Part 2 : The Eastern Limousin
(This is a continuation of the trip log from Part
1 : "Training" in the Pays de la Loire)
Sep. 11 (74 km): Before we set out from the hotel,
we chatted with an English couple here on a biking holiday - their
first. It was heavily supported - no panniers on those bikes. They
were aghast at our daily distances and our cross-country plans. On
our way, finally, and now heading southeast. We had breakfast in
Bélabre and left the more travelled route to try the
narrow rural roads again. We prefer them because of the absence of
traffic although they do tend to be hillier than the main roads. Our
surroundings were becoming less agricultural and more forested and
the hills more frequent. We knew we were getting into the western
edges of the Massif Central, the hilly, rugged, sparsely
populated heart of south-central France. We stopped at St.
Benoit-du-Sault (another of the "plus beaux villages de
France") for lunch and then began a series of long climbs and
descents all the way to our destination. The hills and the 28°C
heat were getting to us and it was a weary twosome that struggled
through the final 15 km into Dun-le-Palestel. Nice hotel (H.
Joly) - very good meal. They seated us in a dining room that was set
up for a wedding. About half an hour after we started our dinner, the
wedding party arrived. We were quite entertained by all the activity.
It was a very satisfying day.
Sep.
12 (64 km): Sunday and heading south. Our
day began with a foggy 5 km climb through the forest - the
Bois de Chabanne. It was eerily beautiful. We descended into
St. Vaury for breakfast and by the time we headed off again
the sun was out and the fog was gone. The next 35 km consisted of a
series of long climbs and fast descents through mostly wooded
countryside. There were no grain fields there. Where there were
farms, we saw only small pastures with the large brown Limousin
cattle who raised their heads and looked at us with casual
disinterest as we cycled by. We ate our lunch by the old stone bridge
across the Taurion river just outside of Bourganeuf and then climbed
the 3 km into the town, arriving at about 2:30 PM. I stopped at the
hotel we had planned to stay at and asked madame la
patronne if she had a room available. She told me that
as of noon that day they were closing for the season! She said there
was another hotel down the street. We inquired at the second hotel
and did get a room but she told us that the only place we would be
able to get food on this Sunday afternoon was at a patisserie which
would be closing at 5 p.m.. There were no restaurants open in the
town! We hurried off to check out her story and it seemed to be true.
September in these underpopulated areas was starting to be
problematic. We remembered a restaurant by the bridge where we had
lunched so we rode down to find out if they would be open that
evening. Success! And the menu looked interesting! Auberge de la
Chassagne. We got the feeling they were just getting their business
started. Certainly the patronne of our hotel had been unaware of the
restaurant. We walked down there in the evening and had an excellent
meal. It topped off a nice hilly day of cycling.
Sep. 13 (53 km): We got a look at the chateau and
church in Bourganeuf in the morning - on Monday they were open. I
went to the post office to get stamps to mail post cards home. The
clerk told me it was cheaper to send the cards inside prepaid
international envelopes than it was to buy stamps so we did. Strange!
Two long climbs brought us out of town and into a nice forest - the
Bois de Mazuras. We took a look at the pretty little
Cascade des Jarreaux and continued over rolling hills
into Royère-de-Vassivière where we lunched at a
cute little café. We descended about 3 km to Lac de
Vassivière - a rarity in France. Living in eastern Canada
where the receding glaciers of earlier ice ages have left us with
lakes numbering in the tens of thousands, we find it odd to have
travelled extensively in a country as large as France and to have
seen only 2 or 3 lakes in over 15000 km of cycling. From the shore of
the lake we continued over the rolling terrain of the Massif - long
climbs (one about 5 km!) followed by long fast descents, ending
before 3:00 PM with a steep climb into Tarnac where we had
booked a room at the Hotel des Voyageurs. The hotels in these tiny
villages often have less than 10 rooms so it was prudent to call
ahead to ensure that we'd have a place to stay. Tarnac was very small
with a quaint little old church and an attractive private chateau
nearby. We had a glass of wine and wrote post cards. Good meal that
evening - cabillaud meunière - filet of cod in a
luscious buttery sauce. A good day again - sometimes cool, sometimes
tough, but beautiful scenery.
Sep. 14 (34 km): It was cool and misty as we left
Tarnac in the morning. The ride to Bugéat (for
breakfast) was up and down but two of the downs were more than 2 km
long each so it was a good start to the day. We carried on. The
"mist" was taking on some of the characteristics of "rain" - just
barely. We reached the Col des Géants (824 m) after a
three-and-a-half km climb and the "mist" was heavy enough that we
donned our ponchos. There was a great five-and-a-half km descent from
the col. On the way down we again saw the names painted on the road.
