7. le Tarn

Things do not happen on demand here. 10 years in America has conditioned us (for better or worse) to be able to get pretty much anything we need, any time we want. In France, it seems, you might be able to get something if you follow the rules without fault (irrespective of whether you could possibly know them or not) - and even then there’s a 50/50 chance that it’s a holiday, or just inexplicably not possible today. Things ordered on Amazon do not simply arrive at your door, shops will be randomly closed because it’s a Tuesday or because the owner has found something more interesting to do.

For example, as we ate dinner a couple of nights ago, we cleaned our gear in the automatic laverie opposite, not paying enough attention to the closing time - at which point the door instantly slammed shut with our washing inside. We were aiming for an early start the next morning, so came back into town for 7.30am when the shop was scheduled to reopen. Still locked. 

Had breakfast. Nope.

Called the first number, second number on the door. No answer.

Just as we were about to abandon everyone’s clothes leaving Rosie to ride the next 80km in a dress, the door magically unlocked about 40 minutes after the scheduled opening. Even French machines will not be rushed on a Sunday morning, it seems.

A converted railway provides grandiose infrastructure for a bike path 

We headed east on the ‘voie verte’ of the Haute Languedoc- a 75 mile cycle route along an abandoned train line (a concept I have slightly bittersweet feelings about). It was a very pleasant change from the vegetation bashing of the previous day, so progress was pretty fast. The semi-industrialized suburbs of Mazamet gave way to increasingly impressive rolling scenery, vineyards and a sequence of bucolic villages.

We rode about 50km before Sam began to lose his sense of humor to a level which wouldn’t be appeased by playgrounds or baguettes, and settled to camp in the village of Premian. We caught the only shop at midday just before it closed, for two days, because it was the annual village fair. Having bought a day’s supply of wine, bread and cheese (at some point we will return to a balanced diet... just not quite yet) - we promised to return for the fair and went to set up camp.

After a lazy afternoon, we wondered down to the fair where, rather than the quaint apricot stalls we were imagining, they were erecting fairground equipment, a soundstage and the kind of sound system you might use to warn the citizens of a country that you were about to invade.

Dinner was clearly a pre-arranged affair for the locals, who were already quite drunk, so we backed away and returned to our campsite - spending a pleasant but bewildering evening with a group of Spaniards who had walked there from Valencia. Maybe. Our mutual Spanish/English language understanding was sufficiently poor that neither of us really understood anything, which didn’t seem to stop their enthusiasm in telling us in great detail about their trip.

Fairly exhausted, we went to bed at about 11 - just before the multi-kilowatt sound system on the other side of the village turned up the volume, filling the valley with the thumping bass-lines of French rap songs. Sam woke up excitedly and started dancing, thus rendering sleep to be indefinitely postponed.

Far too perky

Rosie woke up, as usual, about 3 hours before I would like to and we rode a seemingly endless 10 miles before breakfast and coffee in the picture-perfect village of Olargues. We arrived at a cafe about 8am, where the locals were drinking espresso and in some cases, apparently, some sort of fortified wine.

There was no food, which appears to be a theme. I’m increasingly convinced that French people survive during the daytime by metabolizing the vast number of sugars which accompany coffee, in between the occasional huge, decadent meal.
We found a (really good) bakery and rode the last 20km in the baking midday heat to catch our train home - which had been cancelled, along with all the other trains because, you know, it’s almost August.

Sam "helping"

Our rather slick pannier/chariot setup then became a thing of nightmares as we wrangled 3 bags, 2 bikes, baby plus trailer as well as a specially selected bag of annoying to carry foods Rosie had acquired at the market through a rail replacement service and two local trains.

We arrived home exhausted, and wondered when we get a proper holiday.