swimming pool!!
18.09
We cycled through the Medieval village of Durfort and attacked
Montagne Noire, the first 6k was a steep uphill climb on a shaded narrow road
with spectacular views! At the top we
cycled to the small village of Les Cammazes then down to the Barrage de
Cammazes, one of the host of dams and bridges used to overcome the difficult
and varied terrain and flooding of the Canal du Midi. .JPG)
Back to Les Cammazes where we followed a great bike path along a
canal through the forest to Lac de Lampy.
10k into our ride, the route was barred and replaced with a bumpy
deviation; it was late so we decided to
turn back!
What a buzz ‘flying back’ down the mountain!! At the bottom we had a quick ‘stop’at a
beautifully located ‘do-up’, which we discovered was an old Mill then through
Durfort and back to camp! 45k and a
great day!
19.09
We followed the ‘voie verte’ cycle route on small roads through
the countryside to the outskirts of Revel where it joined a canal with a great
bike path that took us the 22k to Lac de Lanclas. The great path made up for the Lake which
turned out to be not much more than a man-made fishing pond! The bike path finished
here but another 50k along small roads would lead to the Canal du Midi. Turned back and 45k later we were back at
camp enjoying a glass of chilled Rose (2
euros a bottle and good stuff)!
Up early and a stock up at the local Intermarche! We’ve decided to move closer to the Canal du
Midi and also be within cycling distance of Toulouse.
We managed a huge 50k drive with an unscheduled stop at a Gite, incorrect
co-ordinates inserted into our GPS by a certain person had caused the detour! Back on track through Gardouch to our camp in
Deyme, ‘Les Vialettes’ (16 euros) located only 1k from the Canal du Midi! Great hot showers, lots of cyclists, nice
shady pitches (with a table) and a ‘gypsy feel’! 
We decided to ignore the high winds and followed the beautiful
bike path along the Canal du Midi 15k into Toulouse. Toulouse is situated at the confluence of the
Canal du Midi and the River Garonne, it’s known as ‘La Ville Rose’, a reference
to the hot-pink stone used to build many of it’s buildings. It’s the 4th largest city in
France and famous for it’s rugby team ‘Stade Toulousain’ or ‘les rouges et
noirs’!
We biked the Canal du Midi City circuit then took our ‘lives into
our hands’ by heading into the ‘Centre Ville’ with it’s mad traffic. We took refuge at ‘Place Wilson’, a small garden
square where we parked our bikes and walked to the main square ‘Place due
Capitole’.
Lots of cafes, bistros, City Hall and The Opera House. Great strolling around the streets of this busy,
buzzy vibrant city bustling with students.
A look at the magnificent Basilica St-Sernin then a cycle to the Jardin
des Plants which has gone crazy with cow statues! Up to the Pont Neuf which spans ‘La Garonne’and along a small
subsidary canal, ‘Canal de Brienne’ which led back into the centre of town.
The wind is still with us but not as strong as yesterday! Again, we biked the path along the Canal du
Midi in the opposite direction of Toulouse, 25k through Gardouch to
Villefranche-de-Lauragais! The last 2k
was a bit scary as we had to combat some mad fast drivers as we left the canal and
hit the main highway to Villefranche!
Another beautiful ride and after 53k, back to camp and a hot
shower!
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23.9
Another long drive, 90k to Albi!
The landscape that’s been dominated by ‘yellow’ has turned to ‘brown’
with harvested maize fields and sunflowers that look like wilted soldiers
standing in rows as they wait to be harvested for their oil! In their place, fields of wheat, looking
spectacular and ready to burst!
Albi is the birthplace of one of France’s most beloved painters,
and a favourite of ours, Henri Toulouse-Lautrec!! We found our chosen camp, ‘Des Pommiers d’Aigueleze,’ in Aigueleze,
11k from Albi and not much wind! We
decided to have a ‘blobby’ late afternoon and hit Albi tomorrow to give us more
time to explore.
We followed the pretty ‘voie verte’ cycle route through vineyards
plump with grapes (obviously a popular route as there was not a grape to be
seen closest to the road-damn!) and fields of browned maize plants now ripe and
ready for harvesting. We took ‘pot luck’
as in parts the ‘voie verte’ signs suddenly disappeared then miraculouly reappeared
along the way! Phew!
.JPG)
After buying a ‘City Pass’ (18 euros) giving discounted admission
to the Musee and the Cathedral, we
headed to the Palais de la Berbie which now houses the Musee Toulouse-Lautrec
giving a comprehensive overview of the life and career of Henri Toulouse-Lautrec! 500 originals and awesome! Our favourites are his Poster Art and
Parisian nightlife scenes. .JPG)
.JPG)
We walked around the Palais’s geometrical gardens with a stunning
view of the Tarn River and the beautiful old Town.
