September 4, 2019
Mas d’Argenais
That was better
We started off gingerly around Agen, Ken showed me some of the places he had found yesterday as like a native he zipped ar0und the streets with me nervously trailing behind. In particular the 12th century Cathedral is wonderful. From the outside it isnt anything particularly wonderful but the entire inside is covered by wonderful paintings that represent the coming of Christianity to the region. It was then to the Railway Station and over the iron bridge which was to take us across the tracks and onto the canal. The canal leaving Agen goes over a very long bridge over the Garonne - it must be over a kilometre long (Ken says that is a gross exaggeration) and I refused to ride it knowing that the most likely thing was that the bike and I would end up swimming in the canal. After that all returned to normal and we were spinning along the cycleway. At first the canal went through a deep cutting and we were well above it on a very shady path, it reminded me quite a lot of riding beside the Canal de Niverna. Once we emerged from that we were in an agricultural area. There were a lot off plantings of Kiwi Fruit however many of them were in a sorry state. There were however new plantings. Of interest to us was how different the way they were grown looked from the way Kiwi Fruit is grown in NZ. In NZ shelter belts always surround plantings and the vines are invariably grown on overhead trellises. Here there was no shelter and the trellising looked more like high grape trellising, There were large areas of apple orchards as well and these looked superb. It seemed to us that today was the first day of the apple harvest and the red ones in particular looked wonderful
At the Port de Buzet-sur-Baise there was a wonderful pull of stop with a cafe and large lawns planted with trees that sloped down to the canal and the Port de Plaissance. As it was 11.30 they hadn’t started serving lunch so we sat in the shade drinking coffee and talking to some very interesting English people - one of the couples lives in St Jean Pierre de Port and with the upcoming Brexit are feeling very pleased that they have taken out French Citizenship. Our other amusement was watch the automatic lawn mower to see what it did to mole hills and wonder if it would go for a swim in the canal. It was after 12.30 before we pushed on and not long until we found a very rare table in the shade so stopped for our picnic. This part of the canal from Buzet to Mas d’Agenaise is a particularly beautiful part of the cycleway and certainly well used. Today we were seeing lots of cycle tourists but of course with school now back none of those delightful family groups.
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Mas d’Agenaise is a tiny village set high above the river. We were early for our check in and spent time looking at the the church much of it dating from the 12th century - in particular the capitals are magnificent largely because most of them are inside out of the ravages of the weather. We are staying in an old village house which despite having no air cond if beautifully cool. Our room is lovely with a terrace looking over the canal and our host charming. he is cooking us dinner which is a good thing otherwise we would starve as there are no open services in the village
Today's ride: 53 km (33 miles)
Total: 1,805 km (1,121 miles)
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