30th July 2018 - Vichy

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Kms today = 465
Kms to date = 4,804

We were up at 7:00am, Cecile made our coffee, we had the light continental breakfast provided and headed off around 8:30am. Colin had planned a route across country to bypass the motorways and tollways except for a tollway near the beginning to get us on our way. We were prepared this time with plenty of change in our pockets and credit card to hand. The main zip on my riding jacket has disintegrated so I'll have to get a new jacket as soon as possible hopefully in Vichy. Meanwhile I am riding with my goretex jacket over the top to stop it flapping around. It worked well and the temperature was  quite comfortable as long as I kept moving. It was another 31C day. The back roads were very quiet traffic wise and the scenery of fields and forests  pleasant to ride through. We went down into a gorge and then back up again. There was a dam at the bottom on the Dordogne. It was built in 1945.

The Dam and the Dordogne river.
We had lunch at a hotel in a village called Mauric. We had the "Plat du jour" which consisted of an entre of prosciutto and melon, a main of stuffed cabbage, mashed potatoes and gravy. The dessert was gateaux. All for Eur 12, about A$18. After lunch we headed off on our planned route only to hit a road closed sign a few kms down the road. We had to double back and get Mabel to take an alternate route still avoiding motorways. We arrived at 9 Rue Michel in Vichy at 5:30pm. Claire our host looked a bit non-plussed when we said we were her Airbnb guests. She spoke no english but a friendly neighbour helped out with the translating. We had an apartment two floors up some narrow wooden stairs. We could park the bikes on the street so we unloaded our gear and struggled up the stairs like a couple of pack animals.The flat was very hot as the windows were all shuttered. We opened everything to try and get some airflow. Claire had put a bottle of water in the fridge which we consumed in short order. After we cooled down and changed into shorts we headed to the local square to have a couple of cold beers. The flat is centrally located and well appointed with two bedrooms, kitchen, bathroom and separate toilet. The shower is a bit dinky but all good. The place where we had the beers was a restaurant but wasn't serving food as it was a Monday. We found a restaurant further down the street.
In France you need to remember a few things like:
- Everything shuts down at 1pm for siesta.
- A lot of businesses don't open on Mondays.
- Some restaurants serve drinks but no food on Mondays.

After dinner, which wasn't very good we headed back to the flat for another game of Gin. I won so cumulative score is 3 games all.

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