Vaucluse Dreamer

The joy of cycling and also the frustration of cycling is having to deal with the weather. Two years ago, we were having to fill our water-bottles from taps in cemeteries, as it was over 35 degrees on some days.

This year, we’ve hit the storms at the end of a long summer canicule (heatwave), and have had to manage our cycling (and now the route) around them. We have been lucky so far, and have only got utterly soaked once, managing to stay slightly soggy on a few other occasions, but we’ve been watching the changing forecast like hawks.

Over the last few days, the forecast has been showing this area under heavy rain today, tomorrow and into Tuesday too, with showers after that.

Of course, we don’t mind cycling in the rain, it’s part of a journey and can’t always be avoided, but what we really don’t want is to cycle in the rain, then spend the evening and night in our tent, having to pack it all up, soaking wet, the following day.

It’s this that has caused us the most frustration, as unexpectedly, we really enjoyed our nights in the tent and really wanted to be able to spend most evenings in it. We’d even managed to buy a camping ‘electric-adapter’, so that we could pay for electric to charge our batteries, rather than having to spend an hour standing in the toilet block!

So all of a sudden, we were faced with losing our gentle evenings sitting in our chairs, watching the clouds and eating simple suppers off our chopping board.

On the 2 other trips that we’ve done, we’ve always booked into B&Bs or apartments, so are used to doing it. But when we started to look at the route we had planned to get through to Bordeaux, in time to catch the train back to Aix for the next rugby match on Friday, we found that the accommodation options weren’t easy to find. Also, when we did find somewhere, it was prohibitively expensive, or only allowed 2 nights stay or more.

The more we looked at it, the more we realised that we would have to change the planned route, ensuring that we would be able to find places to stay, if the weather was as bad as it is predicted to be.

So the carefully planned trip through a lot of ‘Les Plus Beaux Villages’ in the Dordogne & Lot et Garonne will have to wait for another time, and I’ve spent this afternoon looking at other routes through, taking into consideration every weather forecast we can find, and the places we will be able to stay too.

To begin with, we have stayed in Mussidan for our much-needed day off the bikes today. By the time we arrived yesterday afternoon, our legs felt sapped of strength and we felt almost incapable of chatting, until we had sat down for a while and had a few glasses of squash. In fact, we had been so tired that I had forgotten to put my helmet on after a late lunch, on a bench yesterday, only realising after we’d pedalled about 2km further on.

Andy kindly offered to cycle back up the hill to find it for me, only to notice it strapped to my pannier rack. I’m glad he noticed, and avoided the ride back up to the village! But it just showed me that we really did need a day off.

So that’s what we have had. A very slow morning with coffee at a local bar, watching the Sunday-morning busy-ness of the small town, as everyone gathered for coffee and a chat after collecting their Rotisserie chickes from the wood-fired mobile rotisserie, parked on the pavement next door.

Then we headed off for a little walk around the area. I’d found a little 8km walk that someone had added to Komoot, which started from the town centre and took a long loop into the countryside. So after coffee, and dropping a baguette back in the apartment, we set off, following the route that I’d found.

It was a lovely walk, along little backroads and forest trails covered in the falling leaves.

It was warm, surprisingly dry and amazingly peaceful, with just the buzzing of insects for company.

I noticed a little extension that we could make to the route and we walked back in through pretty hamlets, with an old tobacco-drying barn & maize-store

And a stunning old mill too

Before arriving back into town, just as the first drops of rain started to fall.

It had been the perfect way to spend the morning of our day off the bikes. A gentle 10km amble in a new place, exploring a little more of the area, whilst we are here.

The other benefit of travelling by bike is that when you visit somewhere new, we have to explore it and find out more about it, as there really isn’t an option to hop in a car and find somewhere else nearby to visit too.

Mussidan is a fascinating town, with a dramatic WW2 history, which saw 52 hostages executed here on 11th June 1944.

The day started with an armoured German train being destroyed by the local FTP (French Tireurs et Partisans) at the town’s station. When the Commander of the German Regiment arrived, he took immediate action demanding that his troops arrest 300 men from the town and the surrounding area.

Men aged between 16 and 60 were arrested along the main road into the town and the houses were searched, with all those arrested being taken to the Town Hall, which is opposite the apartment, where we are staying.

The men were all interrogated by the SS, and were spilt into 2 groups. Those to be executed and those to be released. At just before 7pm, the men over 60, and those injured in war were released and the remainder were again split into 2 groups. The Mayor, who had worked hard to secure the safety of the hostages was told to go home, to await news.

Just after 8pm, the head of the Security Police arrived with almost all his team, together with the North African Auxiliaries (mainly from the Parisian Underworld). The SD selected 50 men, who were taken and executed, a short distance from the Town Hall, and the Mayor, his Deputy and 2 others were executed in the street.

The town was then looted and residents attacked too. It was the largest massacre of civilians in the Dordogne during the war and was one of the 10 largest in France.

It’s almost impossible to imagine the impact that this would have had on the town just 81 years ago (within the living memory of some people, even now.

I don’t think I’ll ever be able to comprehend the brutality of war and the way one human can behave to another in its name.

So once again, we’ve explored another town, in a new area and as ever, it’s been eye-opening in both its history and surroundings.

As I type this, the room is illuminated by lightning flashes, and I’m listening to the thunder rattling, with the rain drumming on the Velux windows above me. I am replanning the route for tomorrow (again)

It looks as if it will be a soggy one, but I have planned a route through to Sainte Foy La Grande and on to Duras, where we have booked to stay for another 2 nights.

Hopefully, the weather will be good enough that we can take a pannier-free ride on Tuesday, which will feel very strange indeed. My legs won’t know themselves, not having to push another 10kg up each hill!

And if all goes well, and the forecast stays as it is today, then hopefully we’ll have a last night in the tent, before we hop on the Roger Lapabie Trail, for the final ride into Bordeaux.

We’ve now pedalled for over 820km, so I imagine that by the time we reach Bordeaux, we’ll have pedalled just over 1000, which isn’t bad for our first cycle tour with a tent.

Listening to the rain, I think it’s time to open a bottle of wine and relax for the rest of the day, content that we’re not in the tent tonight!