Again, we assumed that the Tour de France had also passed this way
but we later learned that it was another bike race featuring many of
the Tour's stars. (It was interesing to see Richard
Virenque's name on the road surrounded by red polka-dots. He had been
the champion of the climbs in the Tour over the previous few years
and as the leader of the climbing segments he got to wear the red
polka-dot jersey.) We arrived at our hotel (Auberge des
Bruyères) in the hamlet of Chaumeil and found the hotel
staff frantically serving lunch to a busload of seniors here on a
day-trip from the neighboring department, the Creuse. I was
discouraged by the male-female mix of the group - 5 men and 50 women.
A lot of widows! We sat and had a drink and watched the activity. We
weren't about to head outside - I could no longer call it "mist". It
was raining! As the lunch neared its end, an
accordionist began to play and some of the ladies (and one of the
men) got up to dance. We were even dragged up to join them - we
escaped after our single dance - but it was fun to see them having so
much fun. After the bus left, we went for a walk around this tiny
village. Nice church and mairie. Later, I sat and
chatted with another guest at the hotel - a retired engineer who
comes down to the Corrèze every autumn to gather
cèpes - the wonderful wild mushrooms that grow
in the forests of the Massif. (The Italians call
these mushrooms porcini.) It's a lucrative pastime -
the mushrooms sell for about 140 francs per kg in the stores (about
$35 Canadian or $23 US - that's about $16 CDN or $11 US per pound!!). At dinner that evening there was no
carte to choose from - just a menu du
jour which, unfortunately, included
andouillette as the main course. It is a sausage made
from pig intestines. I draw a fairly arbitrary line at certain organ meats. I'll happily eat liver and kidneys and duck gizzards but I
haven't been able to bring myself to eat ris de veau
(calf sweetbreads - I think it's the thymus gland),
cervelle (brains), tripe (stomach),
boudin (blood sausage), tête de
veau (calf's head) - nor andouillette! However,
the rest of the meal was good and we had the best bottle of wine of
the trip - a splendid Bergerac (Chateau Laulerie). We found out that
the pretty purple flower that Carol had picked the day before was
called the bruyère - accounting for the name of
the hotel. A shortened cycling day - the rain caused us to cancel the
tour we had planned of the surrounding Plateau de Millevaches
(not really of a "thousand cows" but stemming from
old langue d'oc words meaning a "thousand
streams").
Sep. 15 (66 km): We left the hotel with ponchos on
in a cool drizzle. By the time we reached St.Augustin just 6
km away it had stopped raining. The cycling routine continued: long
climbs followed by long descents. At the attractive little town of
Corrèze we picked up our lunch fixings, had a look at
the tiny striking La Chapelle de Notre Dame
du Pont du Salut ("the little church of Our
Lady of the bridge over the Salut river" - it looks nicer in French,
doesn't it?) There was a long climb with switch-backs as we
left the town. At one point on the climb, as we came around a curve
at 7 km/h, a van waited patiently behind us until I could see that
the road was clear ahead and could wave him by. What a difference
from North American drivers! We detoured a little west to see
Gimel-les-Cascades, a pretty little village with a beautiful
little church and a spectacular narrow waterfall. The climb out of
Gimel was very steep! A wrong turn took us down a road into
someone's barnyard. We seem to do that once every other trip. 20 km
of rolling hills brought us on to a tiny country lane. The Michelin
map indicated that it went all the way into Argentat, 12 km
away and our destination for the day, but it looked too narrow and
I'd already been lost once that day. I flagged down a passing truck
and asked. Yes, the road goes all the way but it descends! Sounded
good to me. Once we got going, I understood why she had warned
me.
The road surface was part pavement, part dirt, with twigs, dead
leaves, moss growing down the middle . It
cut across the side of a steep mountain, switching back a couple of
times through a bright green, mossy, ivy-covered forest of tall
slender trees. It was breathtaking! We descended 6 km through
this wonderland and then, after a 2 km climb, we came out of the
woods for a long fast descent into Argentat. We booked into an old
hotel (H. Fouillade) and climbed the 51 steps to our room - we
counted! We took a little promenade in the late afternoon sun.
Argentat has some fine old buildings and some great views from the
bridge over the Dordogne river. We watched a boules
game for a while. They weren't very good! Nice meal in an elegant,
busy (that's always a good sign) dining room at the hotel. A great
cycling day.
