Wednesday 26th May.
St Nicholas de la Grave to Serignac-sur-GaronneWe fear the farmer’s efforts may have been in vain as it tipped down with rain for most of the night. However by the morning the sky was blue and everything appeared back to normal.
Au Chateau - very pleasant B&B
Perhaps heavy rain is OK and only hail does the damage. At least we now know why the fruit trees are covered in white netting!
The first boat we've ever seen moving on the canal. The banks are now being strimmed to make it all look very respectable!
St Nicholas de la Grave to Serignac-sur-GaronneWe fear the farmer’s efforts may have been in vain as it tipped down with rain for most of the night. However by the morning the sky was blue and everything appeared back to normal.
Au Chateau - very pleasant B&B
Perhaps heavy rain is OK and only hail does the damage. At least we now know why the fruit trees are covered in white netting!
Netting to protect the fruit from the hail.
We left Au Chateau returning to the canal path and for the first time passed several boats which had been hired out to holiday makers.
The first boat we've ever seen moving on the canal. The banks are now being strimmed to make it all look very respectable!
We have, on our travels, seen people outside caravans sitting on folding chairs, outside Motor Homes – sitting on folding chairs and now we are seeing people on canal boats – sitting on folding chairs. Is this we ask ourselves how people in mobile, static or afloat homes spend their days?
It is curious cycling along the route we took last year albeit in the opposite direction. It all looks rather different and the names mean very little until we arrive somewhere. We are trying hard not to visit the same places so managed to visit Valence for the first time which would have been worthy of a longer look, but we just had a glance at the centre, bought our picnic and had to get on as we had a long day ahead. We followed the canal to Agen (Home to the world’s finest prunes) where we had stayed back in October last year. We did not like it then, but this time looked rather more attractive in the sunshine. However it is very noisy. After a completely silent day on the canal it is a horrid sensation arriving on the outskirts of any town and finding yourselves surrounded by traffic and such a lot of movement and activity. We really wonder how we will cope back in towns/cars/roads at home.
We visited the tourist office to find out how to progress up the Lot river towards Bergerac as this was our plan, and we had read that there is a bike route between the 2. I became mildly irritated with the lady helping us, as when we asked her if she knew how we started on the route towards Villeneuve sur Lot, she said that we had to go there and ask them as they would know! However I think I must be becoming more tolerant as I let this somewhat stupid suggestion pass!
We then went to the train station to see if we could take the train to Bergerac as we hope to take in the Dordogne on the next phase of the route. We were told that the direct one left half an hour ago, the next one leaves at 7.30 but goes via Bordeaux (not on our agenda) and that we couldn’t go tomorrow as there is a national strike so Friday would be the earliest we would go anywhere by train. As we didn’t want to spend the night in Agen it was back to the Office du Tourisme who did manage to find us somewhere to spend the night about 7 miles to the west. They booked us into Le Prince Noir in Serignac which gave Vivi a sense of déjà vu because she sensed she’d stayed there with her parents too long ago to mention. It was OK but we felt a little pretentious (it was one of those dining rooms where you have to talk in a whisper as it might detract from the food experience, and since most of them were business men on their own, they managed this, but we struggled) And the food wasn’t even very good either, but they were kind and it was a pretty place.
It is curious cycling along the route we took last year albeit in the opposite direction. It all looks rather different and the names mean very little until we arrive somewhere. We are trying hard not to visit the same places so managed to visit Valence for the first time which would have been worthy of a longer look, but we just had a glance at the centre, bought our picnic and had to get on as we had a long day ahead. We followed the canal to Agen (Home to the world’s finest prunes) where we had stayed back in October last year. We did not like it then, but this time looked rather more attractive in the sunshine. However it is very noisy. After a completely silent day on the canal it is a horrid sensation arriving on the outskirts of any town and finding yourselves surrounded by traffic and such a lot of movement and activity. We really wonder how we will cope back in towns/cars/roads at home.
We visited the tourist office to find out how to progress up the Lot river towards Bergerac as this was our plan, and we had read that there is a bike route between the 2. I became mildly irritated with the lady helping us, as when we asked her if she knew how we started on the route towards Villeneuve sur Lot, she said that we had to go there and ask them as they would know! However I think I must be becoming more tolerant as I let this somewhat stupid suggestion pass!
We then went to the train station to see if we could take the train to Bergerac as we hope to take in the Dordogne on the next phase of the route. We were told that the direct one left half an hour ago, the next one leaves at 7.30 but goes via Bordeaux (not on our agenda) and that we couldn’t go tomorrow as there is a national strike so Friday would be the earliest we would go anywhere by train. As we didn’t want to spend the night in Agen it was back to the Office du Tourisme who did manage to find us somewhere to spend the night about 7 miles to the west. They booked us into Le Prince Noir in Serignac which gave Vivi a sense of déjà vu because she sensed she’d stayed there with her parents too long ago to mention. It was OK but we felt a little pretentious (it was one of those dining rooms where you have to talk in a whisper as it might detract from the food experience, and since most of them were business men on their own, they managed this, but we struggled) And the food wasn’t even very good either, but they were kind and it was a pretty place.
No comments:
Post a Comment