About 95 km. Details
Did I say I was starting to feel strong? Well it's a good thing, because today got a bit Darwinian. A glacially slow 6 hours on the bike to cover 95km through rolling hills in severe winds; blowing-small-branches-off-trees severe, the French weather people reckon 60kph this afternoon. Nothing to be done but just gear down, draw on one's experience and plod along. Mercifully, it didn't rain.
Rode from Gers into the Haute-Garonne today. Rolling hills all the way - nothing that you'd really call a climb if it weren't for the wind, but scarcely a flat kilometre for the first five hours or so, typically looking like this:
Beautiful, but not spectacular. I was trying as I rode along to think of a similar landscape in the UK. Herefordshire, maybe? Obviously great farming country, and lots and lots of horses - livery stables, riding schools, studs and La Clinique du Cheval, an obviously well-appointed equine veterinary practice, just up the road from where I'm staying.
Rode through the very attractive old town of Auch (pronounced Aush, I think) this morning.
For the rest of the day it was mainly small farming communities. Having plastered this blog with pictures of churches and chateaux I reflected on how much I like a lot of the domestic architecture, too, some grand traditional houses but also attractive little shuttered terraces forming the main streets of countless villages.
According to the weather forecast it's going to blow a gale tomorrow, too, so I'll keep tomorrow's ride shorter, I think.
2 comments:
Glad to see that the football results are getting through, they reckon that, without Defoe, Sunderland would have been relegated weeks ago! The golf club asked players this weekend to wear blue shirts, and also official Foxes shirts in honour of their title! Don't expect them to wear red in 2 years time when Forest repeat the feat!
You are passing through really impressive looking places with clearly lashings of history which, to my shame, I have never heard of. Keep 'em coming!
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