Day 42: St Georges de Montclard to Castillonnes

October 7, 2023

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It stands to reason, since everyone and therefore every chambre d'hote host is different, that sometimes we really enjoy chatting and breakfasting and sometimes not. This morning, we found Phillippe and Nanou really easy to talk to. Breakfast was simple but high quality too. The first reason is that before retiring, to renovate this place, they ran a restaurant in Perigueux. The second reason was that the croissants and baguettes came from the bakery here in the little town, and that one - with a wood fired oven - is really top notch.

The temperature started at 4 degrees this morning. We knew that this would rise quickly in the fully sunny day, so it sort of did not pay to roll out our full cold weather defences. That is, no chemical hand warmers for me, and no down parka. In the short run, though, I was suffering. The much tougher Dodie, of course, had no problem one way or another.

After leaving Phillippe and Nanou (and urging them to follow the blog) we immediately stopped in at their bakery. The stone building, and the wood oven are so intensely rustic, we just love it.

This is where the magic happens, starting at 2 a.m. It takes time to get the wood oven up to temperature!

The selection is not huge, but the quality is #1

See this, Wonder Bread producers? It's what bread should look like.

After about tens seconds thought, Dodie decided we should route through Bergerac, even if our distance might turn out a little greater or the roads a little busier. I find her intuition is 99% trustworthy, and this time she really scored big. Mostly unknowingly, we were wandering into a world of wine chateaus, that were complemented by other worlds of stone houses, foie gras, a huge Saturday market, the Dordogne River, and even, or especially, Cyrano (de Bergerac!).

We quickly hit our first chateau, at Monastruc. While this was certainly nice to look over towards and I think they claim to make wine, I have since figured out the situation about vines here. The key to the vineyards is the Dordogne river, which is a major east west affair, joining the more north-south Garonne, close to where they both enter the sea at Bordeaux. The Dordogne vineyards are on the south side of the river, at least in the vicinity of Bergerac. So here we were charging down from the north, and we would not really encounter the Dordogne until Bergerac, which is on the river. Once we would cross the river there, (and with a fair bit of climbing the ridge on the south side) we would be in vine and chateau playland.

At Lembras the first vines show up, but this is still not really vine central.

As "everybody" knows, Repentigny is only 20 kms down the St Lawrence River from my brother's house!

We were kind of targeting the famous waterfront of Bergerac, but we actually hit the church at the centre. We were overjoyed to find that we had also hit the Saturday market. This occupied the streets encircling the church, and overflowed down some side streets as well. The market was incredibly well attended, and it was difficult making our way pushing the bikes by the stalls and among the people. Despite the slight awkwardness of maneuvering the bikes, we found everyone to be good natured. More than that, they wanted to know who we were, where we came from and where we were going. In short, the UQ's. I got held up by several people that wanted to talk, and I was concerned as Dodie vanished up ahead not that I would lose her, but that she would say "Where the hell were you?".

No worries, because when I did catch up it was because Dodie too was getting UQ'd. And as usual we also learned that this one had visited Quebec and that one Niagara Falls. One lady had a son in St Jean sur Richelieu, which is where we had taken the Montreal grandchildren cycling on the route verte. Yes, the lady knew that route verte, and so on and so forth!

Ah yes, no risk of Dodie getting too far ahead.

Here are the Noix de Perigord. The kind we picked on our own by the roadside. Hazelnuts (noisettes) too!

I tried looking up the difference between these two, but I still don't fully get it.

There were dozens and dozens of general fruit and vegetable vendors.

Most markets have paniers like these. They are ideal for market going on foot, but of course lack bike mounts.

In our view, Golden Retrievers are the best of dogs.

The first time we have seen ginger for sale at a European market.

The classic French green beans. It's late in the season so they are not 100% perfect.

These guys spotted the Chemin St Jacques (Camino) sticker on Dodie's handlebar bag. Camino goers are like a big club, and they had done it seven times, never by the same route!

This man was walking around the market, rather than having a stall. Vanilla, he says, is a key ingredient in creme caramel.

We would soon see a lot more like this. It's hard to see, but here is pate of pork, of duck, and of foie gras of duck.

We were looking for the classic rotisserie truck, but found this fixed rotisserie, with a stall out front. Just as good!

They had other stuff (than chicken) out as well, including foie gras. We got a concoction of roast potatoes with mushrooms and tons of garlic.

Rounding the church and out toward the square, the market continued.

A quick glance at the church, but today was a market and vine rather than a church day.

In the square, Dodie bought some postcards at the Tabac. I noticed that though we are buried in the middle of France, the news of the world is still much on display.

In the square, young and old enjoy the outdoor cafe ambiance

One last market thing - locally made prunes, and also quince paste. This type of stuff is a Dodie favourite, so I invested 6 euros in two smallish bags. Quince, by the way, is "Coing", a word I did not know. The man had to drag out a "live" one to explain it to me.

