October 23, 2021
Créon to Bordeaux
My advice: if you make it as far as Créon, you may as well continue to Bordeaux. It's quick and easy. We even considered doing so ourselves, but we were determined to camp one last time. We're glad we did, although it was, without a doubt, the coldest morning we have faced on this tour. The saving grace was that we needed to use up the last of the camp stove's fuel, so we boiled and drank a lot of water. We also used the hair dryers in the sanitaires to thaw our fingers before setting out. Even so, we were freezing again as soon as we rolled out of camp. At 10am, no less!
To avoid retracing our steps, we took a series of back roads to return to the trail. I kept expecting them to fade to dirt or worse, but the route worked perfectly. The rail trail ended suddenly a few kilometers after we reconnected with it, then we rode the east bank of the Garonne until we reached the bridge that would bring us to Bordeaux.
This is the point at which I say, "We did it! We rode from Toulouse to Bordeaux on the Canal des 2 Mers cycle route!" It's true, and we're happy, and the tour is over, and I think of all these wonderful things that I will summarize later. I'm a little tired, but I want to keep going. I'd at least like to go to the end of the route at Royan. Part of it is my drive to see things through to their completion, and part is that I don't want to give up life on the road.
We found our hotel easily, and they let us check in really early. This allowed us to rest a while before sightseeing. We rode the length of the beautiful and seemingly endless waterfront. We went to the Jardin des Plantes and enjoyed a sorbet. We stopped briefly at the cathedral and the basilica. The one thing all these places had in common is that they were all bustling with people. Life is slowly returning to normal. You can feel it.
We could also feel the sun waning. We were getting chilly again, so we returned the bikes to their stable in the hotel garage, changed in to some warmer clothes, and walked to a Morrocan restaurant. We celebrated the end of the tour in stereotypical fashion:
Today's ride: 37 km (23 miles)
Total: 2,872 km (1,784 miles)
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