Day 59: Les Roches de Condrieu to Tournons - Tain - Grampies Go To England and France Fall 2022

November 4, 2022

Day 59: Les Roches de Condrieu to Tournons - Tain

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The reviews of our B&B had mentioned a really fabulous breakfast, but it did not materialize for us. Consequently I was still hungry when we hit the bakery down the road. Dodie went in, promising to find something nourishing, but I demanded a millefeuille. Here it is:

To compensate for this sinful treat, I am providing at least a photo of some of the other offerings:

We went back over that, for us, great bridge. It does seem a bit extreme that cars have to queue with a traffic light system to cross in one direction at a time, while bikes and pedestrians get most of the space,

Over the bridge, we could begin to look at the pleasant views of river and hills that we would have all day.

We quickly came to a classic route barree, but this one clearly was going to be no match for us. Surprisingly, another cyclist that arrived at this poit just as we did, took a look at the sign and retreated. It was a surprisingly meek performance.

Just for the record, we are on the Rhone now, and have a pretty straight shot to the sea. Over the next week we will tick off the great towns all the way down. Some of these are super famous with us, mainly for food. There is Tain-l'Hermitage, home of the famous ValRhona chocolates, Montelimar, home of nougat, and Arles, for the greatest Saturday market we know. These towns and more are not only famous with us, but have been destinations in France for decades. They are bound up with the mythology of the National 7 road, the French equivalent of Route 66. The B&B last night had a magazine extolling the route and covering each town along the way. I meant to look at this carefully, but forgot.

We encountered yet another memorial for a slain resistance fighter. We find these so sad.

The memorial, overlooking the river, is quite substantial for a single victim.

The day continued with very pleasant if not totally stunning views to surrounding villages. The path quality and signage were great, and we just sailed along, despite the fact of light rain.

At one point we ran into a large flock of sheep, accompanied by several goats. They were unique, we thought, by virtue of having brown legs. We have never seen that before.

After mid day we began to pass through an intensive agricultural area, with lots of fruit tree orchards, plus brassica and other field crops, and some grapes. We like to look at how or what these crops are doing, and also to assess how well the trees are pruned. We generally thought these trees were not happy, but it's hard to tell this late in the season.

Maybe these will look better in another season.

When we arrived at Tournon, we had an entirely different scene, but an agreeable one. The buildings of the main street are lined up parallel to the river, but there is a large space between them and the water. This is made up of parks and parking lots. Then there is the river, and across the water both hills and the sister town of Tain l'Hermitage. We quickly came to our hotel, the Chaumiere, and to some sort of chateau just beside. We decided not to stop at the hotel yet, because we had the chocolate factory in our sights. ValRhona chocolate is across the bridge in Tain. We had been there before, dragging home a pile of chocolates for the family. We later found ValRhona at Trader Joe's - what a downer for having done all that transport!

The buildings are on the right, the water is on the left.

The arrangement gave a feeling of space and of being able to see where stuff was.

Far on the other side, a wine producer identifies its vineyard.

A passerelle takes pedestrians and bikes over to Tain. We crossed with a lot of others out for the excursion. We passed four people who were not speaking French, and I speculated on what their language was. Soon one of the four addressed me, but in French. I found out that their language was Greek, but the lady had learned French in Africa. That's all the time there was for what must have been an interesting life story. We forged on to chocolate heaven.

One of the big things for us at ValRhona in the past was unlimited sampling of chocolate flavours in the boutique. Clearly that could not last, and now they were selling a multimedia educational presentation on chocolate and the company's strides in fair trade and ecological preservation, that included ten free samples. The samples were built into the presentation, as they wanted to discuss what the flavours were all about. We, however, just wanted to gobble chocolate.

We appreciated the careful attention to cyclists.

ValRhona is on the iconic but busy National 7. We snuck over to it along the river rather than down the road.

Sweet, bitter, or sour, let's have another sample!

Some of the stuff in the presentation involved simplistic tablet apps, like this one that collected some preference info and then recommended chocolate flavours.

In this room they tried to give the feeling of being in a chocolate growing area.

A demonstration of chocolate enrobing, It was impossible to get close because of the gaggle of kids enthralled by the process.

An upstairs section dealt at length not only with chocolate sculptures like this one, but mainly with stories of baking with chocolate.

This app tried to teach me to make ganache, but it froze. I think I did not mix my ingredients enough.

In the boutique, here is an Advent Calendar.

The boutique had way way more stuff than Trader Joe. Of course we could only look. But we did coose one thing - a large bag of seconds, which were called Cabosses.

It was almost dark as we sped back across the passerelle and to our hotel. Surprisingly it boasted only a single star, but it has everything, and we are very happy with our large room, and the fact that the bikes got a spot in the cafe. The room layout is strange, because it has two identical halves. At first we thought one wall was a mirror, but no, there are two beds.

We had worn our full rain gear for most of the day, because of forecast heavy rain, and it did come, but half an hour after we were safely in our room. It really did pour, though, and we were pleased to watch it from inside. Tomorrow is forecast to be really cold, if clear, and we are dragging out our extra clothes. Hey, I thought we came South to avoid that!

We were excited to find that tomorrow, Saturday, there will be a market here in Tournons, and a bigger one in Tain. We will visit both, since our policy is to attend all markets. We are hoping to find BBQ chicken and potatoes this time around!

Today's ride: 65 km (40 miles)
Total: 2,589 km (1,608 miles)

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Gregory GarceauWhile I don't share your appreciation for pastries, chocolate, ice cream and big 10-jammer breakfasts, I just wanted to check in to say I do like how you've made those things a recurring theme throughout your journal. Keep it up the fine authorship.
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2 years ago

Steve Miller/GrampiesTo Gregory GarceauThanks Gregory!
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2 years ago