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squiz Member Member#: 6644 Location: Registered: 27-05-2007 Diary Entries: 3071 |
26th September 2016 Mt. Biking: Cazals to Bruniquel and Penne Wind Direction: Wind Stength: Surf / Sea State: Air Temperature: Sea Temperature: Weather: sunny and warm Max Speed: 29.15 (knots - unless stated otherwise) Distance Covered: 23.47 (Nautical Miles - unless stated otherwise) Monday 26th September – Bike ***** Cazals to Bruniquel and Penne – 23.47 miles 29.15 knts out 4 hours 30 minutes – sunny and warm Only a few campers left in our field and nobody at the hostel in the Mill just up the road so a very quiet and quite foggy start to the day. Then just after 8.30 a whole coach full of children walked up the road to the hostel with two teachers and enough baggage to last a month! They had obviously come for their residential activity week :) They had no sooner got to the reception than they seemed to be coming out in groups of ten to start their various activities. One group set off hiking, two went in mini buses – we assume to canoe, one were hanging around waiting by the archery (which a man came and set up in the field opposite us last night) and the last group set off on mountain bikes. Mag had by this time started to do her yoga type exercises outside behind the van, thinking she would be out of sight, when the mountain bikers veered into our field with the instructor and started to bike round a course with various cones! Luckily she had nearly finished so it wasn’t a problem and it was nice to eat our breakfast watching them all enjoying themselves. We packed up and left, driving out of town via the Carrefour for yet another quick stock up! We always seem to be at the shop! We took the Corniche road to Penne, the next named village down the Aveyron Gorge and it was a brilliant route – also the bike route so we regretted not doing this bit on our bikes but it was a pretty steep climb up to the cliffs to look down on the river in the valley. Not long after coming down from the Corniche (8 miles to be precise) we saw a bridge over the river to a village called Cazals. We drove over to have a look and found a small road leading down to the river. It was perfect for us so we parked up on the river bank and took the bikes off, packed a picnic and set off to explore the next section of the gorge and two medieval villages which sounded interesting. Before starting the bike route we decided to go up to the village of Cazals, a no entry for cars but ok on bikes, and after passing through the very pretty village, we actually found the passerole we thought we could see and were able to cross the river via that. The first section of the bike route was a very steep up hill into the side of the gorge, followed by a down then back up!! It was a bit of a push but not too bad and we were soon whizzing down again towards the bridge under the cliff side village of Penne. We decided to push on to the furthest village we wanted to see first and come back to Penne. Bruniquel boasted two castles and we could see them up on the hill from down on the river. Again it was a steep push up and after passing through the lower village we left our bikes locked up at the bottom of the next steep section and walked up through the beautiful village to the castles at the top. They are open to the public but we didn’t pay to go in, just looked around the tiny alleyway streets and over at the view. There were some nice formal gardens where we sat to eat our lunch and were pleased to be joined by a beautiful tabby cat with a spotty tummy who was equally pleased to be sharing our brie cheese :) It was quite funny watching it afterwards trying to unstick its mouth!! It had the end of its tail missing and we didn’t know if it was a bit tender as it only wanted you to stroke its head and got a bit firey when you got any lower :( After lunch we wandered back down to our bikes and flew down the big hill to the bridge at the bottom again. The road back was pretty easy with only a slight incline. We turned off to Penne and although the village is high on a hill the entry archway to the village wasn’t far up the road. The entrance archway was lovely but not half as lovely as it was in the old photograph which was reproduced on the wall next to it – a copy of an old postcard. These beautiful postcards were all round the village and you were able to see what was still there and what had disappeared over the years. We walked up the cobbled road and never expected to be able to visit the ruined castle at the top because there was a tariff board and ticket office but the gates were open and nobody was there so we left the bikes and walked round the whole thing. The best bit was the old scaffold made from whole tree trunks and branches showing how it had been built. When we got right to the top the builder said he was now closing the gate so we came down the hill in front of him on his quad bike! It was unbelievable that a quad bike could manage such a rocky path!! At one point Mag stood to the side waiting for him to pass, pressing herself into the rocks and he stopped and said not to be scared it wasn’t dangerous!! We were really lucky to get this cheeky visit because some hikers had gone up after us and were looking at the information boards and missed out on the actual ruins. It was another beautiful village and we enjoyed looking round before whizzing down the hill to join the road back to the van. It didn’t take very much longer and we were back after over 23 miles, having been out 4 ½ hours. Mags phone couldn’t pick up any satellite signal today so she didn’t get a track to put on facebook :( With the bikes back on we relaxed with our books on the river bank and had a cuppa. The river is fast flowing here and we were treated to great displays by crazy grey wagtails which are such busy birds! They are never still because even when they land they are wagging their tails. They are very pretty too being more yellow than grey! Also saw two kingfishers and a heron landed in the tree opposite. Two fly fishermen arrived to try their luck and then….. our group of kids from this morning came past in their canoes :) What a great time they were having, especially the boys at the back going backwards and chucking their paddle as far down river as they could! Another good fun day :) Tuesday 27th September – Relax, little travel + sight seeing and strolls – sunny and warm We had a really long relaxing morning in our beautiful spot on the banks of the river Aveyron. It is quite fast flowing here and the sound is lovely to wake up to :) We again had yellow wagtails, kingfishers and herons and a dipper for company while we did our exercises and had breakfast. We then sat and read our books in the sun. It is a beautiful day and the sky the most amazing blue :) At around 12.30 the tell tale sound of canoes hitting the bottom again rang out and another group of the kids we saw yesterday came through paddling and again the two boys at the back were mucking about, falling in, climbing back in and having the most fun :) As we had a late breakfast we weren’t at all hungry at lunch time so instead went for a walk. Firstly we went to the mill just up river from the van and sat on the weir watching the water rush through then found a path along the bank up to the passerelle we crossed with our bikes yesterday. Mag found another fig tree and got quite a lot today, some to eat now and others to have for breakfast tomorrow :) We walked along the GR footpath on the opposite bank to the van, across the road bridge towards Cazals and down the lane making it a circular walk. We decided to pack up and move on a little as we hadn’t done very much today! We drove along the route we took yesterday past the turning to Penne and Bruniquel and going on into the Valley de la Vere, coming eventually to another medieval village – Puycelci. This is definitely our week for beautiful medieval villages as this one was another cracker if a little overly restored. Everything was in such good condition and so perfect that it looked a bit out of place! There was a plaque on a wall showing two old photographs of one of the streets saying that when the photo was taken 12 families lived in this street and now they are all second homes – this explains why there is no life here :( There were some beautiful cats though! Back to the van for a few miles across the plateau to Castelnau de Montmiral – yet another ‘Les Plus Beaux villages de France’, our 4th in 2 days! We parked in a good spot which, strangely for us, is a designated area for campers (none here though :)) and had a cuppa and read for a while before going up to explore. This one is lovely and has real life here too! There were children playing on their bikes and skates and a boy cuddling a kitten, old boys chatting in the amazing village square dating back to the 1600’s and a restaurant with people actually in it! We stayed in the square for a while making a fuss of yet another cat whilst sitting on the edge of the well – it rolled so much we thought it would fall off. The buildings are beautifully restored and quite a sight. We had a wander around the old streets before returning to the van for tea. When it got dark we went back up to take photos with the square lit up and the restaurant was alive with lights and chatter from all the customers – most of which we saw arrive on a coach from Nice as we were coming back from our walk earlier. We sat on the seat outside the tourist information across from the restaurant and made use of the free 15 minutes of wifi on the lap top while watching the world go by :) Photo Gallery here |
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