Tour de gras: The region around Cahors.

This is a shot of Bill, Sue and Teresa riding through vineyards on the south bank of the Lot, to the west of Cahors. Most of the wine grapes in the region seem to be grown in the flood plain. There are also some that are grown on hillsides (less) and some grown up in the causse (seemingly even less).

Click on images to get larger version.
Back to main page.
Next page, Previous page.

August 29th

Bouzies to Cahors(31.9k; 1:59 hrs; 16 avg kph)

We had breakfast in the hotel. Buffet style, and rather generous, though we got to breakfast late enough so that there was a croissant shortage. No stores of any sort in Bouzies, so we left town without knowing where our next calories were to come from! Somehow we were able to contain the panic.

We stopped in St. Gery, which had a very nice boulangerie, and a small alimentation. The woman in the food store was very reserved in spite of Bill's attempt to charm her. She eventually came alive when discussing the dangers of the road we were on during the height of summer (which it was no longer) and how unsafe it was then for cycling.

We continued on an uneventful, and not very interesting ride into Cahors. In Cahors we went to the train station to try to determine our options for getting back to Paris on September 1st. After crashing one of the SNCF ticket machines (I watched it rebooting from BIOS), I went to talk to an SNCF agent about our options. The particular I was concerned with, which didn't seem to be a problem, was making sure we could take our bicycles. There seemed no lack of trains on which we could do that, but it was too late to make non-smoking reservations for any of the trains on September 1st, except for ones that were later in the day than we wanted (we were hoping to have dinner in Paris with Bill's dad). Eventually, I purchased (in my pidgin french) 4 tickets without seat reservations on a 12:45 train to the Gare d'Austerlitz.

Originally, we had talked about continuing west beyond Cahors, but the clouds looked even a bit more threatening than usual, and by the time we were done at the train station, it was around 3pm. So we rode back into downtown Cahors and looked for a hotel. We found a place in a nice location (on a street just off the square with the cathedral, and next to a nice market in the medieval town), Hôtel La Paix. But of the places we stayed on this trip, this was one of only two (the other being the Hotel le Pont in Cajarc) that I'd avoid if I were in one of these towns again. The staff was friendly, but the rooms were especially dingy and the beds were especially hammock like (in fact we did avoid it when we spent the night of August 31 in Cahors also).

After checking in, we had lunch outside in the square near the cathedral, and then explored the cathedral during a degagee which we think might be the word for when the skies open up and disgorge a torrent of rain. Then we strolled around the town, had some coffee, and returned to our rooms for a rest before dinner. Cahors is supposed to be a sun-warmed "southern" town. Well, not today.

For dinner that night, since we weren't very hungry after a not-terribly-demanding ride, we went to the pleasant Crèperie Le Baladin. I had some rather painful G.I upset, and didn't eat too much (it was a mistake ordering a boar-ham gallette when my stomach was already upset, though the chocolate crepe for dessert went quite well). Then we walked back to the hotel (crawled in my case) and went to bed.

August 30th

Cahors to Puy-l'Evêque (49.5k; 3:18 hrs; 15.1 avg kph)

Breakfast in the hotel, then we rode up to the main street, Boulevard Gambetta, found internet access, and made a hotel reservations for the 31st in a much more pleasant hotel (the Hôtel à l'escargot on 5 Boulevard Gambetta). Our computer business took a little while since the connection to the outside world went down. The shopkeeper blamed it on the phone company, and said this happens once a day at some random time.

We left Cahors sometime after 11, heading east over the impressive Pont Valentre (Cahors proper is on a peninsula surrounded on three sides by the Lot. The Pont Valentre is presumably one of the medieval entrances and is a cross between a bridge and a fortress.) We then headed west on the D8.
Here is a view of the pont from the southeast.

And here is another view along the bridge from the east side.
Our first stop was a small dégustation in Douelle, Domaine Marcilhac. The tasting room was a small pleasant cellar just a couple blocks south of the center of town on the D12. The woman running the tasting room appeared from another building when we rang the bell, and unlocked the door for us. She was happy to give us (and sell us) wine, and happy to chat, but not about wine.

We walked back down to the main drag in Douelle, which is a pretty street along the Lot, and sat down to drink some coffee at a corner café and watch the water float by. Douelle was very pretty and pleasant in an unremarkable sort of way. I almost wished we were staying at the little hotel there (The Hôtel le vieux Douelle) which looked very pleasant, and had a swimming pool). Next time we're cycling in the Lot, we'll stay there and take day trips for wine tasting!

From Douelle, we crossed the Lot, and continued along the north bank of the river. Not much further on, we came to a rather grand looking winery, Domaine de Lagrézette outside of Caillac. This was a rather more serious winery; the man running the tasting room was very pleasant and talkative. I believe we left with two bottles of Cahors, and a 1.5 liter of their Fenelon (in addition to the bottle we had from Domaine Marcilhac). Bill was carrying the bulk of this, including one bottle of rather expensive (by our standards) but _very_ good wine from Lagrézette. We had a little lunch right outside of Lagrézette and then continued toward Luzech.

One more dégustation, near Caïx, just outside of Luzech. This was at the Chateau de Caïx, a lovely looking smaller chateau with a tasting room in an outbuilding. Again, nothing going on, but when we wheeled up a woman appeared from the main chateau to give us some wine. We left with a Cahors, and a blush wine (also malbec).

