Thursday was designated (by me) as a cycling day to bag as many Minervois villages as possible. I’m not sure it is possible to see more vines than we saw that day. Our route included Caunes-Minervois, Peyriac-Minervois, Reiux-Minervois, Azille, Homps and Aigues-Vives. We covered a good section of the Canal du Midi too. Unfortunately the authorities haven’t done any work to make a proper cycle path along the canal, it’s rough in most areas and in some it’s non existent and longer routes along nearby roads need to be found. In the last 5km Janice developed a puncture.....so I had to pump her up (the rear tyre I mean!). It had been a pleasant day of warm sunshine and light cloud and it concluded our three night stay at Laure-Minervois. However, because we had stayed for three nights our motorhome battery ran out at 8pm, so it was an early bedtime as we had no lights and even the stuff that can work off gas, like the fridge and water heater needed the thermostat and pump to work on electricity.
Here I am at Homps, on the Canal du Midi. All the other pictures we took that day were photos of the churches of each village.....I didn’t want to subject you to so much religion! Death by Church?
Friday. We knew that my brother David and Wendy were still nearby at a place called Colombiers because David had a dental problem (a filling
had fallen out) that he needed to get a local emergency appointment that day. We thought we might be able to sneak up on them at the aire....but they had actually moved off near to the dental surgery. We parked up on the aire and cycled to where they had parked (no surprise now because we had to ask where they were). We left them to wait for an appointment and we continued towards Bezier along the bumpy Canal du Midi track......although we had to leave the canal at one point and cross a super busy road, taking our lives in our hands as we pushed our bikes across.
The views at the Nine Locks of the Canal (Neuf Écluses) were very beautiful....
That is Bezier in the distance. We washed down the view with a chilled rosè wine at a small cafe.
Back to the van and David and Wendy joined us. We enjoyed the evening....the battery had recharged during our journey.....and we played our ‘new found’ game of choice, Maponimoes.
It involves all European countries and you can only play cards that are adjacent to the neighbouring countries or seas. We are removing the UK card from the pack on the 31st October!! Don’t mention the B word, I think I mentioned it once but got away with it!
Saturday. Our plans are constantly changing! David and Wendy said goodbye for the last time on our trip and we set off to meet up with some other friends (whom we first met last year in Granada, Spain). Graham and Denise were travelling down in their camping car on the way to Spain...we arranged to meet them at a little place called Durfort, north of Castelnaudry. We met up on the aire around lunchtime. After our greetings we all cycled around the village and neighbour of Soreźe. Lovely little places of character. Durfort used to have a copper industry and Soreźe had a grand Abbey-Ecole.
We then cycled up a long hill to a reservoir......tried and failed to get an ice cream(the man in the cafe had only one speed and repeatedly told us he was busy serving other people, a snail would have been quicker, so I walked out before I taught him some new English words he hadn’t heard before!).....and cycled back again. There wasn’t much water left in the reservoir.
More goodbyes this morning, this time for Denise and Graham. It had been lovely to see them again.....nice, normal, funny and interesting people, there’s not many around nowadays. We drove north, starting to head home. Our Eurotunnel return trip is booked for a week on Monday. We intend to make our northbound journey in stages. We passed Toulouse and kept a little to the left towards Agen but stopped before there at St Nicholas. The town had a plant sale in the main square.
I managed to get an ice cream today without too much problem! The town seems to be famous for that fact that Antoine Laumet de la Mothe sur Cadillac (what a name) was born here, and lived in this house. He helped to Colonise Canada, Louisiana and founded the city of Detroit. He didn’t invent the car or the Cadillac, but it does explain where the name of the car came from.
We had a quiet night on a little aire with electricity and wifi, that makes a change. We are trying to boost the battery and it helps me publish the blog.....I must be getting a bit lazy with it.
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