Bicycle! Bicycle!

Yesterday I decided to spend some time on the bike. The weather was perfect - or maybe a little too warm. Here is the ride:


I took quite a few pictures on the way, too many to put them all in just one post. I will probably organize it in 2 or 3 posts.

Part I: leaving la Baule.


One really nice thing here is that the avenue along the ocean is flat and has a large bike lane - in green here.

The tide was low when I left, and a lot of people are taking advantage of that to go fishing (or picking up shellfish like clams). All the dark shapes over there are people, not birds...


At the end of the beach, a little harbor: it's Le Pouliguen. This place is bringing me back in time. This is where my dad had his sailboat at the beginning. We spent A LOT of vacation just here. Or trying to sail out of the harbor, not always very successfully... good times...

The carousel... The little sister would (really) scream (very loud) to get on it.
And when the tide is low, nobody gets in or out.

On the other side of the harbor are some of the nicest mansions.
Riding through the western streets of Le Pouliguen is very pleasant, with nice buildings,
and lilac bushes everywhere filling the area with their strong fragrances...

I'm a magpie too!

Yesterday I put on my tight pants and hopped on the bike for my first leisure ride here. I decided to head south and rode about 13mi round trip to a small town named Saint Marc and back. It was a little chilly compared to the previous days which was fine with me since the road is a quite hilly. They have made nice bike path on a lot of roads but unfortunately not all of them and I'm sorry to say that most drivers are not that bike-friendly. Oh well. I bought a helmet, I should be fine.

It was a very pleasant ride.
The long sandy beach of La Baule quickly changes into rocky shores.
See the stairs on the side of the cliff?
The scenery is made more dramatic by the crappy weather.

Welcome to La Baule

This is where my road trip in my tiny car ended (a Nissan Micra) on thursday night last week.
La Baule is an ocean town, a resort mostly inhabited by upper class/ upper-middle class parisians in the summer.
The sand beach is one of the longest in Europe. 7km long.
The ocean front is filled with concrete buildings


During the off-season, the streets are quite empty...


This part of the town is called La Baule-les-pins, which means "La Baule-the pine-trees". Guess why.
Notice the local style of the roof here:

This is l'Allée Cavalière (The horse rider alley)
The center part of the street is for horses only.


My mum's place is in La Baule-les-pins. But it's an appartment. Not too shabby, though, with a pleasantly big terrasse


Perfect to enjoy nice drinksand dine looking at the sunset.
(still no ash cloud up there).

Going north

After a few days eating too well and too much, I left my chocolate provider and his wife to take the road again. After leaving Quercy, I drove on the highway for a little while. Boring and expensive...
So I got off and took smaller roads enjoying the scenery.
Saint Benoît-du-Sault:

Winding roads and no one around

And, as I am heading to the next department, the Vienne, trees become scarce.


My goal: Vicq-sur-Gartempe, a small town in Vienne, where my friends are spending their last weeks of vacation.

And their house, the Villa des Iles, built in 1906.

With gardens "à la française", and if you look closer, you will see a bridge in the back: their house is right on the river. Very nice place.


My stop was just for refueling. They welcomed me with paté, stuffed quail, and an awesome dessert:
Truffle brownies from the book of... Martha Stewart!!! These friends just came back from 3 years in New York.
Because the air can be dry, we made sure to have some liquid with all these dishes:


not too shabby. I HAD to have an espresso before climbing back in my tiny ride...

More Quercy

a gargoil in Puylagarde

Check the length of the neck of some of these hens...

Cherry tree flowers




One of the many water mills along the river Bonnette



The petrifying cascade




A sign anouncing a 13th century templar's stronghold
and here is the stronghold:

Chicken invading the backyard

the Quercy

The roads of Quercy are really pretty. Quercy is an historical region in the south west of France surrounding the city of Cahors, where the Malbec originates from.



At this time of the year, flowers are barely blooming in the bright green fields. You can see completely white cherry trees at almost every corner.
You can't drive for very long without entering a village where all the buildings are made of stone.
This one is called Parisot:

In addition to the stone walls, some features are almost always founds in towns of Quercy. A statue of a local Saint or of the Virgin Mary,

A market "hall": here are 2 examples, the first in Puylargarde, the second in Parisot. You can see on the first picture holes in the wall. They were used to measure grain.



And a castle or fortified building, here in Puylagarde


and St Projet (called the castle of Queen Margot because she spent a night there).


In villages, houses are tightly clustered together. It is also true out of villages. "Hameaux" are small clusters of homes in the countryside, usually a few farms grouped together. These are often not farms anymore, but have become secondary homes for city people in need of fresh air,or even primary homes for folks from England or the Netherlands.
My chocolate provider's house is one of them.

Tipically, the living room is actually the kitchen, with a large fire place.


Here is his British neighbor:

A perfect place to rest and recover...