Vendredi Octobre 8th Le dernier grand trajet.
The day dawned bright and shiny and we were ready to go, but no one was around to get petite dejeuner or to pay our bill to. We were about ready to just leave our money and go when the chap appeared from a back room. He must live at the hotel. Maybe he is the owners son. We conversed with him about where we were from and he told us he had been to Florida and St Martin's in the Caribe.
After buying lunch at the magasin next door to the hotel, we started out on the bicycle path to Bordeaux.
The terrain was flat and through the pine forest. At one area we came upon several men with shotguns standing on the side of the path. It appeared they were hunting. They called bonjour to us and seemed friendly. We had sun and showers most of the day and were continually stopping to put our coats on and then to take them off again and stuff them in our panniers. There were red mushrooms along the path. Many people come into the forest to pick mushrooms also.
We stopped at a few towns on the way to sight see, to buy food and to take shelter from the rain. We spoke to an older couple from Chartres on their way to Spain on bicycles.
When we came close to Bordeaux, we had to leave the bike path and continue on the busy highway to get to the airport. The maps were a bit confusing, but with luck we managed to take all the right turns and ended up on the highway to our destination. The weather had turned colder and the rain was falling with a vengeance now. It almost felt like hail on our faces. We kept going in spite of the discomfort as we were anxious to get to our hotel and dry out.
At the airport we confirmed our
flight for dimanche and the attendant at the office
de tourisme called the Relais Bleu to book a room
for us that evening. Soaking wet we were off to find the hotel.
Thank goodness it was just a short distance from the airport.
50
kms to-day.
After drying out we took a bus into the town of Merignac, a suburb of Bordeaux to look around and to buy our daily bouteille de vin for our salute to the coffee group at St Mary's. Virginia bought a stylish black beret that made her look quite French.
While waiting for the bus to return to our hotel, a kind older lady, hearing our English language, took it upon herself to make sure we got on the right bus. She came onto the bus and spoke to the driver even though she was not going on that bus herself. This was one of the things that impressed me on our trip, the people who stepped forward to help us when we showed any indication we were having a problem or just to talk about where we were from. They all liked to tell us about the traveling they had done too. Most people thought we were Americans. There is a lot of talk that the French do not like Americans, but this was not evident to us as they were friendly before they found out we were Canadian.
Supper at the hotel and then to bed by 09:30 hours.