Le vent et la pluie

The ride to Revel was fraught by high winds which, made riding impossible when they were across us. We both got blown off our bikes. So I put my boy scout skills to work again and chose a route with the wind at 45 degrees behind to ease our troubles. At one point it was so strong we were literally sailing along the road for about 30 seconds with our front wheels pointed at about 10 degrees from where we were actually going, and the panniers acting as sails! Sally spotted a voie verte along side a small river so we followed it for the last 10 kms into town and the trees provided us with plenty of shelter.

Our hosts for the night Agnes and Laurent were getting ready for a bike trip of their own so we were very lucky to spend the night with them. They also kept bees and the first thing I noticed were stacks of hives by the front door. A long look revealed they were all empty so I proceeded along. I was in fact wrong, but the wind was so strong the bees stayed put for the day.
Revel has a stunning wooden covered market place atop of which was the old town prison. A fascinating town. With a very nice coffee house.

Agnes and Laurent were extremely kind and generous like all of our hosts and we spent the evening chatting away. Laurent is in fact a Microwave engineer and he designs aerial for satellites and the ground stations. It is a very complex and skilful job. Of course being in similar fields we talked shop for a while.

The next day we headed off on a short trip to Anne Sophie our next

host at Guitalens L’Albarede. We had planned to have an afternoon snoozing in the sun but the weather forecast was horribly wrong and we spent the afternoon looking for shelter from the rain. Anne Sophie had just moved into her new house a few days earlier so yet again we were privileged to stay. A wonderful tomato and feta salad soon filled us up and we got to do a load of washing which dried overnight in the attic. She helped us plan a route to Albi which followed an old railway line. To get there we had to visit the town of Lautrec, high on a hill with another medieval village in town. After a quick chat to a local cyclist we found our way to the voie verte which led us to the edge of Albi.

Along the way we were stopped by a true gentleman who wanted to talk to us and we chatted away before he bid us farewell by kissing Sally’s hand. Old fashioned – yes.

But very French!