Sep. 16 (62 km): There was a market just
getting set up near the hotel as we packed our bikes in the cool
(12°C - 54°F) morning. We had our usual breakfast and then
strolled around the market - bought a melon for lunch, looked
(unsuccessfully) for something to bring home for our grandson and
then headed out across the Dordogne and west along the south shore.
We cycled by walnut orchards - I picked up a nut to go with the
chestnut I had collected earlier - reminders of the trip for my desk
at home. By 10:30 the sun was out. We crossed back over to the north
side and had a fast ride into Beaulieu-sur-Dordogne where we
had a pause café. There's a magnificent
church in the old section of the town but we'd been here before so we
carried on to Bretenoux. Carol went in to a supermarket to get
lunch stuff and also bought a pair of wool gloves - no more cold
hands this trip! We climbed east out of Bretenoux and were surprised
to come upon vineyards with a very healthy looking crop of grapes on
the vines. This was the Coteaux de Glanes, a tiny
micro-climate on the south-facing hillsides near the village of
Glanes where eight vignerons work together (a true co-op) to
produce a nice red made from merlot, gamay and ségalin grapes.
We bought a bottle and brought it home. The vendange
(the grape harvest) was on - we saw large pails filled with just
picked grapes at the ends of the rows of vines although the pickers
were all at lunch. This being our first September trip, we had never
seen the harvest before. More on it later! We climbed out of Glanes
and stopped for a late lunch in a school yard in Estal even
though there was no bar in which to get a drink because Carol was
feeling quite hungry. We did find a cold beer and wine in
Teyssieu, 5 km further on. It's a pretty little village with a
12th C church and tower, all that remains of a walled fortress. I
always get upset at the war memorials in these little villages. Long
lists of names of young men - a whole generation - wiped out in the
1914-18 war "Pour la gloire de France" or "Pour la
patrie". A little hamlet like Teyssieu would have perhaps 30
names, often with 3 or 4 from the same family. After a long steep
climb we had a fast descent to the outskirts of Sousceyrac and
a climb into town. We had come to Sousceyrac because of a small hotel
& restaurant there, "Au Déjeuner de
Sousceyrac". The hotel is modestly priced and the restaurant
has been awarded a rosette by Michelin! Compared to other
restaurants with the same lofty designation, the price was very
affordable. We toured the town - had a glass of wine - watched a game
of boules. They were very good. The guys from Argentat would
have been shut out! We sat by the fire at dinner in the small but
elegant dining room and had a wonderful meal.
Sep. 17 (47 km): It was raining and 12°C when
we got up. We decided to have breakfast at the hotel, stalling to see
if the rain would stop. It didn't. I bumped my head going into the
garage to get the bikes. Another bloody cut - third time this trip. I
think the French of 100 or 200 years ago must have been very short
(or at least a lot shorter than my 1.87 m -
6'2"). We covered the panniers and handlebar bags with plastic
bags, put on our ponchos and headed out. Another series of long
climbs and descents, in the rain. It wasn't cold, though, so it was
bearable. We finished the morning with a long descent into Cardaillac
("un des plus beaux villages de France"). We had stayed here
once before and Carol had great memories of our meal at "Chez Marcel"
so we decided to have a rare lunch in the restaurant. It stopped
raining just as we arrived and by the time the restaurant had opened
for lunch at noon, the sun was out. We had a wonderful meal. We had a
long climb out of the village, steep at first and then gentle and we
finished with a fast, twisting 6 km descent into Figéac. We
booked into a modest hotel (H. du Faubourg) and began our regular
routine of laundry and showers. We string a line from any high point
in the room to any other we can find and hang our laundry to dry.
Often the line goes from the top hinge of the window to the hanger
bar of the armoire and back to the other top window hinge. That's
what we did this time. Unfortunately, because of the morning rain we
had more stuff than usual to dry and the weight on the line pulled
the armoire down on to the bed with a great crash! We hastily untied
the line and managed to right the armoire. No damage to any people,
furniture or laundry. Thank God it didn't come down in the middle of
the night! We won't include movable furniture in our laundry line
setup from now on. The old centre of Figéac is very
attractive. We wandered, looking at the old buildings, many with
soleihos (covered rooftop terraces
almost unique to this city). After the big lunch and
relatively short cycling day we weren't as hungry as usual so we
split a salade de gésiers and moules
marinières (mussels in white wine) in a pizzeria.
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