June 27: Carcassonne to Perpignon

Our route today took us from charming Cacassonne to busy Perpignon, very near the Spanish border.  But the in between was perhaps the coolest bike ride we’ve ever had.

Our rest day in Carcassonne was just the thing to recharge the batteries – both literally and figuratively!  We spent several hours exploring the ancient, walled “Cite” and spent a lot of time doing nothing at all.  Our B&B was elegant with a nice pool and total quiet.  We had a great lunch of cassoulet, a specialty of the haut Languedoc region.  It is a white navy bean based hearty soup with duck and sausage.

Our Afternoon Diversion

Cassolet

Carcasson's Cite

We also made quick friends with a British couple, Clive and Lorna, who were staying at the same B&B and who graciously put together a great picnic meal to share with us.  We had great company and conversation late into the evening and we enjoyed too much wine.

But not to be deterred from our riding, we got an early start out of Carcassone and headed straight for the Pyrenees.  We had found a route on MapMyRide that was long (75 miles) and had a fair amount of climbing (4,000 ft), but which sounded great – narrow roads through gorges and over three Pyrenean cols (passes) and passing through Lagrasse, which is supposed to be the most charming village in France.

It doesn't look steep, but it is...

We quickly turned off the busy roads near the Carcassonne and turned onto tiny roads, many of which were narrow enough that passing cars had to be very careful.  I haven’t been to all of the villages in France, but Lagrasse is indeed very picturesque.  Not sure if our photos do it justice; we recommend a visit on your own to check it out.

The first of the three cols was pretty easy, especially since the wind was at our backs.  Yeah! 

The second col was about 10 km long, and the road narrowed significantly – at most it was one-car wide.  The grade wasn’t too bad and we just got into a good spin and cranked it out.  We met a French girl who had taken 6 months off life to cycle around Europe.  She was a bit faster up the hill than we, but we were a lot faster down than she.

We had lunch in another tiny village, Tuchon.  Our typical lunch: bread, cheese, veggies if we have some and fruit and water.  Our French friend arrived and we chatted for a while – her English was pretty good.  From Grenoble she was 2 months into her 4-month trip.  She had no plans and went where ever she ended up.  Today she was heading the same direction as us.

Our lunch spot in Tuchon

We went our separate ways and Lorie and I got lost getting out of town.  We stopped under some plane trees near a park and consulted the maps.  An old man who lived nearby saw us and came out of his house to help.  He spoke not one word of English, but with my sketchy French and our maps to help, he quickly got us on the right route.  We continue to be humbled by the kindness of people in the rural areas of France.

Not very high altitude,  but it is all how you get there...

We had filled our water bottles in Tuchan since the next col was pretty major.  On the ride up, we caught up with our French friend again and she rode our wheel for a while until she stopped to find shade.  We pressed on.  The col was tough and very long but the views were absolutely stunning.  The geography in the Pyrenees is totally different from the rest of France and with the small roads hugging sheer cliffs (with no railing, Lorie wants me to point out) make for amazing cycling.

We're heading up that way

Even with full bidons we were running out of water.  We passed through a village and stopped at a café to ask for water.  The guy said we should fill them at the spigot in the square.  We filled a couple of bidons, but did not drink the water as most village fountains are d’eau non potable.  We didn’t want to drink it unless we absolutely had to, so we rationed our remaining drops of water.

That's where we've been

We made it

Over the top of the col and we let Das Bike go.  Lorie kept me in check, though, as there really were sheer cliffs on a road about 6 feet wide with 180-degree hairpins and no railings.

Going down?

We found another village and found a café that was oh-so-happy to fill our bottles with ice cold water.  Nice!  And our French riding friend caught up with us.

From here to Perpignon was back onto busy roads, but only about 20 km so not too bad.

There is definitely a different feel to this area of Southern France – it feels very Spanish and the language has a different rhythm.  

Perpignon

We went to the tourist information booth and got booked into a Chambre Hote downtown.  OK, I am being generous here, but the place was, in a word, Bohemian.  Lorie was bummed at the place, which if you are using your Google translator was a morceau de merde.  We were hot and pretty tired so we stayed in the place despite wanting to hit the reset button. 

Das Bike in "Das Dump"

Among other things, the floors were sagging plywood, the shower did not drain, the WI FI did not work, the shower head fell off as soon as Lorie put water through it, the front door was broken.  Nuf said!