Toulouse-Bordeaux Part 4

Days 9  - 11: Meilhan to Bordeaux

10km on next morning we had to leave the cycle path, which finishes abruptly for reasons unknown.

Our route took us north on quietish, undulating roads, north across La Garonne to La Réole, where we stopped for obligatory refreshments. We were approached by an Englishman called William who overheard us talking -he was staying locally and conversation revealed that he has a son who has lived in Wellington for quite some time. He invited us for supper and we said that if he could throw in a patch of ground for our tent we’d be delighted.

This meant a detour of a few kilometres through wonderful (=hilly) wine country, including some of the more famous Chateaux. Past an old mill, which is still extremely picturesque. We stopped to ask for directions at a small village, which turned out to have a well-preserved Romanesque church and the local we had stopped to talk to showed us around.

William, who lives in England, runs summer classes in France on sustainable living. When we arrived he was bottling ginger beer and the following morning they were planting beans. He works with a large patch of land planted in several gardens. We spent a lovely evening there and have promised to return the favour when he is in Wellington later in the year.

Once we reached Sauveterre, a lovely little fortified town with a fantastic pâtisserie (don’t you just LOVE biking?), there was a great voie verte to follow almost all the way to Bordeaux. It had once been a railway line, so there were extensive straight sections and only gentle rises and falls. Well sign-posted and lane-marked at intersections, it was the first well-developed cycle path we had come across, and even had a tunnel! It was fun riding past old stations, some of which had been converted into bars, cycle renting centres or restaurants. (A bar usually means a place we can sit outside with a drink, which may be an innocuous as water or as strong as a low alcohol beer.)

 

We had to go off the path again to find the camping ground at Créon, a pleasant enough place, with a snack bar where they let us charge our gear. Lots of lovely people there, and a few lovely dogs. We even met a family from Botswana, travelling with a large camper van. He couldn’t quite believe that we were biking around France. He talked about the diamond trade and found France expensive.

The voie verte finished just before we hit the Garonne again and the run into Bordeaux was along cycle paths on quiet roads. The Garonne is wide at this point and there were some very pretty views. Especially noticeable were enormous gates leading to mansions, which had belonged to the rich, who used to get to their houses by boat in the day.