Sunset looking across to Tournon sur Rhone from Tain l’Hermitage
The day dawned sunny and fairly calm, we had a quick breakfast in our room and left by 9:30. I was responsible for the check round and ever so stupidly missed my phone on the bed – something we discovered 10km down the road! More of that later.
We were very close to the cycle route and soon crossed over our first bridge, a hydroelectric dam. The 10km cycle down to Condrieu was charming, past market gardens, through a wooded nature reserve, past steeply terraced vineyards and with beautiful early morning sunshine lighting everything up. We planned on getting some coffee and a croissant in Condrieu as a second breakfast, however we had to hunt around a bit for a place we liked. We had some navigational issues in the center of town, less said about that the better. Then when we returned to the river to eat our quiches (disappointingly bland) I discovered I had left my UK phone behind. Calamity, what do we do? Make a long cycle even longer by going back for it (no thanks) or contact the owner and fix a time to pick it up on our return journey – a bit of a detour by car. We opted for the later. Mike was very supportive even though I had been a bit of a pain and we got our zen back together to continue to enjoy the day. Would have been a real shame to spoil our trip. Despite this I remember the first 10km of our ride today as some of the best riding of the day. The small farms along the side of the river were truly enjoyable to ride by.
We continued on, after resupplying at a nearby supermarket with some water, to Sablons for our next stop. This time we chanced upon an excellent boulangerie (Maison Jury), clearly popular given the queue outside, and got a takeaway salad plus pastries for lunch. Excellent pain au raisin. Had it under the shade of a trimmed poplar tree by the river with views of the bridge.
However pleasant as we still had another 45km to go we needed to keep moving so no time for a post lunch coffee! It was quite warm but fortunately the bike path was fairly quiet so we could draft and spread the effort. I was still very keen on getting a coffee, so we did a detour (up a hill) through what on the map was a promising town (St. Rambert d’Albon), many cafés / bars none of which appealed! So back down the hill onto the cycle path. This was a lovely section through a tree lined route next to the river and fantastically not too far along we came up a very nice bar / café at Laveyron.
Mike had a beer and chatted to the barman about the origins of Haloween, the bar tender could not understand why it was being celebrated in France but as everyone else was having a party they had decided to do the same this year. We were joined by another cyclist who was on a long tour with his 45kg electric bike – that was before the panniers. Fortunately his bike recharges when the motor is not being used! He said he still needed to be careful of power consumption. The handling must be so different. Was glad we were on our regular ‘lightweight’ bikes. Had just started off feeling very relaxed when Mike discovered he had a puncture.
Fortunately we were carrying spare inners, as the valve also broke so the inner tube was not repairable. A bit of a challenge getting the tyre off, so I sat in the shade and relaxed so as not to put Mike under pressure! However, not too long and we were on our way again, having first established there were a couple of bike shops in Tournon where we hoped (yes) to be able to get additional inners. We shortly crossed over to the other side of the river at Sarras and revitalised by our coffee / beers enjoyed the ride along the bike path to Tournon-sur-Rhone.
The Residence we had booked into (Gite le pied du Geant) was in the Old Town, we got to roughly where we thought it might be, looked around and then I suddenly saw what looked to be a shop with the name of the hotel above it! Very quirky as you can see from the video but very comfortable, excellent place to store our bikes and explore the old town from. After getting the washing done (another plus) we headed out for a glass of wine followed by dinner.
Our hostess had recommended we visit a wine bar (Le Bateau Ivre) on the other side of the river before heading to our dinner reservation at Le Mangevins ( restaurant link ) Another excellent gastronomic restaurant. This is run by a husband and wife team, they manage about 12 -15 covers only so we were lucky to get in. The owner took great care of us, explained the meals (in English) and we decided to have wines by the glass to accompany our courses. He chose what would go best and we left ourselves in his hands. Very special experience.
A quick note on the Passerelle Marc-Seguin footbridge ( footbridge link ). It is a replica of the first suspension bridge over the Rhône, using bundled cables rather than wrought iron chains, built in 1825 This approach, invented by Marc Seguin) allowed faster construction of more flexible, lighter bridges to be built with longer spans. It kicked off the vogue for suspension bridges in Europe between 1825 and 1845. One of the things I enjoy about touring on bicycles and life in the slow lane is discovering things like this purely by accident.
Our walk back to the other side of the river and our hotel was lovely with the bridge and monuments lit up. So far the gastronomic tour of the area was going very well. The cycling was proving to be much more enjoyable as well than I thought it would be.
See below for a video of our ride
See below for a map of our ride