At this point we'd used a fair amount of the day. We continued on the south bank on the D8, which rose above the flood plain and so was a little bit hilly in places even though we were never far from the Lot. The towns we went through were very sleepy after Luzech (which was also prettty sleepy); no place to buy an Orangina, and it was getting fairly hot. Because it was getting late, we decided to cross the Lot at Castelfranc and take the D911 into Puy-l'Evêque, even though this looked like a busy road. It would save us a couple meanders of the Lot (and an unexpected detour it turned out).
We stopped briefly in Prayssac (which was pretty, but busy and full of loud mopeds) for the deferred Oranginas, and continued to Puy-l'Evêque.

Puy-l'Evêque is distributed along the side of a hill (more like a cliff in places). From the top there is a great view down into the valley to the west. We settled on the Hôtel La Truffière, which is a member of the "Logis de France." It was very nice, though a bit larger and more chain-like than the other hotels we'd been in. It was at the top of town, so had nice views from the front, and from across the street. We checked in about 6, took much needed showers, and then drank our blush wine from Chateau de Caïx in our hotel room.

After our apéritif we headed out to hunt down dinner. Now if you haven't noticed, we tended to have large meals at the end of each day, so naturally we also tend to skip the hotel restaurants since we really need as long a walk as possible after dinner! In this case we chose a restaurant at the bottom of the hill - the Restaurant Henry. This turned into a very long and leisurely dinner; the food was good, but the service was very slow (even by the standard of long leisurely dinners in country restaurants in France). I think by the time dinner was over, the four of us had consumed 4.5 bottles of wine (on top of our "apéritif" before the restaurant). So we managed to roll back up the hill to bed.

August 31st

Puy-l'Evêque to Cahors (54.8k; 3:27 hrs; 16 avg kph)
Here we are in the morning, about to set out back to Cahors. We are across the street from our hotel, with the camera pointing southwest and the Lot down below. The day's plan is to ride back east along the Lot, but taking different roads than the ones we took coming west on the previous day.

Here is a slightly better view of the scenery, unobscured by those funny looking bicyclists.

Leaving Puy-l'Evêque, we cross to the south bank of the Lot, and try to ride along the D8. We follow one meander of the Lot (up above the flood plain where it is slightly hilly to a village called Lagardelle. The road is clearly marked at that point to indicate that one can't get through.
Does that stop us? No! We're just dumb tourists, maybe we can't read french. We continue to the next village, where the road is now marked that one isn't _allowed_ to go any further. Well, we figure we've gone that far and can still negotiate the road, so we press on. After another kilometer or two, we come to a place where the road becomes impassable construction rubble as far as the eye can see. We consider carrying our bicycles, but instead we backtrack to Lagardelle, and cross to the north bank of the Lot again.
Now we ride on the (busy) D911 to Prayssac (very short), and then turn south to cross the Lot again at Juillac, where we can get onto very small roads again. That is where I take this picture, which I especially like. We saw lots of vineyards, but this is the only time I was able to get a good picture of the vines with the bicyclists in the picture.

We contine on the D8. Today going through Luzech there is a big fair in progress. Teresa and I get separated from Sue and Bill for a few minutes. Eventually we find them at a crossroads where some locals shout some obscenities at us, and we move on (I thought this only happened in Florida).

On the last leg from Douelle into Cahors on the D12, an unnamed road and the D27 in order to come into town from the southwest. We check into the Hôtel à l'Escargot; nice suite with two rooms overlooking a church. Surprisingly not too noisy even though we are on Boulevard Gambetta. After showers and a bottle of Cahors in our room, we have a light dinner in a brasserie on Boulevard Gambetta.

Next page, Previous page.

	One more dégustation, near Caïx, just outside of Luzech. This was at the Chateau de Caïx, a lovely looking smaller chateau with a tasting room in an outbuilding. Again, nothing going on, but when we wheeled up a woman appeared from the main chateau to give us some wine. We left with a Cahors, and a blush wine (also malbec).
	At this point we'd used a fair amount of the day. We continued on the south bank on the D8, which rose above the flood plain and so was a little bit hilly in places even though we were never far from the Lot. The towns we went through were very sleepy after Luzech (which was also prettty sleepy); no place to buy an Orangina, and it was getting fairly hot. Because it was getting late, we decided to cross the Lot at Castelfranc and take the D911 into Puy-l'Evêque, even though this looked like a busy road. It would save us a couple meanders of the Lot (and an unexpected detour it turned out). We stopped briefly in Prayssac (which was pretty, but busy and full of loud mopeds) for the deferred Oranginas, and continued to Puy-l'Evêque.
Puy-l'Evêque is distributed along the side of a hill (more like a cliff in places). From the top there is a great view down into the valley to the west. We settled on the Hôtel La Truffière, which is a member of the "Logis de France." It was very nice, though a bit larger and more chain-like than the other hotels we'd been in. It was at the top of town, so had nice views from the front, and from across the street. We checked in about 6, took much needed showers, and then drank our blush wine from Chateau de Caïx in our hotel room.
After our apéritif we headed out to hunt down dinner. Now if you haven't noticed, we tended to have large meals at the end of each day, so naturally we also tend to skip the hotel restaurants since we really need as long a walk as possible after dinner! In this case we chose a restaurant at the bottom of the hill - the Restaurant Henry. This turned into a very long and leisurely dinner; the food was good, but the service was very slow (even by the standard of long leisurely dinners in country restaurants in France). I think by the time dinner was over, the four of us had consumed 4.5 bottles of wine (on top of our "apéritif" before the restaurant). So we managed to roll back up the hill to bed.