Smooth Riding 

May 28th

The last two days of riding along the canal on a very bumpy surface sent us searching for smoother terrain.  I remembered riding on the Roger Lapebie trail 10 years ago nearer to Bordeaux and we discovered it was only a few miles north of us.  Off we went to the town of Sauveterre-de-Guyenne.  There is a sign at the trail's beginning commemorating Roger who won the Tour de France in 1937. We only rode about 20 some miles the last two days but because of the wonderful trail we were able to do 32 miles or about 50 kilometers. I love watching the kilometers click by...so much quicker than miles. In addition the scenery was absolutely gorgeous! We rode near small villages and through vineyards much of the way. The rolling hills were covered in vines as far as the eye could see.  It was interesting to us that the vines themselves seemed lower to the ground and smaller than those we have seen in Burgundy.

At our lunch stop we met up with a couple from Victoria, B.C. who have been riding from Paris to Bordeaux for the last 10 days...impressive!  A group of school children passed by us all waving and saying "bonjour"...so cute!

We encountered an area where the vines were being taken out but we weren't sure why.  The foliage did look a little sick so perhaps there was some disease in that particular vineyard.

We spotted a lawn robot...roomba for your yard!

Dinner was again at Au Bureau because we couldn't seem to find any restaurants that were open.  Many were closed until Wednesday or Thursday.  Some just were open until 5pm or even earlier. Such a conundrum?