September 10, 2022
Day 10: Brantome to Les Eyzies
Last night we discussed the upcoming ride and decided that boulangerie opportunities may be slim, so we decided to be sure and secure our picnic lunch before leaving town. Nice idea, but impossible to do! The three boulangeries that were open didn’t offer any lunch items. Oh well …
Now I must backtrack some more and explain today’s route. We are going off of the book’s plan completely today for 2 reasons: 1) book’s plan has 3 back-to-back days of over 100k, and 2) we’ve ridden most of the second half of today’s route before. After much head scratching we created our own route that was only 79k and on ‘new to us’ roads. The only downside to this idea is that we missed the village of Hautefort. Guess we’ll catch it another time.
The morning air was quite fresh and we wore our arm warmers once again. We were wondering what surprises the day might hold for us.
It’s really pretty out here.
This site was more impressive in person, but it slowed our entry into town. As we navigated our way through we spied an open boulangerie. Our picnic has been saved! Better yet, my captain will be able to refuel.
As the day progressed, the clouds dispersed and it was bright yet cool. What this photo doesn’t portray is that we were riding into a very dark forest road with the tree canopy. Cameras can be too smart sometimes!
We stopped to check out this little church and we were surprised at the style of bell tower. We haven’t seen one like this before. There was a bench out front that was comfortable enough to enjoy our chicken with BBQ sauce sandwich.
We’ve come across a couple of glitches in our homemade route. Do not enter signs on a couple of roads - it was easy to figure out how to get around them. Then there was a climb … we stayed on the better road and worked our way back to the route. Lastly, we came across a Private Access sign and chose another way around and it took out a hill climb. Yeah!
Since we are on are own route, we were surprised to see a chateau along the way. We took the short detour into the hameau housing the chateau.
I fell in love with this site! Check out the little bories on the gate posts.
To our dismay, the chateau is under reconstruction and locked up. Apparently much of it had been dismantled and sold off. Now they are restoring it to what it was at the end of the 16th century and it won’t be open until 2025 and finished in 2027. Bummer, yet pretty fantastic!
Our next area of interest was the village of Rouffignac. It was burned to the ground on March 31, 1944, by the Germans after they rounded up all the men and shipped them off to various camps. The over 50s were imprisoned nearby and released individually over 15 days. The women and children were driven from the village and then it was burned.
View of the church after all was burned.
Our last stop of the day included this scenic yard. The owner had the key to the church and let us in. We had to put the key on her mailbox when we were done. Can you find the pink bicycle?
Once we arrived in Les Eyzies and cleaned up, we went for a quick walk through town just so we’d have some pictures to show you. We stayed here last May (2021), which was shortly after our last confinement, and explored the town in depth. We were happy to see it much busier than before.
When we were here last May (2021) we got to spend a lot of time talking with the owners. They had bought the hotel at the end of 2019 and with the Covid situation couldn’t open until May 2021. We were one of their first customers. We were excited to see what they’d done to the place over the past year - impressive! Upgraded most of the bathrooms. Added air conditioning. And the new project is to redo the lovely terrace with a weather dependent covering.
Ruud runs the hotel and Jan is the chef. We had a delicious dinner and we’re quite excited to see all the tables full. Ruud always advises us on wine and he’s great at the job. Tonight’s bottle didn’t disappoint.
If you’re ever in Les Eyzies, we highly recommend Le CroMagnon with Ruud and Jan. Tell them we sent you their way. You won’t be disappointed.
Stats: 79 kilometers 922 meters elevation
Today's ride: 79 km (49 miles)
Total: 999 km (620 miles)
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