"Hopefully it will get better in the next few days", I wrote
in the previous post. Well: it absolutely DID! We’re now enjoying to the fullest, with
everything you’d look for when traveling in France: a clear deep-blue sky, the
smell of pine trees, small characteristic picturesque villages, a Ricard on a
terrace and a baguette with some goat cheese for lunch… Only the cicadas are
still missing!
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| A French village, not yet the very charming type but OK... |
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| Photo made in Vichy by a friendly lady... Notice the grand architecture of the public baths (thermes) in the back |
The ride from Dompierre was still so-so but definitely
better. It was slightly hilly, the villages were nicer, the surroundings more
diverse (and the cows friendly too). We cycled through Vichy, an interesting
city. It has very majestic buildings and you can notice it has a rich and grand
history (it also has a very dubious war-related history…) but somehow looks a little bit neglected now. Nice to ride
through and see, but definitely not worth staying – at least, not for 2 nature-loving
and not so much city-loving people. So we continued another 10-ish km and ended
up in a small place called St Yorre at the camping municipal. Besides us there was 1
other couple, in a big campsite – and nice, green, shady site too. We had an aperitive on the terrace of the one and only local café, and then a ready-made but tasty
cous cous (I guess everything tastes good after a day of cycling anyway).
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| Before leaving Dompierre, after almost 1000km of cycling since we left Belgium, the unavoidable happened: a flat tire! A strange one: the metal valve had come out of the rubber tire...??? |
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| Friendly French cows |
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| Thiers. We were going to have lunch in the town's center all the way up there, but decided to change our mind once we saw the big climb it would require... |
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| Hilly cycling, with the Auvergne (dormant) volcanoes in the back across the valley. The high peak is the Puy de Dome. |
From St Yorre things really started to become great. It became more and more hilly, and we were much more surrounded by greenery; even
the fields now had a lot of trees and green areas. Around lunch we arrived at Thiers, a
village perched high on a hill. Our intention was to have lunch at Thiers center itself, but
when we saw how much (and how steep) we would have to climb, we quickly checked
for alternatives and – phew – found a nice restaurant just around the corner.
From Thiers we continued on small local roads, still avoiding the much bigger
and busier D906 – and with that, started our first “mountain ride”. The mountains
(or is it hills?) go up to just above 1000m in this area, but the highest we
went is around 600m.
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| Hot and hilly cycling; very beautiful and very thirsty |
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| After several climbs, a rest stop at the Lac d'Aubusson |
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| A real pleasure to pass through these villages. |
We cycled towards Les Chelles, a very small hamlet in the Livradois-Forez
nature park in the Auvergne. We had seen a nice campground online, and were not
disappointed. The Camping Les Chelles is easily the best we’ve been to on this
trip, and one of the best we know at all. On the mountain slope, with terraces
overlooking the valley and faraway hills, in a very peaceful natural setting,
with bird concerts all day long; all we could hope for!!! It didn’t take us too
long to decide, that this was a great place… to stay an extra day!
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| No comment needed!!! |
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| The hamlet of Les Chelles |
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| Oh well... just a mountain pasture on our walk |
So today we enjoyed a wonderful rest day in a wonderful place.
We had a fantastic morning in the sun with an impressive blue sky, went for a
walk through the forest, spent some time in the swimming pool (twice, oh yes!),
cleaned our bikes, and all this under a beautiful southern French sun. This is
what we do it all for!!!
