In another news, I think I have resolved the clacking noise on my bike. I removed the pedal to set about inspecting the bearings, and it came off the crank fairly easily. After regreasing the threads and refitting it, the noise seems to have disappeared. At least it didn't reveal itself in the 10 miles over to Parthenay.
Once here, one of the other English tourists described the place quite aptly by singing The Specials with "This town (aah, aah) is getting like a ghost town". But what a beautiful ghost town it is. As we passed through the deserted streets of the town centre, we stumbled upon a clock tower. A passageway forking off to the left of it, I thought, would take us through to someone's back garden or something, but it opened out into some spectacular views across the town.
In the centre of the town there is a citadel, surrounded by a rather grand wall. Historically, the religious [nuts] which held power and the politicians would live within these walls, separated from those of a lower class. Beautiful scenery can be observed from all angles from this vantage point, and the buildings contained within are themselves something to marvel at. Although we didn't know a thing about this place before visiting today, I think Jwan deserves some brownie points for picking this place out and suggesting we head over here rather than back towards the coast.
One thing I keep forgetting to mention is the hedgehogs. With all the cycling we've been doing and especially in the last couple of days, I'm not sure whether we've been coming across more monuments dedicated to Jesus, or more squished hedgehogs in the road. We've seen one live hedgehog at a campsite in the first week, but tens and tens of dead ones on the roads. It's probably best to point out that all the Jeebuses we've been seeing are also dead. Thanks for dying for our sins Jeebus. I love you, Jeebus...
We had a bit of a campsite conundrum today. The one we stayed at last night is relatively expensive at €14 a night, boasting a number of facilities we're not going to use such as a water slide, bike rentals, a games room and so on. So on the way back from lovely Parthenay we kept an eye out for alternaives. Tomorrow we've decided to head east towards a nice looking place called Le Blanc, so any site found would take us a little closer to our destination. The first one, camping à la ferme, was in a nice little location and would have cost us €11.10 for the night. The second one we found was a municipal site and would have cost €8.20. We decided this was perfect, but by the time we returned to our current site, neither of us could be bothered to pack everything up just to get it all out again 30 minutes later. It seems our laziness (or if you can think of of a verb that takes more of the blame off us, use that please!) has cost us an extra €5.80 for tonight.
We only have 7 or so cycling days left so we're trying to plan out a nice circular loop that takes us back towards the coast (for a day on the beach) and Saintes where we get picked up at the end of the trip. If we stretch ourselves, we might be able to make it to Clermont-Ferrand, which is meant to be a nice place, but only time will tell if we'll be able to make it that far.
Hi Stu,
ReplyDeleteGreat photos as we have come to expect :) Did you not get to the beach?
Not sure that Jeebus really did die for our sins. According to the good book, he rose up again on the third day and had it away on his toes. I think he faked the whole thing and wanted a fresh start - probably started the first Pilates classes with his mate Pontius.
M & G x x
Hello :-)
DeleteWe made the decision to make our way inland rather than head west again to the area we'd already explored. We will be going to the coast though towards the end of the trip, as we'll be getting picked up in Saintes. It won't be Les Sables though :(
Hope you're okay and miss you both x