We left home at 7 am and were at Paddington in good time for the train to Reading. We planned to travel to Bournemouth via Reading to avoid South West Trains who say they have a policy not to take tandems.

But, at Reading, the Virgin train for Bournemouth was 65 minutes late, so we caught another (Thames Trains) train to Basingstoke. When next the train came (South West Trains) we stuffed the tandem into a very small guard's van with racks for 6 bikes, but the guard threw us off the train at Brokenhurst. Fortunately another train with a big guard's van took us all the way to Poole and we cycled to the ferry port just in time.

The ferry is a very fast one, taking only 5 hours to get to St. Malo with stops at Jersey and Guernsey.

With difficulty we found a route out of St. Malo running along the river Rance and to the went on to St. Père where we had booked a room by phone. Unfortunately the hosts had no record of our reservation, but we managed to convince them we really did phone, so they rang around and found us another place about 10 km. further on. What a relief.

Supper of galettes and crêpes at Chateauneuf d'Ille et Vilaine

View of Guernsey from the ferry

We set off soon after 9 am. We stopped to visit an abbaye at le Tronchet and then went on to Combourg where visited the château gardens and bought our picnic lunch which we ate by the lake below the château gardens.

The afternoon was very hot and we stopped for a drink at Feins and had a quick look at Sens de Bretagne. We arrived early (3.30) at the CdH at Gahard and were given cold drinks. The house is very old with beams and used to be a farm house. We looked round the village of Gahard which has an interesting 'lavoir', a very old church and a fine priory with a steep roof.

We met the other guests (Mike and Diane) who then drove us to a restaurant in a converted water mill near Sens de Bretagne. We had gratinée de la mer (chopped sea food and vegetables in sauce) followed by pintadeau (G) and colin (J) with very nice vegetables.

Combourg château

We started at 8.30. The misty morning made the day cooler. We stopped at Vitré which is a fine old town with a nice château. We had a picnic near la Chapelle Erbrée. After another hot afternoon we reached Laval about 5 p.m. We asked the tourist office for directions to the CdH., which resulted in our searching for a street with no entry in the middle of an industrial estate - after knocking on a door, a helpful man told us the true location, which was across the ring road in a quiet country lane. Our very hospitable host gave us cider. After a shower and rest we cycled back into Laval for a supper of galettes and crêpes followed by a wonder round the old town, which has many attractive old timbered houses and stone renaissance houses on steep narrow streets. We saw the outside of the renaissance château facing the river..

Laval is on a good site on the river Mayenne with nice old bridges. A sculpture exhibition was on in its large main square, which has fountains and the town hall.

Laval

We started at 8.15 after breakfast made by Patric Coquet who used to have a restaurant, but kept burning the toast. Our first stop was at the Musée Tatin - an extraordinary collection of eclectic and naive art by a former builder. It lives up to its reputation.

We cycled past numerous fields of maize and sunflowers. We crossed last year's route at Château Gontier, having our picnic by the river Mayenne. After lunch we cycled on the towpath and then on small roads close to the Mayenne until we crossed it a Daon.

We broke a spoke in the front wheel and found a nice place to replace it close to the river at Châteauneuf sur Sarthe.

Our CdH, the Château de Montreuil is amazing. Because we didn't reconfirm our booking, we're in a non-official room with a non-official bathroom reached by a long corridor and many interconnecting doors, which we have to shut due to the possibility they might slam because of the `currents d'air' in this old building. In the afternoon we sat in the garden, reading and sketching. Dinner in dining room in a turret with families from Belgium and Lisle whose children were silenced because they are in a château. After supper walked down to the river Loir.

Château de Montreuil

We had a cool morning to cycle to the Loire at St. Martin des Lévées. By the time we arrived, all the boulangeries had closed for lunch so we decided to have the 54FF lunch at Martine's cafe - this was a multi-course affair with a bottle of red wine, with selections of charcuterie and of cheese from large dishes. We visited Boumais château, an early 16th century building made from touffe (white soft stone). Although it had one defensive aspect (machicoulis), it was built mainly for pleasure. The pigeonnier for 1600 pigeons has hundreds of slots for nesting pairs round its inside walls and a precarious rotating ladder for collecting eggs. Each landowner was allowed to build a pigeonnier whose size corresponded to the land owned (so that the pigeons would not eat everything).

