We had an amazing breakfast on the patio and then Kathy and I set off just after Deb and Randy — and immediately forgot our helmets. Fortunately the wind nearly blew my hat off, so I realized within a few hundred meters and turned back to retrieve them.
Just at the bottom of the long hill we visited La Réole, whose old town hall was given to the village by Richard the Lionheart in the 12th century. We ran into Norbert there, who pointed us up the pedestrian street to see the cathedral. We also found a fabulous overlook of the Garonne.
The crop of the day was sunflowers — tournesols in French. Huge fields of yellow flowers all turning to face the sun.
After a long ride along the canal, much of it in the lovely green shade of plane trees (related to American sycamores), we stopped in Le Mas-d’Agenais, a quaint little town that happens to have an early Rembrandt in its church. From there we rode to our next hotel, L’Orangerie du Château Marith, where we had a fine dinner of grilled mahi-mahi.
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