We had decided last night that we would get up early, Paul at 6.30 and me at 6.45 so that we could leave at 7.30. Paul woke me at 7 with the words, “It's cold and overcast.” Oh no. Paul was right, cold and overcast. We eventually rolled out 30 minutes later than planned (Paul lost the key to his lock but we found it) and went into town to get some bread. I got an extra demi baguette in case we needed it, no point running low on food at the top of a major climb. The Patisserie owner told us that it is meant to clear up in the afternoon, maybe. We ate our baguette and then were umming and ahhing because of the weather. We decided to sit in the bar and have a drink and see how the weather went. It didn't really improve and in the end we decided we should go at 9 am, over an hour late!
Naturally the route started with a 5 km climb, but at least it warmed us up! And it had stopped raining. At the op of the hill there was a lovely, ruined castle on the crag of a hill. A nice town next to it as well. We then had a short sharp down hill to you know what, another climb. However this time it was basically the start of the valley that we were going up. It levelled off after a short distance and was then a nice pleasant climb up the valley. Paul stopped at one point to take photo's of the Puy Mary in the distance.
We then started the first Col of the day the Col de Serre. I was quite surprised when we started it, there was writing on the ground that said it was only 4 K's. I was sure it was a 7 K climb, however the writing turned out to be correct. At the top Paul took photo's of the views back down the valley and of course we took the compulsory photo's of the Col sign. There was a tiny drop down from the Col on to the road up to the Puy Mary and then a nice ride along the side of the valley to the second Col. Paul stopped at one point and got some shots of me in the distance.
The climb to the second Col, Col d'Eylac, didn't get steep until the last few hundred metres and so I was not far behind Paul. But when I came around the final corner there was Paul sitting at a bar waiting for a coffee to be served! It's funny, he had assured me last night that this was a tourist area and there would be bars all the way up the climb. All the way up was a bit of an exaggeration, but in this instance he was correct, there were in fact two bars here. I stopped as well and got a Coke and then we noticed this lovely blueberry tart sitting there so we shared a slice of that as well! I went into the bar to pay and I didn't want to leave. There was a lovely fire burning and the sole table in the bar was set up for 6 people, a linen table clothe even. They had a very nice menu and it was reasonably priced too!
But of course we continued on. It was only 1700 m to the top and if we stopped too long it would be very hard to get going again. We took our Col photo's and then continued up. The road was very steep here, I'd guess at around 15% as I was only doing 5 to 6 Km's per hour and Paul said even he was only doing 6! The view over the edge of the road, which had small barriers if any, was great. The bar sits on the side of a huge crater. In not too long we were both at the top. It was quite busy as many people were walking up to the top of the Puy, not us though.
We stopped for a short while but then it was time to go down the other side. Not far from the top there is another Col, no sign this time. Bugger. There wasn't one at Puy Mary either :( We both stopped a couple of times for some photo's back to the top and then we had a ripping good descent down to the valley below, the Valley of the Lot. We were in the valley of the Lot in 1998 when we did the Raid Pyreneen! The descent went for about 10 K's then we were in the valley proper. Paul came to the front and he basically time trialled all the way down the mountain. There was, and had been, no wind so I had no problems sitting in behind today. I think I would have meandered down the mountain at 25 to 30, but Paul powered down the mountain at 30 to 37! Needless to say it didn't take us long to do the 38 K's from Puy Mary to Aurillac. We stopped a couple of times to check out lunch places but there was nothing outstanding and in the end it made more sense to go all the way to town.
As soon as we got to town we looked for a restaurant, not too hard, and found one with a reasonably priced three course lunch. I had a tabouli salad and Paul had eggs with mayonnaise. For the main we both had a lovely lamb dish with potato pieces, delicious. For dessert Paul got a sickly mud tart and I had a peach tart with chocolate sauce. Paul also had a glass of wine, while I had a pot of tea afterwards.
With the most important part of the day taken care of we thought we'd better get somewhere to stay. Paul was actually willing to camp! However I wanted WiFi and the tourist info pamphlet said that the camping didn't have it, so another hotel it is. We got one in a good position, not quite in the centre of town. We had to go down an alley to get to the back of the hotel to put the bikes away but it was not a problem. We cleaned up, washed and unpacked and I rang home since I hadn't been able to for a week.
We'd decided we would have dinner in the room tonight, we will have a large meal tomorrow! So we walked back into town, checked out lots of stores and in the end bought a salmon quiche, a salad Jerk, bread and two tarts for dessert. It was all very nice actually!
Paul also bought a huge can that contains a stuffed goose neck. We will have that next time we camp and cook for ourselves.
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