Day 14 - Bordeaux to La Réole - France, Top to Bottom

May 8, 2023

Day 14 - Bordeaux to La Réole

I lost my phone this morning. Fortunately, my watch has a useful “find-my-phone” feature where I push a button and my phone lights up and makes noise. So, I activated find-my-phone and could hear my phone, but it seemed to move each time I took a step towards the direction of the sound. This confused me until Donna pointed out that it was in my pocket.

Loosing things is a constant danger in my life. You can just ask my mother how many jackets she had to buy because I left them on the city bus. My wife loves to tell the story of me searching for my watch while pointing out to her how late we were on my watch. So far on this trip, the only thing I have lost is a pocketknife. This is tragic because I used it to cut up an excellent sausage purchased at an open-air market and had plans to buy another. I did try to leave my hat on the road early in the trip, but Doug rescued it. I also had my crocks handed to me by our hosts in Parthenay when I tried to wheel my bike off without them.

Very pleasant and uneventful day today. Most of the day was on the Roger Lapébie Cycle Path, a paved rail-trail that extends 35+ miles from Bordeaux through forests and farmland. Another reason to live in Bordeaux, you could hop on your bike and ride 15 miles of excellent paved bike trail through the countryside to the lovely village of Creon for a morning chocolatine, then return by lunch.

By the way, chocolatine is what was previously called a pain au chocolate on our trip, but not in Bordeaux and surrounding area. It is now called a chocolatine. Very important to know these things when visiting boulangeries around Bordeaux.

The most interesting town of the day might have been Le Réole, but we don’t know because by the time we reached La Réole, we had no time to explore because of our usually time wasting earlier in the day looking at small towns and churches and attempts to find open stores on a holiday Monday (remember most Mondays appear to be holidays). We never did find an open grocery store and my pantry is nearly empty. Fortunately, we still had canelés.

Our host in Bordeaux, Stephane and his dog, because it's always best to own a small dog when living in the city.

Eventually we emerged from the trees to open farm land.

Finally the trail ended in Sauveterre-de-Guyenne and it was farm roads for the last bit.

Glanced left crossing a stream and saw this. Looked it up and it is the "Moulin de Loubens", a mill built in the 14th and 15th century.

La Réole which we passed through at the end of the day with no time to explore.

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Today's ride: 50 miles (80 km)
Total: 671 miles (1,080 km)

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