Day 42: Le Mas d'Agenais to Romagne (40 kms from Bordeaux)

May 7, 2018

I woke up and as usual looked out the window, to try to remember where I might be. Le Mas d'Agenais, and especially our corner of it by the church is a very peaceful place. The lack of any cars going by in the square in front of our place was a very big plus.

Having already walked the 60 meters to the bakery and returned, Lucie put together a very nice breakfast for us, including three kinds of cheese, ham, organic juice, jam, etc. Best of all she offered to prepare eggs, any style. I asked for fried, and that was ok, but we stuck at "over hard", or in fact "over -anything". I set about explaining that all you had to do was make "sunny side up" which was apparently no problem, and then flip it. But Lucie claimed while she understood the theory she simply could not achieve it. I rather think this was more a case of her french chef's hand being unwilling to do this to an egg. I settled for sunny side up.

Lucie came out in the street and made a nice photo of us, in front of the B&B. She was concerned to get it framed right, and we discovered that she is a photographer, with a current exhibition on La Reole.

Looking out the window. We are right next to the church, and the bakery is just beyond that.

The B&B was decorated with all manner of antiques and curiosities.

Before actually setting off, I nipped back into the church. The reason was that in the B&B was a pamphlet about the church's Rembrandt of Christ on the cross. Lucie had told us this was on loan in Bordeaux, but I remembered seeing it. It turned out the church had mounted a reproduction, plus the story of the painting, in a little display. Lucie further explained that repairs had been undertaken to the street, and the painting as moved to Bordeaux cathedral for safekeeping. During that time away, the painting had also been evaluated by experts from the Louvre, and declared authentic. (It had been donated by people who did not know its provenance.) Given that nod from the Louvre, the cathedral was dragging its feet about returning the thing, until acceptable security and protection would be installed.

As for the actual painting, I found it unremarkable. Maybe the main thing is the "pained" look on Jesus' face. This is not pain like somebody just put a nail through your hand, but more like "this is going to be a drag and why are we doing it".

Back on the canal, we were again treated to some idyllic scenes of water and trees. Even if they might have been declared boring after some hours of cycling yesterday, today is a new day and it really is beautiful.

Looking out to our right, there were fields, some with corn newly sprouted, some just tilled, and some with strawberries. The scenes with these fields are also beautiful. In the photo below, you see not only the pattern of the rows but also more than a dozen people weeding. This is the most people we have seen so far working in the magically immaculate fields.

Near the town of Hure we came upon a more manufactured form of beauty, a 1978 Citroen 2CV, and for sale too! This follows on the model DS-23 that I described on Day 39. I failed to get that picture in (though it's fixed now), but here anyway is the 2CV:

There was no price listed. How much could it really be?

Our day really changed when we reached La Reole. It seemed like there should be some good townscapes to photograph there, but mainly we just ran into a lot of hills. La Reole is the place where we left the canal and began a jump to Sauveterre, which is the start of a rail trail into Bordeaux. We assumed that we just had to climb up through the town, and then it would be a cruise to the rail trail and on to room we had booked in a "Chateau", on the way to Bordeaux.

But no, after La Reole the road continued up and down, mostly up. It was just 15 km to Sauveterre, but it felt like way more. At Sauveterre we had the beginning of the Roger Lapébie cycle trail. Lapébie won the 1937 Tour de France using a new fangled assist device - the derailleur. His Belgian opponent, who had lead in the Alps and Pyrenees, quit in protest of Lapébie's cheating, after the 16th stage to Bordeaux. That allowed Lapébie to win the race. The next year, derailleurs were accepted as standard.

Even with our new fangled Bosch assist devices, the upward slope of the Lapébie continued to tire us out. This was even more so when we left the trail and went up into the vines in search of our chateau. This is in a town so small it really does not exist. If you search for it (Romagne) on the internet, you will probably only find one of the same name further north.

Our Romagne and our chateau (Chateau de Crecy) is completely surrounded by vines, for this is the Bordeaux wine region! Having more or less dropped out of the sky, we are not quite sure about which lands and buildings are part of our thing. The owners, Martine and Bruno say they are retired and are no longer making wine, though they still have some in stock. They offered us a taste, but these stick in the muds preferred to go take a shower and start the blog.

There are some various bottles for sale near our room. They have all the expected labelling - grand wine of Bordeaux, oak aged, bottled at the chateau, AOC Bordeaux, and so forth. Yet the price seems to be about 6 euros per bottle. Can that be right? Cheaper than Coke (in France)? Maybe its the deal of the century and we should load up a Bob trailer with a pile of cases? Wine experts - let us know.

Today's ride: 72 km (45 miles)
Total: 2,773 km (1,722 miles)

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