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 never worked well for me. I’m a Zen breakfast kind of girl—-three bowls, a mix of sweet and salty, and some protein.
Lunch hours here are kept to schedule–between noon and 2 or 2:30. By 3pm you are out of luck unless you can find a bar open that serves food. Of course, you could self-provision, but that requires organization and planning too, and adds weight.
Yesterday we left the bike bags at the hotel and rode a loop into the countryside, lousy with castles. We found ourselves in prime cyclist territory, in the middle of an amateur race of some sort.
- Approaching Castelnaud la Chapelle — note the rain clouds overhead
The sky threatened, but it didn’t unleash on us.