I was in no hurry to leave this morning since the amphitheater didn't open until 10. I finally bid my hosts, Françoise and Roger, farewell and rolled my bike out of their garage, wearing my still-wet shoes and nice clean outer shorts (Françoise had offered to wash my soggy socks and anything else for me since she was doing laundry anyway).
I didn't miss a turn this time and my route took me past Basilica Saint-Eutrope, tho other site I'd wanted to see. After that, I found my way to the amphitheatre by following last evening's route in reverse.
The entrance to the crypt below Basilica Saint-Eutrope doesn't look like much...
I decided not to look for La Flow Vélo because I wanted to ride on actual pavement today. I took the yellow D114 to Saint-Savinien; why I thought I wanted to go there I'm not sure. On the way I passed through Taillebourg. The name seemed familiar and there's an old castle there, so maybe it was mentioned in some book I read. There was a beautiful little park by the river there and I should have stopped but I wasn't ready to eat the quiche I'd bought earlier and thought St-Savinien might have something better.
What St-Savinian had was a bridge to Île de la Grenouillette, where there was a pleasant park by the river. After eating my lunch there, I decided to continue in the left bank and followed various white roads to St-Hippolyte. A few km back I'd crossed a bike route which I later learned was La Vélodyssée, which approaches from the south well inland and loops around and west into Rochefort.
As I was studying my map and GPS for options (searching for Rochefort on my Garmin yielded no results!), a woman on a bike asked if I would like some help. She told me that the road we were on, D123E3, would take me to a bridge "only for bikes". At the other end I would find the Vélodyssée and I could follow that into Rochefort.
It worked very well. The former road bridge, a quite high suspension bridge, is now maintained for bikes and pedestrians. It was easy to find the Vélodyssée, though I lost it once. There were no signs indicating that westbound cyclists should cross to the other side of the road, but the markings disappeared and then, from across the street, I saw a westbound marking for a turn. I think this is what the woman was trying to tell me when she was talking about left and right sides.
It took me a while to figure out that this was a sort of jungle gym. It looks like fun! The young woman is standing on a trapeze that's zipping down to the further mast.
I eventually made it to the quite nice municipal camping. It's actually pretty full, mostly French seniors in camping cars. Good value too, less than 20€ for two nights. It's close to the old town but, as I discovered when I went out to find dinner, there's not much in the old town after 7, the usual opening time for restaurants. I finally found a suitable one (open, not too expensive, not full of young people drinking) in Place Colbert, but the food was mediocre. I had sautéed prawns, of which there were maybe 10 on the plate, very large and very whole, with a little salad, overcooked zucchini, and rice. Oh well. Better luck tomorrow.
