The sun came out today! (It’s been surprisingly chilly and overcast until now.) Actually it got rather hot today. Cycled into the Pyrenees - first along a cycle track beside the Le Gav de Pau river and then up, up, up to the town of Barèges. Checked into a nice Logis de France hotel. It’s a nice room with a small terrace looking out over the mountains and river. Despite being ‘only’ a 2*, the room is much better than the somewhat shabby 4* in Lourdes. ...

Pedalled down to Lourdes, gateway to the Pyrenees. Lourdes is a town of just 15,000 that, in normal times, receives 5 million visitors a year. How could this be? We’ll, In 1858 a young girl, who’d been brought up in the Catholic way, told her priest that the Virgin Mary had made herself known to her on 18 separate occasions and had told her (in her own Occitan tongue) that she [Mary] had also been conceived ‘without sin’. This story got back to the Pope...

Leaving Langon, we cycled through the Les Landes forest which is the largest man-made forest in Western Europe. The area of the forest is estimated to be around 3,900 sq mls, of which nine-tenths is exclusively devoted to a monoculture of maritime pines (Pinus pinaster). I don’t know what they do with all the pine harvested here. It was apparent that there were wide firebreaks every kilometre or so. The first 1/3 was on cycle paths, the rest was on quiet b-roa...

Headed west today with the intention of riding through the National Park of ‘Landes de Gascogne’. The internet indicated that there wasn’t much accommodation in that area so we pulled up a little short and booked into the town of Langon. Touring without a predetermined route with can stumble upon some towns that you’d never have heard of and some of these town are really interesting. Langon isn’t one of those towns. It’s a featureless place with noth...

Flew Ryanair to Bergerac, the start of this year’s tour. Met at the airport by Jackie’s friends Annette and Peter who wasted no time in taking us for a beer and a meal in downtown Bergerac. They dropped us back off at our airport-side hotel, Le Havana. Thanks to Annette and Peter for a lovely evening and especially to Annette for baking us some ‘power biscuits’ to sustain us though the coming days. Early breakfast booked for tomorrow morning and then ...