We arrived at La Bouère Salée in Saumur where we stayed last year. Although Catherine is away, it is still very peaceful in the garden. Dinner in Saumur (gratin savoyard and marron crêpe).

Boumois château

15 Aug. As we are resting, we had a late breakfast (8.30), during which the substitute landlady recommended lots of interesting places and lent us a guide. We asked the tourist office about cycle paths alongside the canal de la Dive - they don't know but say that lots of people ask. It's a bank holiday so bookshops, cycle shops etc. are closed but we managed to buy 2 large scale maps showing the contours of the hills to come.

We set off east along the Loire, visiting mushroom caves and troglodyte houses on the way. We picnicked by the river bank with a view of the château of Montsorau. We visited the Abbaye Royale de Fontevraud - a very large abbey for a female order dating from the 12th century, but much of it enlarged and rebuilt. It has big cloisters and even bigger dormitories, all in white stone (touffe). the church contains life-size effigies of Henry 2, Eleanor of Aquitaine, Richard Coeur de Lion and Isobel of Angoulème (wife of King John = Jean sans terres). We learned the meaning of plantagenet - `plant a genêt'(broom).

Nice ride back to Saumur through the forest of Fontevraud and via the château of Saumur, seeing fields with vines, sunflowers and maize.

Saumur Mushroom caves

We started at 8 am, stopping for 10 minutes each hour and arrived at St. Jouin des Marnes about noon (58k). We followed the Canal de la Dive but its towpath is not suitable for a touring tandem. There are lots of melons in the fields and some intensive work here, involving say, 15 people in one field. We bought a Charentais melon at a stall in a village called Pas de Jeu!

We had lunch in the very big square with horse chestnut trees at St. Jouin des Marnes. We used a picnic table to investigate the spokes on the back wheel which are getting very loose, due to rivets falling off. (See special topic on maintenance). Stopped at Abbey of Marne - a very fine romanesque building.

We then went on during a very hot afternoon over very flat countryside - extensively farmed (sunflowers, maize and wheat already harvested).

We eventually arrived at Charrais and had a lot of trouble finding Charrajou for the CdH (they could give better directions). The hosts are a friendly couple in a poshly done up house. We cycled 5 km. to Neuville for dinner (on the phone they said the restaurant is `juste a coté'). Good sunset on the way back.

Canal de la Dive

Another very early breakfast with over-attentive hosts before leaving. We found a quiet road into Poitiers, but had to go round and round and up and up to get to the centre of the town. Poitiers has a nice old centre with many churches. We looked at Notre Dame (painted columns inside, marvellous carving on the front). We looked at the cathedral (plantagenet gothic), very large and white with some fine blue stained glass (reminiscent of Chartres).

We left Poitiers on a quiet road beside the river Chain, buying picnic stuff in St. Benoit and eating it in a picturesque spot by the river.

We continued following the river as far as Vivonne where we stopped for a drink. It is cooler riding on tree-lined roads, compared with the previous day, but there were lots of hills. We eventually arrived at the CdH in Civray at about 6pm. Good meal at Relais Henry IV.

Civray is a beautiful place on the river Charente and the CdH is a renovated small château with very friendly Dutch hosts, so we decided to stay two nights. The hosts (Miki and Victor) have lived in Civray for 15 years, have 2 teenage children and have done up lots of houses in the area. Victor Ryath is an abstract painter. They fixed the roof of the house which faces the Charente. It's a short walk over the bridge into the town. Aug. 18th (Friday) was market day. The small church here has an impressive carved font and painted columns with decorations including fleur de lys and other plants.

In the afternoon, Victor showed us his studio and the house he is renovating, he does colourful abstract oil paintings. We eat at a pizzeria and then sat and chatted with Miki and Victor.

l'Hermitage, Civray

We left about 8.30. It was a cool morning and although we went up and down a few hills, it was an easy morning. We bought our picnic at a shop in St. Angeou with a mural outside.

