Wednesday 6/7/2011 72km dep. 10AM arr. 6PM
We said goodbye and thank you to Jack and his sister Diane. Jeff had already got on his bike to go to work before we woke up. In the morning we did a quick tour of Toulouse with an itinerary Jack had provided. We visited some cool markets, marvelled at all the offal available, and bought morning tea. Then we rode through all the narrow one-way streets in the old town the wrong way before visiting the convent and church of Les Jacobins, where the remains of Thomas Aquinas are kept.
Pillars in Les Jacobins
It wasn’t too difficult to find our way out of the city but it took a long time to clear the outskirts. Eventually we found the quiet country roads which are the best for touring and started heading in the general direction of the Pyrenees.
It was nice flat riding through farmland. The weather was cool and cloudy compared to 35° the day before. The sunflower crops have all flowered and look stunning. Most of the corn is higher than us but the corn isn’t ripe yet. A lot of the grain has already been harvested here.
Sunflowers, rusty plough
One of the cool things about bike touring in France is that there are so many small roads to ride on. The Michelin 1:150,000 and IGN 1:100,000 maps provide enough detail to make navigation simple. We followed small roads pretty much the whole way until we reached the nice little town of Samatan. We found a camping place next to the river and tennis courts so decided to stay there.
After all the art galleries and pubs in London and catching trains, etc, etc, we were a little worn down, plus all of our clothes were quite dirty and needed washing. So we took a rest day here. We noticed that foie gras is a speciality in Samatan but weren’t game to try it.