A bread and yummy cheese picnic (couldn’t find Le Brebis) overlooking
the Square and a stroll through the streets and down to the old Town! We visited the Cathedral with it’s beautiful
frescoes painted in the 16th Century by Italian artists and it’s
massive stained glass windows.
We missed our ‘exit’ leaving Albi and ended up biking a whole
circuit of the city before we discovered the ‘exit to Terssac’. We peddaled madly to beat the dark as we had
no lights!! Relief when we reached the
Bastide (fortified) Town of Labastide-de-Levis to catch the sunset and a
panoramic view of the region! Just on
dark as we reached camp, a great ride and 61k in total!!
26.9
Woke to rain and the cold!
Decided not to travel and ‘catch up’ on chores and the blog and perhaps
even kindle!
It cleared up in the early evening so we biked to Labastide-de-Levis for a closer look!
27.9
Up early and off!! A pretty
drive (and great biking) through ‘La route des Bastides’ (fortified towns)
along the Valley of the Garonne in the ‘Tarn-et-Garonne’ into the ‘Lot’ via
Cahors. Onwards via Bergerac and
‘vineyard country’ to our selected camp near St Emillion in the Bordeaux
region. This camp promised everything
(including great views of the vineyards), but didn’t live up to it’s hype; we chose not to stay and after 5 hours of
driving it was getting late! Fortune was
on our side and we found a great ‘Aires’ a short drive away over looking the
vineyards in the little village of Lussac.
The electricity and water here is ‘gratuit’. We met Gypsy the playful Yorkie!
Yet another beautiful bike ride through vineyards with their chateaux/wine
houses to St Emillion, 40k from Bordeaux.
We parked our bikes and strolled through this very pretty Medieval
village perched above the vineyards and renowned for producing full bodied
‘reds’! It exists for the tasting and
buying of wine, eating and drinking wine at cafes and brasseries and enjoying
the view! We found a price list at ‘Comptoir Vignobles’
who ‘specialise in vintage wines’ and noted a bottle of ‘Petras 1945’ red
listed for 11,900 euros – about the cost of Lefty!!
We chose a different route back through the vineyards enjoying the
stunning scenery! It’s chilly in the
evenings now so unless we eat early (which we don’t seem to manage), it’s much
warmer inside Lefty! We met Gypsy’s mum
and dad – Guy and Marie-France who very kindly downloaded all the ‘Aires’ camps
of France onto our GPS. Guy mentioned he
was thinking about setting up a small camp next year to run over high demand
July and August and would need two English speaking helpers – need we say
more! A fun evening!
Farewell to Guy, Marie-France and Gypsy! ‘A bientot’! Bordeaux next!
We’re not too keen to drive
into Bordeaux Centre so after studying a map of the region, grabbed from the
Tourist Office, we found a bike path that ran all the way from Sauveterre-de-Guyenne
to Bordeaux. We decided to park Lefty in
Latresne, a small village situated on this bike path, 12k from Bordeaux. Off we went!
We crossed over the ‘muddy’ Garonne River into Bordeaux’s Centre Ville,
we hadn’t factored in the trams and I yelled out just in time to save Col from
being struck by one!! We parked the
bikes and set off for an explore on foot, now very much aware of the trams!!!!
30/9
Col went for a morning run
along the path and through the forest, very pretty! Next stop Arcachon, 80k and into the Atlantic
beaches and pine forests. Arcachon is an
oyster harvesting area in the triangular ‘Basin d’Arcachon’. We parked in an ‘Aires’ near the Centre Ville,
mounted our bikes and off we went following the signs to the largest sand dune
in Europe the ‘Dune Du Pilat’!! Got as
far as ‘La Teste-de-Buch’ and the signs disappeared! We got horribly lost, eventually abandoning
the cycle route and following the road to Pyla-sur-Mer and the sand dune.
Absolutely amazing!! This
colossal sand dune (Dune de Pyla) stretches from 
Basin d’Arcachon southwards for almost 3k. It’s spreading eastwards at a rate of 4.5m a
year! We climbed to the top (114m above
sea level) for an incredible panorama of the Basin d’Arcachon and Cap Ferret to
the west and dense pine forests to the east.
We had a picnic in the park below.
We easily found the bike path through the forest back to Arcachon passing
many 19th Century Bourdelaise villas.
A sunny morning 4k walk into Arcachon, passing the port and along
a fantastic boardwalk for pedestrians and cyclists running the length of the
beautiful golden sandy beach. Just to
attract your attention, a ‘bright pink tail of a whale juts out of the
sea! In town cafes, apartments and
hotels, some with 1950’s architchture, line the boardwalk! A great vibe, laid back and fun! 
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