A day of ruined Chateaux.

Saturday 30th September 2023. Beauchastel.

What a whooping New Zealand gave to Italy last night 94-6 or something like that…I lost count. In fact I gave up listening to the commentary after half time. We are now in a non-rugby area of France and to be honest there aren’t any bars open to watch a late match, unless France are playing! Things will definitely liven up when we get to Lyon.

No pain aux raisins were left at the boulangerie this morning….what a tragedy, I got a pain aux chocolate instead and put it in my cycle bag for later in the day. We drove back to Viviers to set me off on the Rhône again.

The destination for the day was a car park at Beauchastel. I know that doesn’t sound too desirable but we can be quite a connoisseur of a good car park. It does get a bit tedious reading through reviews on the app ‘Park4Night’ to try to choose where to stay and where to avoid.

I enjoyed my sunny morning riding and I got the message that Janice had arrived at Beauchastel and the car park was good.

I cycled near to (but not through) Montelimar and had a yearning for its famous ‘nougat’. We have bought some with nuts…I must give it a go.

I cross crossed the Rhône several times. The bridge below was a footbridge to Roquemaure….a small town with a ruined chateau on the hill.

Janice had cycled south to meet me at La Voulte sur Rhône.

Beauchastel was another small but beautiful village. It doesn’t seem to have much going on but it does have a….ruined chateau! We saved the visit to the chateau for our evening walk through a maze of narrow lanes and steps.

In the rugby, Argentina have beaten Chile and Fiji only just beat Georgia 17-12 but will meet England in the quarters if they win their final pool game against Portugal….Australia will be knocked out! Scotland play Romania tonight too.

So, another glorious cycling day through towns that don’t get any recognition for their history or their beauty. If this were the Dordogne these villages would be filled with the toffee-nosed English middle classes snapping up the gites as holiday homes….the locals don’t know how lucky they are! So says a working class lad from Burnley….although Janice calls me a middle class ‘Grammar School’ boy! I’m having an identity crisis and my body is a ruin too!