And I guess I should include wine in that subject line, since you can even help yourself in Sarlat-Le-Caneda, where we welcomed the wine and dry hotel room after getting completely drenched on the road. So wet my shoes were squishy. We have rain gear, but with this grande pluie it didn't matter. Dinner at the bistro across the street was delightful. We were famished, because in addition to the rain-drubbing, we had been unable to eat properly all day. One serious pleasure, and challenge, of bike touring in France is food. Riding 40 kilometers on coffee and a croissant has … [Read more...]
Animal spirits
This kitten made my morning yesterday in Les Eyzies Chasing his tail and playing After that we visited a PreHistoric Parc, with replicas of scenes from the daily life of Cro Magnon man. I jumped into one of the dioramas to defend this poor wooly mammoth (sorry, blurry pic--John is good at putting together bikes, not so good at framing and focusing photos). The parc was a cool way to interact with a distant time period, and it was blissfully uncrowded. Plus, there were kittens there too: Then there were random magnificent chateaux sightings, like this one along … [Read more...]
Intimacy with all things (on a bicycle)
Our first day in the saddle--a 70km loop starting and ending at Les Eyzies, where there's a fine restaurant named after Cro-Magnon man and a hotel with a piscine: Here's a little collection of images and video from the ride, which rolled up and down all day through quiet countryside. Of the many crops being grown we saw corn and more corn, sunflowers, grapes (the three treasures?) and tobacco, a fourth treasure in France. It's amazing to me how many people still smoke in the world outside of Berkeley, California, which is a lot of world! I think one of the reasons I'm … [Read more...]
A birthday train to Les Eyzies
I woke at 4 a.m. this morning, jet-lagged and hungry, and remembered in a wakeful fog that today is my birthday. Forty four! Perhaps appropriately, we head to Les Ezyies, where there is a Museum of Pre-History. I love the notion of a time before history. In my 44 years, my own personal pre-history, that would be before my parents met, or even before either of them learned to ride a bicycle. There's something encouraging about pointing towards a place on one's birthday that is rich with archeological finds from the Paleolithic period--some 10,000 to 200,000 years old. Makes … [Read more...]
Bike-in-the-Box
If only it worked like a Jack-in-the-box and sprung out of the box put together. This is what my Surly steed looks like when it travels to France: And this is what it looks like reassembled and ready for riding: I was the sous-mechanic all morning, cutting off zip ties with nail clippers and handing John the allen wrenches. Midday, we pedaled away from Hotel Croix Baragnon and wandered into a restaurant serving crepes and cidre--cuisine we can't resist, having sampled much of it on a prior bike tour in Brittany. After that we toured the old town a bit, with plenty of … [Read more...]