We had almost completed our journey by picnic time, so we dozed on a grassy bank. We then went into Rochefoucauld to visit Rochefoucault château. The inside has a three-level gallery on two sides and a very fine staircase - all in Italian renaissance style.

The CdH is a big manor house - very fine with large rooms and a tapestry in the dining room. The (English) hosts John Waddington and Alex were at Swindon FE college. They now run courses in the house (art taught by Mike from Swindon, walking, cooking and French).

We had dinner on the terrace with the other visitors. Our hosts told us about owls and bats in the pigeonnier. They said they bought the manor from a relation of the last countess - they have restored it beautifully.

Shop at St. Angeou - the fruit is painted

Started at 8 am, followed the river Bandiac and then climbed a steep hill to Nontron, which is on a spectacular site by a gorge. We saw a change in landscape, lots of trees on rolling chalk downs. Crops are still maize and sunflowers plus walnuts. Picnic at St. Pardoux la Rivière. Unfortunately we broke a spoke at the back, which we couldn't fix due to lack of a tool to remove the block.

Easy ride down to Brantôme (it kept cool all day). The ChdH has a pool, so we jumped in to cool off. The ChdH is a nice old farmhouse with pantiles, but modern inside and with a nice view of the river.

We went round Brantôme, which is well situated on a bend of the river Dronne, with old stone bridges and a large abbey plus church. Dinner in restaurant with seats right by the river (Paté foie + confit canard - a fore taste of the Périgord cuisine)

We looked round for possible bike shops as the back wheel is rather sad with its loose and broken spokes. On Sunday, they were closed anyway, but as there were no promising ones, we decided to make for Périgueux in the morning and then go on to a nice CdH in Eyriac in the hills to the south west.

View of river Dronne from window in Brantôme Chambre d'Hôte

We went into Périgueux via Agonac, a nice road through woods, fields, some cattle, ups and downs, not very steep. We arrived in Périgueux with serious back wheel wobble and 3 broken spokes. The tourist office told us the location of 3 bike shops (omitting to tell us they would all be closed on a Monday), which we did find out after serious research with a fully loaded limping tandem.

We decided to stay the night and wait for them to open in the morning. So we cancelled the booking in Eyriac and booked into the Hotel Ibis who let us put the tandem in their meeting room.

Perigueux is a good choice for a place to spend a day - an extensive old town (renaissance and mediaeval) with a big purely romanesque cathedral with multiple domes. There is a roman site nearby with a round tower and mosaics in the museum.

According to our schedule, our next stop is to be a 3 night rest in the Dordogne valley. But as we will need to wait for the bike shop to open, we decided to book somewhere not too far ahead and to move on after one night. We couldn't find a ChdH in the right place, so booked a hotel in Le Bugue.

Périgueux cathedral

We went to the bike shop and bought a new back wheel (270FF) and after going to a park to fit it, we eventually set off at about 11am. For safety, we also bought a block removing tool and a big spanner. We started out from Périgueux over the old bridge, but were then forced to use a very busy road (for the first time on this trip). As we didn't have the courage to try the white roads on the big hills on either side, we were on a fairly busy road all the way. We had our picnic at La Douze.

Le Bugue is a nice little town by the Vézère but overloaded with traffic and tourists. The hotel which has a pool is 2km on the road to Campagne. We sat on the terrace and replaced a second front spoke.

For the evening, we took a nice road to les Eyzies, which still has Cro Magnon man's caves but many more museum buildings than last time. We had a picnic by the by the river Vézère - which runs very fast - we saw a small motor boat trying to move upstream. Tourists and cars diminished in number as the evening progressed. We saw lots of signs in the Oc language and numerous plastic floral decorations.

les Eyzies

We booked into a hotel in Beynac for the next two nights. As this isn't very far, we took a leisurely ride, stopping at the place where the Vézère meets the Dordogne. People were canoeing everywhere. We had a picnic at a beautiful spot by the river Dordogne at Coux et Bigaroque. We has a quick look at St. Cyprian and then on to Beynac. Beynac château looks very severe on the horizon as it is constructed from grey stone. We walked up through the steep narrow streets with stone houses. From the courtyard there is a very extensive view over the Dordogne valley. We visited the interior which is all very old (12th and 13th century) and made of very hard dark stone. The guide told us the gothic style arose as a result of the crusades (seeing eastern buildings). Went to the top of the keep with the very good guide. At the hotel we had a meal on the terrace outside our room and then went into the room, which seemed good at the time. However we had a very disturbed night due to the proximity of the road and to a computer opposite in the tourist office that says `Bonjour' every 5 minutes (we thought it was a bird).

