Following a hectic weekend that
saw Ade’s final return from Brussels (yippee, let the summer begin) and the
annual Dance Gala that brings the community together to ensure 60 plus young
dancers get a brief taste of fame, Monday morning started with a some baking
before we escaped with our bikes this afternoon. We lunched on an energy packed
fish and couscous salad followed by a slice of fat free cherry cake and then
set off direct from home following the narrow back lanes towards the local town
of Sauze Vaussais.
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| The chateau at Jouhé |
The route takes in a couple of
Chateaux, nothing grand like in the Loire but pretty all the same, walnut
orchards and many fine sweet chestnut trees. In our village there are no
chestnut trees as our soil is not right, but you don’t have to go far to find
the soil becoming a deep orange colour and the chestnuts appear. My neighbour,
Pierrette, remembers spending days with her uncle collecting chestnuts as a
child in the early 1950’s. They would leave in the morning with his horse and
carriage, taking a picnic and spend the day stocking up on chestnuts to be
shared with the extended family. From the size of some of the trees we saw I
guess they have been there since before Pierrette was a child.
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| Bar de la Tour Sauze Vaussais |
In Sauze Vaussais we stopped for
a beer in the Bar de la Tour. The friendly barman served them with a smile,
but unfortunately there wasn’t too much sun on the terrace. We did have a good
view of the clock tower that has pride of place in the town centre and were
able to listen to it strike the (same) hour twice, a few minutes apart. The
return took us past the first golden wheat fields we’ve seen this year and also
some fields planted with tobacco, a crop we don’t see around our village. I
could have done without the breezy wind, especially on the steady uphill roads
that saw me lagging way behind Ade. He often complains that a cycle with me (in
tow) hardly sees him break a sweat, but after 45kms I sure feel I’ve had a good workout.
We were back
home with plenty of time to mow the lawn in the sunshine before saying goodbye
to our first summer visitors.
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| The lavoir in Hanc |
Comparing the options I have for a good day's cycle and the options you have, makes me green with envy!
ReplyDeleteThat us the benefit to living in a rural area. We can head off direct from home in any direction and make up a circuit or we can drive to marked routes that follow canals, rivers, the coast or hillier in land terrain. We are also on the Santiago de Compostello route, so could follow that to Spain.
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