St Malo to Nice

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Tuesday 24th September 37 miles

Breakfast was quite substantial with a good choice of food and 'yoghurts to go'. Before leaving Mende we stocked up on lunch goodies and went off route to find a bike shop as Paul wanted to buy a new chain. According to the guide book there are two good bike shops in Mende and these would be the last we would see until Nice. Paul tried to use his card to pay and it was rejected so he paid with cash.

Soon we were back on the route and on the N88 again heading out of town. It was quite busy in places but we kept tucked into the side of the road. After a few miles we left the N88 for a smaller D road and all was quite again. Paul's phone rang and it was the fraud squad to say somebody had been trying to use his card in Mende. He explained it was him. After the call he realised he had been using the wrong card, he had been trying to use his debit card and we always a different credit card when abroad. The first twenty miles of the journey were uphill but mostly it was a pretty mild gradient and we noted the posts at the road side which marked off the altitude as a slowly increased until the Col de Tribes at 1132m high. This was the source of the river Lot and also the watershed between the Atlantic ocean and the Mediterranean sea. Of course we had to have a photo stop and we were pleased to have made it and surprised that it had been relatively easy. It was cooler and cloudy and had a few attempts at raining but never actually did. Again the surrounding area was forests and rocky outcrops with the occasional house or Chateau. We put our jackets on just before the summit as we knew the descent would be cool. This was the first time we had worn jackets since the first day out of St Malo. We had had yoghurt and nuts sat on a picnic bench in Bagnols les Bains and were lucky that the sun was out for a while and it was a little warmer. We had also found public toilets here and these , like those of he last few days, were the hole in the floor squat down type. I knew the pilates exercises were good for something.

Then it was down, down, down round and round sweeping bends without hardly turning a pedal. We had decided to stop for lunch in Altier as that looked to be the only place of any size but when we got there we were past in minutes so we carried on. We didn't find a bench until we reached Lac de Villefort. The lake was incredibly low but there were still fishermen stood around its sides.

Just before we had reached Lac de Villefort suddenly a Chateau had appeared, off to the side of the road, which was like something out of a fairy story, very old with lots of tall thin turrets with pointed roofs. It was like something straight out of a film set. Apparently it was Chateau du Champ.

Reaching Villefort we found our lodgings for the night which was an apartment about a mile out of town. I had struggled go book any where in this area. The man showed us where to park the bikes and our apartment. We asked about breakfast and he said no they didn't do breakfast. In the correspondence I had had with them they had said they would try to get gluten free bread to go with the breakfast. Well better to find out then than the next morning. The apartment was quite nice and very roomy.

After showers we walked down into town to investigate eating places as I knew we might struggle. The one hotel that the internet had said would be open every day was closed for two days, yesterday and today. Sod's law! We asked at another restaurant but they turned us away. I spotted the tourist information office was open and went in to ask. She said on Tuesday all the restaurants closed except for the kebab snack bar and there was a new one which had only been open a few days and she didn't know their hours. We found the new one and it was an Italian. It said it was open every day except Tuesday. We were just about to go back to the supermarket to buy something to make for tea when a lady was coming across to the shop. We asked if she was open and she said she could open at seven o'clock and would save us a table.

We went to the supermarket to buy cereal bread, yoghurts and fresh orange juice for breakfast. Then we walked back up to the apartment for about an hour and then back down to the Italian. The menu was limited but enough for us to choose. We both had Gnocchi et la Bolognese and it was very filling. Several other people came into the restaurant so it was worthwhile her being open. She was the only staff in doing all the jobs. We thanked her profusely and then walked up the hill again. It must have been a mile into town so that was four miles walked on top of the cycling.

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