August 24th: On our day off we went up to Domme - a bastide on a well protected site. But there is not much bastide left because it was attacked and destroyed in the middle ages and now there are multitudes of tourist. On the way back we went to Montfort to see the Cingle and the chateau Domme and Montfort. stopped at Roque Gageac on the way back, having fixed front spoke #3. Had dinner in a new restaurant just started by some English.

We concluded that the Dordogne is a poor area for a cycling holiday as everybody wants to cruise alongside the river in a car and the roads are desperately overloaded with cars.

Meeting of Vézere and Dordogne rivers

We woke by the alarm at 6.15 and had croissants and orange juice in our room. We had to creep out of the hotel as we left before the staff arrived. It was a cool morning, but only a little misty. The landscape looked good as the sun rose. We took a last look at the Dordogne as we passed Domme. We climbed a big hill to leave the river valley (it was quiet on D26 and D12) the detour to the latter added a few km but showed us some nice landscape with many walnut trees. We stopped to fix front spoke number 4. We had a second breakfast of coffee and dunked bread in Catus St. Denis. Then we went down the hill into the Lot valley and into Cahors by 12.15 before the tourist office closed for lunch. (We had to use the main road because we couldn't see the bridge to Pradine and quiet entry).

We got a nice room in the annex of Perdreaux hotel, only 160F and with a balcony. Cahors is situated on a promontory in a loop of the river Lot. Its best feature is Pont Valentré, a fine mediaeval bridge with 3 towers. But there is a big church with 2 giant domes, one painted inside. There are many narrow pedestrianised streets in the old town. Evening meal at a crêperie. The afternoon was very hot, perhaps 35-40 degrees.

Cahors, Pont Valentré

We were up early and had breakfast at a bakery on the `boulevard', then left by 7.40. A cool and cloudy morning. We climbed a long steep hill out of the Lot valley, using our lowest gear. We saw a young deer in a field. The landscape is `scrubby' with small oak trees, fields with grass and wild flowers including fennel. We felt high up. Went through Lalbenque (centre of truffle production in Quercy!). Then on to Puylaroque - up to a viewpoint by the church and citadel to see a wide plane before us, all the way to the Aveyron. A nice surprise as we thought we still had a climb ahead of us. But we managed to break front spoke #5 on the way.

We continued on nice small roads, then `over the edge' and down into St. Antonin on the river Aveyron. St. Antonin is a round village of old houses with pantiled roofs. We found a nice hotel with a view of the cliffs on the edge of the gorge. We walked up to the top of the cliff to get the view of the roofs. We had cassoulet for supper in a friendly family `crêperie', then a thunderstorm and rain.

River Aveyron at St. Antonin

We had a short ride through beautiful green landscape. As we were about to go to the CdH, we met Alison and Michael Barnes and Zoe who turned out to be staying in a neighbouring gîte. We left our panniers at their gîte and then went into Cordes, which is an exceptionally well-preserved and restored hill top town - no cars allowed in. Most of the buildings are 12th-14th century with three storeys, the top floor has small windows, the middle floor larger, all with stone carvings, The ground floors have arcades for shops. In the market place there is a 113m deep well for supplying the town with water.

In the afternoon, we sat and read and sketched at the CdH which is an old water mill. Our room is in the tower.

August 28th: We took a train from Cordes-Vindrac station to Najac where we rendezvoused with the Kennedys who are staying right by the river Aveyron. We walked up into the hilltop town of Najac, but were too late to see the castle. We met some Americans from Seattle on tandems, one of which has a lower seat at the front for the female. We had a big lunch with James, Mary, Owen and Ruth with coffee by the river.

