Romagne to Bordeaux

May 17, 2019

End of the first loop

We took our time this morning but were still on the road before 10.

Breakfast was one of the best. Al's eyes lit up when we were offered eggs in addition to all the food already on the table for just us (once again, we are the first guests of the season). He was even more delighted when he was asked if he wanted one or two. Deux, s'il vous plait.

All this for just us! The cups are missing because they are being filled with coffee and the jug of hot milk will go on the little slate square.

We put on full rain gear before leaving. It wasn't raining hard, but that can change and it's so much easier to put the gear on in a nice dry place where you can sit down to fasten your shoe covers. This was the first time we wore our rain pants (for rain; mine double as my long pants). On the other rainy days, we were exerting too much effort and they would have been too hot but today we started with a downhill run to the Piste Roger Lapébie and then rail grades all the way to Bordeaux.

We made a quick stop at Créon to use the public WC (all that wonderful coffee!). Note the poster for an upcoming active event--I wish we had events like that at home. Also note the "milestone". The Piste Roger Lapébie is marked as a D (Département) route, D121.

It was an uneventful ride into Bordeaux and we arrived at our hotel at 12:30. A room was ready and we put our bikes in the big bike room. We changed into street clothes and went to explore the city, starting with lunch at one of the restaurants across from the train station. We took the tram to Place de la Bourse and walked away from the river. There were a few people on the streets, mostly tourists, I suspect, and then we came to Rue Ste-Catherine. It was jammed! We walked quite a bit of that and then tried to find our way back to the river.

I had heard that Bordeaux was such a beautiful city, but we found that as soon as you got even one block from the main tourist areas, it seemed very run-down and sad. Unkempt buildings, men with nothing to do on a Friday afternoon but hang our and perhaps get ready for the Saturday Gilets Jaunes demonstrations.

Bordeaux street (near Place de la Bourse)

Image not found :( — Rue Ste-Catherine, Bordeaux. Many of the shops are the same ones found in the big shopping malls in Canada.

Tide rip in the Garonne (upstream side of the Pont de Pierre)

We found our way back to the river and its parallel tram line and retreated to our hotel room.

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Today's ride: 43 km (27 miles)
Total: 871 km (541 miles)

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Robert ZachariasLooks like a fabulous trip so far!
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4 years ago

Jacquie GaudetYup! Now it will be a bit different.
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4 years ago