May 10, 2018
Day 45: Marcillac to Royan
This was an overall very hard day. Now that it is over, I am trying to sort out what was so hard and where those bits were. I have the answer - there were lots of hills, with up to 18% grade. There was cycle path of rough gravel, dried mud, or stones - lots of it. There was a stiff wind from the water in our faces - all day. There was heavy traffic - this being a holiday. Let's see, that covers it in general terms. And oh, the distance was long.
Here is the general overview. When shown as a little blue line, a ride never seems as tough as it was on the ground. But the map will put things a little into perspective, anyway.
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We started out cycling back into the little town of Marcillac. This town is unusual because smack in the middle there is a "smokestack industry", being a single plant with a single stack, but belching out an impressive plume of smoke. The smoke has blackened all the buildings in the centre of town, giving it the air of a British factory town of 200 years ago. The plant is a distillery, making industrial alcohol from agricultural waste, and has been there for decades. Normally we might not mention such a one off thing, but this really is dramatic.
The first stage of the day's ride took us up into the vines. This is the wine region called the Cotes de Bordeaux, and it has lots of vineyards and chateaux. We liked the sign for one, which was in the form of a wine bottle. The vines are always pleasant to look at, and generally are found in open country in which you can easily see where you are. We find it pretty, and despite some general climbing, it was not too taxing.
Surprisingly, things got tougher when we descended closer to the water while getting onto the official "Canal des Deux Mers" veloroute. Designers of such routes seldom seems to be really thinking about loaded, long distance touring bikes. Single track mud or gravel? Sounds fine!
It was great getting to the water, where we could see boats, fishing huts, and the colours of the estuary. But we had to fight our way along gravel tracks into the wind, occasionally popping out onto a roadway, and then back into the gravel. This side of the Gironde is a vast estuary, much like the Camargue, and we often felt like we were travelling through a kind of wilderness. Add to this the often poor track, and we had a combination of Camargue and Canal de Midi. We ate our lunch sitting on a rail, since there was no shade, no town, and certainly no bench around.
Here is a selection of typical bike paths today. They could have made a nice four part collage, but I think each of these baddies deserves it own place of dishounour:
These pathways, and some roads, then took us into some whole new things, sights we new nothing about and never expected.
The first was a hill that appeared to be made of chalk, and that had an apparent inverted ice cream cone on the top. We expected we would come to an explanation, but instead the path took us by the base of the thing and not really to it.
We did note that this was probably called the Tour de Beaumont, but some quick internet research has not really revealed who built it and why. At least we have found that it is like a little building, not a smokestack as we had guessed from below.
The hill of chalk turned out to be part of a really major feature of the landscape. As we progressed, we came to tilled fields that were almost chalk white, and then to cliffs of pure chalk. Finally we came to one that had troglodyte rooms hollowed out. This was called the Ermitage St Martial. We stopped out bikes to try to see what is was all about. At that point a car pulled up and a man and woman exited, carrying lots of groceries. The man went to unlock the gate to the site, so I asked him if he were the "ermite" (hermit), secretly wondering that if so, why was he shopping at Super U with a car? The answer was yes. When I raised my camera to record the sign on the gate, the woman sprang into action: "No Photos!". Quite a strange couple and strange place.
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The chalk cliffs gave way to an area that afforded some devastatingly beautiful scenes of the estuary waters in blue and brown, and the salt marshes in the foreground. I had little faith that my camera could capture this, but I did give it a try:
These scenes of lonely beauty gave way to the final phase of today's ride, also unexpected. It turns out that Royan has many kms of wide sand beach, extending south of the town. These beaches, especially on a holiday - even if not in summer, are a people magnet. We first ran into some sort of festivities, marked by kites flying, pony rides, and an immense traffic jam.
This gave way to kms of open beaches, and boardwalk.
This area, and particularly Soulac on the other side of the Gironde, has the unique feature of really attractive "Belle Epoque" houses, each usually with its name built in to the brickwork, and each with its own special decoration, but within this particular style. We believe most of these in Royan were destroyed in the War, but we did see some good examples as we rode along the beach.
Finally, deeper into the town, it was a scene of more beach side fun, plus hotels and restaurants - all the feeling of a resort. We spotted our place amidst this - the Bistrot de la Place. At 55 euros, it was cheap -especially given the central location. Yes, the room is typical French small, but it works. After this strange and tiring day, anything would look restful!
Today's ride: 81 km (50 miles)
Total: 2,968 km (1,843 miles)
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