After returning by train we had supper with Alison, Michael and Zoe in their gîte.

Moulin de Vindrac where we stayed

Before leaving we took a walk round the village of Vindrac, seeing an old sarcophagus by the church. We then said goodbye to our very friendly landlady. Our route took us through Souel and Castanet, both nice hilltop villages. We passed through many vineyards with long views. We then descended to the river Tarn and into the old town of Albi, where we quickly found a hotel. The cathedral and the bishops palace are both built of brick. The cathedral is like a fortification with a round tower with slit windows in between small turrets. The cathedral has stone carving in the front entrance and inside - this is very delicate carving, not quite like stone work. It has 15th century italian paintings on the ceiling and all the vaults. At the end, a local painting of the last judgement (not a nice sight).All remaining walls are decorated with patterns, some of which are old. We went to the Toulouse Lautrec museum and saw a big collection of paintings and drawings as well as posters, one of which included multi-person bicycles. The old town of Albi is extensive, mostly brick - in the old days, woad (pastel) manufacture was significant. There are many renaissance houses.

River Tarn at Albi

On the way from Albi to Réalmont, we spent half an hour in a barn reading newspapers while it rained. A busy Wednesday market was in progress in Réalmont, which is another bastide town (which no longer has its walls), with fine arcades round the market square. We sheltered from the rain in a café and eat some quiche for lunch.

We had a very long hard ride up the hill into Montredon which is at 500 m. La Payrastrié is lovely, particularly the turret house on the left where we stayed. We met Hans when we arrived. Pip and Jane and Jacob showed us into the turret house. We shopped in Montredon, then there was a big thunderstorm and the lights went out. We cooked pork chops and drank Jason's Châteauneuf du Papes. Paul and Joanna and 2 children are staying in Lesley's house next door.

Aug 31: Still raining in the morning. Gradually cleared up. We decided to modify our route for stage 4 of our trip on Jane's advice, which was to avoid the Black mountains (the road is very busy). We have plenty of time left and will go via Castres, Revel, Castelnaudary to Carcassonne, using the Canal du Midi where possible. We walked through the woods to Castelfrank. Lamb chops for supper.

1st Sept. A nice fine day, so we swam in the pool and were generally lazy. In the evening we had drinks with Paul, Joanna, Pip and Jane and heard the local gossip, mainly about the farmer Jean-Paul.

La Payrastrié

Half way to Castres, we realised we had left the water bottles behind, so we phoned Jane who brought them to Castres market place where we had coffee with Pip and Jane, Paul and Joanna and families right by the busy Saturday market. We walked along the river and then on to the Goya museum which has a good collection of Spanish paitinngs including 4 Goyas, a Velasquez and some early religious paintings. We bought our picnic in the market place and stopped to eat it on the way to Ravel. Ravel tourist office is in a nice market hall, but we had great difficulties in getting much information about CdH, eventually they gave us a guide for Aude but without owners' phone numbers and the office in Carcassonne was closed. We didn't want to stay in Revel, so went on to Castelnaudary where we quickly found a hotel. The year 2000 festival of Cassoulet was taking place all over the town. We looked at the enormous basin on the Canal du Midi, then had a meal at the hotel consisting of a horrible starter (fried goose fat in goose grease) and a good cassoulet. We were kept awake by load music until about 3 am.

Coffee at Castres market

We started out riding along the canal towpath, which is level but rough, making our progress rather slow, so we left it after a few km. We found quiet roads most of the way to Carcassonne. We spent the afternoon looking around the old town of Carcassonne and its castle. Carcassonne is a remarkable walled town from the middle ages, which was restored in the 19th century. However we decided not to stay there for the night as it is such a tourist set up. We rode out to a CdH at Marseillette in a big house in nice grounds. The landlady had arranged for the other guests (a French couple) to drive us into Tarbes for a meal. Claud and Claudine from Nantes were seemingly very friendly, but we had to tolerate his anti-English jokes and rather fascist opinions. The bedroom was nice and the bed comfortable, but the landlady was rather vague about breakfast and kept complaining about the Dutch. Claud gave us tomatoes and apples for our picnic.

