I wanted to make an early start to beat the heat. I woke to dripping trees in the garden, or was it still raining? In any case, I'd asked for breakfast at 7 and besides, last time I started on a cool showery morning, it was 35 plus by mid-afternoon.
I was rolling out of Foix by 7:45 and started climbing right away. The first 9 km or so to Serres-sur-Arget was retracing my return to Foix yesterday but today I continued on D 17. Just on the other side of Serres were the signs about Col des Marrous and Col de Péguère. There was no mention of Col de Jouels between those two or of Col de Portel or Col de la Crouzette further on. That's right, today's route included 5 cols.
Somebody with a sense of humour altered this "watch for cattle on road" sign and gave me a smile!
The coolness was a relief after the heat of the last few days. There were some light showers but mostly mist in the air. At Col des Marrous I turned on my rear light because visibility was less than 50 m and I prefer to be visible to overtaking vehicles, not that there were very many. However, one guaranteed way to have a car come along is to try to find a place to pee by the side of the road.
Misty and cold at Col des Marrous. That yellow arrow is from one of the Cyclotourisme routes yesterday--riders would have been coming from the opposite direction and the arrow directed them to turn onto a road leading north, back eventually to Le Mas-d'Azil.
When planning this trip, I had seen on Google Maps that D 17 made a sharp turn southeast here and connected to D 618 rather directly. I had looked at Street View and thought I might go that way. I even put it on my planned route! On the ground, however, an 18% downhill grade in poor visibility, on a road indicated as "difficult or dangerous" was not a good choice and I continued on the better road, now D 72.
D 72 would take me over Col de Portet and past La Tour Laffont with a good viewpoint (apparently). As it happened, La Tour Laffont wasn't a tower, though perhaps there had been one there in the past, and what view there might have been was completely obscured by the fog.
The temperature as indicated by my Garmin was 12C as I was working my way up, quite comfortable for climbing. At the top, Col de Portel, it felt warmer, and sure enough, Garmin said 18C. I didn't stay long since there was no view today, only fog, and after mounting my front light, started down. I can hear approaching cars as I slowly climb, but whistling wind on descents makes it hard to hear. So hence the light. As it turned out, I didn't go that fast this time.
Then I started getting cold and sure enough, I could watch the temperature dropping on my Garmin as I descended. I stopped and put on my jacket but it was a long slow descent and by the time I got to the bottom at Biert, I was really cold. Biert looked big enough to have a restaurant, and it did, but closed. Mondays or forever, I don't know. The tiny épicerie had fresh bread, a couple of choices of prepackaged cheese (I chose Roquefort because it was small enough to eat all of it), and a few sad-looking apricots. I ate my lunch sitting on a bench across the street in the tiny plaza around the village war memorial.
I continued along D 618, a pleasant route following first the Arac River and then the Salat to St-Girons. I had originally planned to include a loop through Seix but decided to not risk another chill and save some energy for Col de Portet d'Aspet tomorrow.
At the tourist info in St-Girons, they suggested a chambre d'hôte in St-Lizier, just 2 km to the north, and featuring a star on my Michelin map. It was a good price at 40€ so why not? Their other suggestion was in Moulis, along my route for tomorrow, but Moulis has no restaurants and it would be a bit far to return to St-Girons for dinner. In contrast, St-Lizier has 3.
Well, there isn't much in St-Lizier. It seems to be a bit of an artist's town, with more galleries than any other type of business. The Département museum is here, but small though this place is, I couldn't find it. There is a tourist info office, but they don't even promote it there. Interesting. As for the three restaurants, one is a salon de thé, one is quite expensive, and the other just slightly expensive. Oh well, I'll just eat there rather than ride back to St-Girons. A lot of restaurants are closed on Mondays and many are much more expensive in the evening than at mid-day. So the choice may not really be much better.
This street door leads to a courtyard accessing the public library and the house where I stayed in a chambre d'hôte. The window above the door belongs to my room.
There were a lot of art galleries and shows in this little village (in which you could buy nothing else) and this was my favourite piece, "l'orchestra de cuisine" by Romet Jacky.
