We had a short easy bit and then we turned up into the mountains. We'd had a choice of either the hills or a 30 K stretch of red road through a valley, fairly flat but possibly busy. So of course we picked the hills and there was barely a soul around. In fact the climb was very steep, it was quite difficult to get going. I think I am lacking energy today, I might have over done it the last two days. Oh well, I slogged on. Eventually the climb eased off. It would have made a nice climb later on but at the top but the visibility was only about 100 metres, so there was nothing to see. There was a bit of a cold wind blowing too, I was partly freezing from the wind and mainly cooking from the climb.
Eventually we got to the top and had a short descent then a flat section into the town of Vaour. I got a Coke, there was nothing worth eating, so we sat near the fair grounds which were being set up for a while. I then nipped into a service station and used their vice to straighten out some pegs that had gotten bent from the hard ground at Conques. We then had a great descent down to a Gorge. It was very easy from there and I led for a bit, 24 – 28, then Paul took over. Time trial mode again. I told him not to speed up, so he sat on 28 the whole way!
Eventually we had to stop for lunch, only 15 K's from Montauban, in Negropolisse. The town had four different places but Paul didn't like any of them. So we decided to have baguette with quiche. I bought two of them and a couple of cakes to have after. Then as we were leaving the patisserie Paul said “We need something for the baguette”. What? I thought that was what the quiche was for. He went over to a charcuterie and bought ham, 4 enormous slices! We only managed to eat one each but we did finish off the rest of the food :) We left town, no navigational challenges this time even though there was no sign. I led for a bit then Paul took over, 26 into a head wind! In no time at all we got to our target town of Montauban.
We went to the tourist info office. Paul said he wanted a hotel in town so I said I'd be sure to check out the camp sites. When I came back I realised I'd actually forgotten to even find out where the camp site was! I did have a list of hotels though. We rode to the cheapest one, by the train station, but it was full. So we rode to the second cheapest one at the other end of town. It was full too. Oh oh. We were going up in price in the list so we tried the third one only a block from town, a Logis de France. No problem, they still had a few rooms. Phew. We showered etc. I rang home and checked email. Paul did email and looked at hotels in Paris and I fell asleep. After a couple of hours we thought we should look into getting food for dinner. Now the plan was to have baguette again with the left over ham. However Paul was feeling a bit peckish and he suggested that “We gobble up the ham now” and then go to a restaurant. So we did.
We then went for a long walk around town looking for restaurants, thank heavens we'd eaten the ham. In the end we reduced it to 2 restaurants. I left it to Paul to decide. I don't know if the one he picked was worse than the other one but for France it wasn't very good. I had Confit of Duck which was very nice for the main but it came with a baked potato in foil with sour cream and some mushed up vegies. More American style food than French. The Salad de Gesiers I had for an entree was mediocre with poor presentation as was the chocolate slice dessert. We had a half litre of Rose which was nice though. All up it was a cheap meal with a good view of the square (which is why Paul picked it).
Back to the hotel Paul picked up a Logis de France guide book. It is huge so hopefully it will slow him down :) Paul spent several hours studying it intensely.
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