The Canal du Midi runs 240 km. from Toulouse to Sête, linking the Atlantic to the Mediterranean. It was designed and built in about 1680 by Paul Riquet, who found a spring to feed the canal from its summit at Narouize (194m).

Carcassonne

We rode roughly in the same direction as the Canal du Midi, with a strong wind behind us. It was a sunny day and we saw vineyards all the way and mountains on either side of us. Some mediterranean pines. We had lunch at Argens-Minervois by the canal and George replaced a broken back spoke in out new wheel. We tried a private road which declined until it became a rough track and was eventually barred by a big metal gate - a helpful gardener told us the way across a field to the canal, whose towpath we reached by carrying the tandem and panniers etc. via a deep ditch.

As we approached Béziers, we saw the cathedral at the top of the hill. We found a hotel right in the centre by the enormous ramblas-like promenade which was named after Paul Riquet who designed the Canal du Midi. We walked through narrow streets to the cathedral - at last a `normal' one (not like a fortification) with consistent gothic style with a big 9 facet window at the east end and some romanesque features in the transept. We visited the cloisters and bishops garden which had several levels of terrace - the original bishop wanted the garden to go all the way down to the river Orb. We saw a brilliant view of the valley towards Carcassonne, the river and the canal, surrounded by the mountains

View of River Orb from Béziers cathedral

On leaving Béziers, we went to see the staircase of 9 locks on the Canal du Midi. They are big locks and together reach a height of 25 metres. There is also a Pente d'eau (an inclined plane with an engine to push a boat plus its tank of water up or down the slope - it is not in use). Also there is a big aqueduct taking the canal over the river Orb. We had lunch in Serignan in a big square with plane trees.

We cycled roughly on the route of the canal to Vias and Agde, even finding a good cycle path by the canal. We found a different landscape here - grassy, sometimes boggy, bamboo windbreaks, mimosa, with horses and horned cattle. There were many plots with caravans for holidaymakers. Vias is a small town with narrow streets and small houses. Agde is on the bank of the Herault and has a massive black cathedral which looks like a fortification. It is built from basalt (lava). We wanted the sea, but not the resort (Cap d'Agde), so we went to Grau d'Agde and found a room with a terrace. We swam in the mediterranean from a sandy beach - we've definitely crossed France. Meal by the river Herault and a quick sunset.

Sept. 6th: This hotel has a nice garden with tall trees (pines and other evergreens), with windy paths, rocks, pools, bridges and ivy.The breakfast is good. Cycled to Cap d'Agde - a large modern resort with flats, hotels, restaurants round a large marina. Nice cycle track along beach. Swam at a nice rocky cove on SE side of Cap. Went back to Agde to look round the old town, many of whose houses are built from black basalt. It was hot.

Sunset at Grau d'Agde

We were still wind-assisted most of the way from Agde. We had to take the inland route round the Etang de Thau because the RN along the causeway is `interdit aux velos'. We ended up on pleasant inland D roads most of the way, but had to do a few kms on a horrible narrow RN. Entry to Montpellier included several kms of cycle track alongside the D5. Montpellier is a revelation of a traffic-free town. The entire centre (about 2km diameter) is pedestrianised. Trams (new this year) and many squares including the immense `La Comédie'. People spending time strolling, chatting, listening to buskers etc. Now we have to wait to find out whether European Bike Express will get through, despite the fuel blockade, to pick us up on Sunday evening.

Fri. Sept.8th. Sights of Montpellier - Musée Fabre, lunch in gardens, old (17C) hôtels, cathedral.

Sat. Sept.9th. Phoned bike express who say they will carry diesel fuel in their trailer, so no problem. Went to see Aigues Morte - a complete walled town built by St. Louis with salt flats nearby. Sun. Sept.10th. cycled out to St. Jean de Vidas for the Bike Express, which took us home in spite of having had to abandon their broken trailer in Spain - the tandem went in the boot. Very comfortable ride home.

Montpellier, La Comédie