Golden days on the bikes in the Charente-Maritime

#KTTinyTourer in Brouage, Charente-Maritime

Ed has now finished uni for the summer and is back in my nest once more. This means it’s “Mum, can you drop me at …?” or “Mum can you pick me up from …?” on a regular basis, so we decided driving lessons were long overdue. With four sessions of highway code and two or three driving lessons each week, there is no let up on the study for him this summer. There is also no let up for us on the taxi service, for the moment at least.

Golden fields in the marshes of the Charente-Maritime

Thursday was a golden day. The weather in the morning was not too hot, Adrian is home, Ed needed no lifts to or from anywhere and I had no meetings. We planned our escape on the bikes. The alarm was set early, a picnic was packed, our goodbyes were shouted up to Ed’s bedroom, the bikes were folded into the car and then we were off, direction Tonnay-Charente in the Charente Maritime.

 

Brouage

Our drive took us through fields and vineyards where the wheat harvest was under way, the first sunflowers are in bloom and the landscape was glowing yellows, golds and greens. The cycle route then took us over the river Charente via the 1842 suspension bridge and onto a cycle path on an old railway line, fast and flat, that dropped us off by a lock in the heart of the marshlands around Brouage.

 

Storks in the marshes

Our morning was then spent slowing meandering the small tracks through the waterways, stopping for each new sighting of stork, heron, egret or spoonbill. 

Spoonbill

I am still in awe that sights like these can be found so close to home and it remains one of my favourite locations for a warm weather bike ride.

 

Golden beer and sugary crêpes

We stopped for lunch in Brouage, a fortified village whose ramparts and turrets seem to rise from the marshland, and that is classified as one of the Plus Beaux Villages du France. Our treat for the day was crêpes and beer, the location adding considerably to the price, but worth it all the same.

 

#KTTinyTourer Charent-Maritime marshlands

The afternoon took us back out into the marshes where the temperature had crept up to a tarmac-melting 35º and shade was almost impossible to find. Just south of Rochefort we began following the river Charente, past the Pont Transbordeur and finally back into Tonnay-Charente. 

Stork nest in a tree

We might have felt a little hot around the edges, but it had been a superb day out on the bikes and added another 63km to my annual total. I am now so close to my 2019km challenge that I have decided to move the goal posts. Katie the Brompton, made and bought in London, will be returning to cycle the streets of the capital in August, so I feel it would be fitting if I crossed my 2019km while in London, four months earlier than planned. In the coming weeks, I still need to complete at least 50km per week to meet this challenge, but I’m determined to succeed.

 

Even the cows had a golden glow

Today sees the start of the Tour de France, my annual period of wearing yellow and being glued to the TV every evening. The excitement, the colours, the views of la belle France and the cows who always make an appearance on TV, make it a special time of year I always look forward to. May the sun continue to shine down on these golden days of summer and cycling.

This post has been linked to the #AllAboutFrance blog link up, see here for more details.