Day 7 - Festival finale

 

According g to the guide book, Suillac is a nice enough town but nothing to write home about. So my initial thought was to stick close to my tent and eat at the campsite. But then I saw their menu. And their service. And their flies. Off I went in search of something more wholesome. I assumed that the river would lead me to the town however after 1/2 mile or so I checked my phone: the town doesn’t actually sit on the river…

I headed north and eventually found the centre and enjoyed a cracking meal in the square outside the 12th century Abbey St Martin.

The storm (which the BBC was still adamant was going to happen an hour ago) had not yet arrived. The skies had returned to blue & white, and all was well on what was a lovely warm evening.

I then consulted my route for tomorrow. The guide book tells me it’s 148km although my actual route reads more like 138km. One of us is wrong. What’s more worrying is that tomorrow is Sunday. If ever there’s a day that the French are less active than Mondays, it’s Sundays.

With that in mind, I checked Google and noted 2 supermarkets en route which - all being well - should still be open when I reach them. Food is less of a problem since I can buy big in the first shop and store in my panniers but hauling 4 litres of water uphill isn’t much fun.

Sure enough the storms arrived with gusto: the first just after I’d reached the sanctuary of my tent and the second in the early hours of the morning. When I woke up the skies were grey but it was dry. Learning my lesson from yesterday I quickly packed up my bike and headed to reception to collect my pastry goodies. 

Setting off, the road took me quickly out of Souillac and into the hills. An 9km drag took me to the top of a rock valley before the road turned 180 degrees and headed down it. A 4km Cat 2 took me back out of the valley before I ducked down to Rocamadour, a tourist honey pot in the middle of nowhere.

I continued on and soon reached Gramat where I tracked down the supermarket and stocked up. On my way out of the town, I stood up on the pedals up a climb which caused the bike to swing. With that, both bottles of water which I had stashed on my seat pack fell, and one emptied its contents on to the road.

I wasn’t going back so I rescued the now mostly empty bottle and carried on. 

I soon rode into UNESCO site number 2 in the form of a huge natural park. The roads meandered through thick forest and with little traffic the next 20km were a delight. 

Starting to feel peckish with 50km now under my belt, I came across a picnic bench under a huge walnut tree, made myself a coffee and devoured a baguette.

Refreshed, I continued along an undulating route which remained quiet. At one point a local cyclist ambled up beside me and asked me something in French. He seemed to accept that I was English but not that I was unable to hold a fluent conversation with him in French. After discussing what speed I was riding at, I came out with the following philosophical classic:

“When I go down, it’s easy. When I go up, it’s hard.”

Move over Socrates, I’m coming through.

Leaving my bemused companion I turned off and followed the road far as Figeac where miraculously I found the only shop in France to be open after 12pm on a Sunday. And they sold water.

After Figeac things got tough. One Cat 3 and three Cat 2’s followed one another until eventually I descended from the hills to the River Lot. 

Following the river, I found another picnic bench under another tree (couldn’t tell you the species but it was growing small orange coloured fruit) and devoured baguette no. 2.

The road I was on happened to be a cycle route along the Lot valley, and I followed its course (upstream, naturally) for 20 wonderful miles undulating alongside the river and mostly along pristine tarmac until I reached the end of todays stage at Entraygues-Sur-Truyere. I would put that one in my top 10 of favourite ends to a ride, ever.

I could hear the village of Entraygues before I saw it. There was some festival or other happening on the sports pitch next to the campsite, and the campsite had taken the unfortunate but understandable decision to close for the day.

A quick consultation with Google maps didn’t offer much by way of a solution - I was 20 miles up a valley after all. I tried one site around 7km away but on receiving no answer checked their website: they don’t open until 2 July. The next one was 8km away but reachable only via a mountain bike track. No thanks. Finally I tried one 11km away. They were open, they had space, but had no restaurant, neither were they near anywhere that opened for food on a Sunday.

I took the decision to check into a hotel in the village instead, enjoying the decision to pay an Addison’s l 5 euro for air conditioning. Tonight I’ll explore the village safe in the knowledge that I have breakfast waiting in the morning and that I don’t care if there are any storms…