Day 25: Cahors to Fumel

62 km. Details

I shouldn't say au revoir to Cahors without posting a couple of pictures of its signature 14th century bridge.

Pont Valentré

Having crossed it, there followed a very leisurely saunter along the Vallée du Lot. The Lot is perhaps the most winding river I know, it absolutely snakes along. The valley, however, of which I knew nothing, is very beautiful;

Douelle

Albas

and was made more so by an absolutely excellent lunch in a café in Touzac, owned by a woman from Essex. Goats cheese salad followed by confit chicken leg with cajun seasoning, and frites. Ideal for the bicyclist. Dirt cheap, too.

Vineyards right and left today, and virtually all of them open for tastings and sales. One could spend a very happy couple of weeks here enjoying the scenery while making oneself an expert on the Cahors A.O.C. From what I've been reading, viticulture is very old here, having been started by the Romans. Apparently Cahors wine was being exported via Bordeaux long before the latter region started winemaking on its own account.

The vines were close enough to the roadside for me to have a good look at them as I rode by. Whereas a couple of weeks ago they were just coming into leaf, now the fruit is already beginning to set, I could see embryonic bunches of grapes forming. All happens pretty fast once the sun is shining.

I was thinking today what it is about bicycle touring that I like so much. Obviously, I like cycling. It isn't just that, though; after all, there's nothing to stop me spending 25 hours a week on the bike when I'm at home, if I wanted. And if it was just the cycling I could easily drive to the Pyrenees, say, and take a road bike with me to cycle to my heart's content when there. Nothing wrong with that, I may well do it sometime. So why use the bike as the means of transport as well as recreation? It's slow, it can be hard work, it's sometimes wet and cold.

It's something to do with the immediacy of the experience. A car or a train insulates you from the places you are passing through, everything is about the destination rather than the journey, whereas on a bike one is in the open and travelling at a pace that makes one aware of the surroundings. And, of course, being limited to a maximum of around 150 km per day means one can't just bypass chunks of the country to get where one wants to go - I feel that I connect with the places I ride though, and stop in for a coffee, and so on. The journey becomes the point, rather than just something that has to be got out of the way. On the bike I feel like a traveller rather than just a visitor, if that makes any sense.

Whatever. Tomorrow I shall start heading back north.