Elsewhere in the square, a fair crowd had gathered to fill out questionnaires from the department government, asking for their take on how the next budget should be constructed.

The market had been fun, but now we plunged from the square toward the river. That is the main walking street/ice cream district, and it too was packed with people enjoying the afternoon.

Narrow walking streets down toward the river.

One category of store in this area was the pate specialist. I walked in to one and asked if I could take a picture - no problem!

Cassoulet is another "dubious" category we know we are going to run into. Here we have double whammy goose cassoulet!

Along the general lines of striking it lucky for today, we walked directly into the little park featuring Cyrano de Bergerac. Cyrano, we have learned, was a real 17th century person in Paris. He was popularized by an 1897 play, in which he falls in love with his cousin Roxane, but can not approach her because he feels himself ugly because of his big nose. Instead he writes poetry for her, which he supplies to his friend Christian. Roxane eventually realizes she loves Cyrano, not Christian. Cyrano dies knowing that, at last, she is aware of his love and that she shares it with him.

Look at that balcony up on the church at the Cyrano park.

One park lower down, there is yet another Cyrano statue.

We finally reached the river, through all the interesting and lovely stuff. The riverfront was nice, but not as exciting as the other districts. we did however have the characteristic river boats. As we understood the story from Phillippe, the boats brought wood from up river and offloaded at Bergerac, there they loaded up with wine and took it to Bordeaux. At Bordeaux the boats would be abandoned - disassembled for their wood content - and the sailors would walk back upriver to begin the process again. The round trip took a year.

Now began a fairly long climb away from the river and up through vine and chateau central. The vines were everywhere, and running off to the horizon, but they held some puzzles for us. First off, what variety is being grown here? Next, why are they still all on the vine, getting mushy or even already turning to raisins? We also saw a neglected vineyard and wondered if they were closing down - related to not havesting? But no, we also saw new plantings being started.

What variety are these, and what do we make of their condition?

These have turned to (rather seedy) raisins.

We reached the major chateau of Monbazillac, which has a boutique and well organized tour. What we liked was their large and shaded parking lot/ picnic area. We chose a table overlooking the chateau and vines, and picnicked on chicken and potatoes from town, grapes from the field, coffee and hot chocolate and pain au raisins from Saint Georges. This was a truly an unbeatable picnic, for location, for the food we had, for the shade and the concrete table. I am counting on this blog to help us remember it!

Nearby, this raptor was flying, way high. It's hard to focus on such a thing. I wonder what it was.

We left the chateau, and almost immediately the landscape had changed. Now the vines were gone, though there was this lovely farm house:

Our destination of Castillonnes was a "bastide", or fortified town. In the day (starting from 1259) there were only four (I think) gates. Even today it was not exactly easy to find our way into the town. At least two of the four ways are stairs only.

This was called the Valet's gate. In medieval times a valet was a person charged with locking the gate at night. The town had 8 such people.

The fortified nature of the town was for a reason. For example, in the Hundred Years War (1337-1453) there were nine battles here. The church (1265) was destroyed three times - once in the Hundred Years War once in the Wars of Religion, and once by a windstorm.

In the church what is called a "retable" stands in front of the altar. The retable block what was once a window there, resulting in a lack of light.

Our host tonight differed from Phillippe and Nanou in ways that both Dodie and I picked up on independently and instantly. It started with some weirdness on the phone about how we had to arrive before 16:00 because he was leaving to bring his daughter to the hospital. When I said if we miss the deadline we will just wait, there was no real response. It seemed to be do or die. We responded by taking a more direct but bigger road than perhaps we would have. But when we arrived, with 15 minutes to spare, he had already gone, yet someone was there to let us in.

When the man returned, about 5, we were well installed in our room. But here is where the little off notes crept in. He told us that he normally gave out the wifi password only by QR code, and if our laptop could not handle that, we needed some other device. He advised us to close the window at night due to chill, and he said he disabled the heaters to prevent people from "abusing" them. And when we helpfully mentioned that we had seen a set of keys lying around in the corridor, he said that this was his house and he might have any of his stuff lying around anywhere. This, on reflection, is the key determinant and red flag with these BnB hosts. If they ever say "this is my house", followed by any of a number of conditions or rules (Lock the front door when leaving, don't lock the front door, close the window, keep your room door closed, don't eat in the room, don't charge batteries in the room, don't use the heater, breakfast is at this time and not at that time, etc. etc) then that is the clue that they do not have a positive hosting attitude. On the other hand, if it is "make yourself at home" and "let me know if you need anything", and if they want to know where you are from and where you are going, then it's all good.

We went out for a spin around the bastide (taking care to lock the front door of the BnB). Because it's a fortified hilltop thing, there was one basic street down and one back. Interesting, though!

And p.s., you are reading this because that other person, the one that let us in, inadvertently gave us the wifi code!

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Today's ride: 49 km (30 miles)
Total: 2,203 km (1,368 miles)

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