September 11, 2000
Besse-et-Saint-Anastasie
We awoke about 7:30, both feeling very well rested but anxious about our bikes. With luck they’ll arrive on the 10:45 flight from Paris and we’ll be back on schedule. With luck, we’ll have a beautiful day’s ride ahead under clear skies. We’ve arrived in the middle of what hopefully will be a long spell of gorgeous biking weather.
After a buffet breakfast we lounged around until about 10:30 and then optimistically packed up and walked back to the airport terminal to meet the morning flight from Paris. What a beautiful sight - two bikes, neatly boxed, in fine shape! In retrospect it all worked out quite well - other than for a spot of anxiety, we are on the road well rested after a full nights sleep.
Clermont-Ferrand is a nearly perfect airport to begin a bike tour from - after only a few hundred yards we’re on a quiet, carefree rural highway. This first day’s ride was fairly short, quiet throughout the day, but quite strenuous. The first third was leisurely, passing through small towns and villages bordering on the Allier River; but after that the road moved out of the valley into more rugged terrain for the rest of the day.
We broke for lunch at St. Saturnin, a small village with a beautiful stone 12th century Romanesque church and chateau. I love these churches, which remind me of the ones we visited eight years earlier when we passed through east of here on our first trip to France. After visiting the church we stopped in at the only open cafe in town for a great dessert - ice cream with crepe de menthe and a citron presse.
The rest of the day’s ride was beautiful but tough - we steadily gained altitude as we traveled south, surrounded by rolling hills and occasional small volcanic cones. We were both ready to leave the saddle by the time we finally pulled in to Besse about 5 PM.
Besse is a very pretty village. It is situated on a hilltop high on the central Auvergne plateau in the midst of beautiful green surroundings. The medieval center is quite well preserved with a number of the fine grey stone buildings with dark grey slate roofs characteristic of the Auvergne. We stayed here for two nights, at a Logie hotel in the center, opposite the 12th century church.
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Today's ride: 65 km (40 miles)
Total: 65 km (40 miles)
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