Sunday ride to the mountains
One of the nice things about France is, that some shops are open on Sunday morning. Which is especially useful after the holiday we had yesterday. After a pretty crowded visit at the local supermarket I grabbed my hiking boots and went for a ride towards the mountains.
At a place called "Gourdon" (I think. My map is not very precise) things already looked very rocky.
But 758 meters is not the best the local mountains can do and my Q wanted to ride a bit more anyway after standing around for almost a week and being degraded to a mule for shopping...
Right beside Gourdon is "Gorges du Loup". According to my tiny French dictionary it can be translated as "Canyon of the Loup" (where Loup is the name of a small stream).
As you cannot see the canyon on the picture above, I went closer and indeed found the incredibly beautiful entrance to the canyon. Not only for the looks, but also very nice for riding a bike :D.
The way went on, curve after curve, and the Q was in her element. When we finally decided to stop, we were at a place called "Gréolières les-neiges", apparently a of ski-ressourt and the end of my map :P.
After finding a nice place for the Q I went hiking. As before in Riva del Garda I made a picture of the local map to prevent getting lost :P.
After a while I stopped to sit on some stone, enjoy the view and have my lunch: A piece of bread and some dried sausage ;-).
The air was pretty clear and you could see very far. Everything felt a bit unrealistic as the human mind is not used to seeing that far. Unfortunately it is impossible to catch this with pictures. You need to experience yourself. As a poor substitute I created a Panorama (Clicking the following picture. You need Quicktime installed).
It was created from 26 images, 6 Megapixels each. The processing requirements nearly killed my poor notebook (36480 x 2880 pixels before conversion to QTVR :-P).
I took the same route back home. This time downwards...
Half way home needed gasoline. The tank of my Q definitely is too small. Unfortunately the situation on Sundays in France is even worse than the situation on Sundays in Italy:
Most stations I passed were closed and had no automated solution.
After riding very carefully for quite a while (to consume as few of the remaining gasoline as possible) I finally I found a very modern, automated gas station :-). It even had a multi lingual display with German as option :-). Just to tell me, in German, that I only accepts French credit cards! :-( No cash, no German bank cards, no German credit cards :-(.
However, French people are way nicer than French gasoline machines. Some other customer of that station understood my situation and gave me gasoline with his card in exchange for cash :-D. So I didn't have to spend the night in some canyon in the French countryside, only millimetres away from gasoline...
And I am finally convinced that getting a French credit card was a very good idea. I hope it arrives soon :-P.
At a place called "Gourdon" (I think. My map is not very precise) things already looked very rocky.
But 758 meters is not the best the local mountains can do and my Q wanted to ride a bit more anyway after standing around for almost a week and being degraded to a mule for shopping...
Right beside Gourdon is "Gorges du Loup". According to my tiny French dictionary it can be translated as "Canyon of the Loup" (where Loup is the name of a small stream).
As you cannot see the canyon on the picture above, I went closer and indeed found the incredibly beautiful entrance to the canyon. Not only for the looks, but also very nice for riding a bike :D.
The way went on, curve after curve, and the Q was in her element. When we finally decided to stop, we were at a place called "Gréolières les-neiges", apparently a of ski-ressourt and the end of my map :P.
After finding a nice place for the Q I went hiking. As before in Riva del Garda I made a picture of the local map to prevent getting lost :P.
After a while I stopped to sit on some stone, enjoy the view and have my lunch: A piece of bread and some dried sausage ;-).
The air was pretty clear and you could see very far. Everything felt a bit unrealistic as the human mind is not used to seeing that far. Unfortunately it is impossible to catch this with pictures. You need to experience yourself. As a poor substitute I created a Panorama (Clicking the following picture. You need Quicktime installed).
It was created from 26 images, 6 Megapixels each. The processing requirements nearly killed my poor notebook (36480 x 2880 pixels before conversion to QTVR :-P).
I took the same route back home. This time downwards...
Half way home needed gasoline. The tank of my Q definitely is too small. Unfortunately the situation on Sundays in France is even worse than the situation on Sundays in Italy:
Most stations I passed were closed and had no automated solution.
After riding very carefully for quite a while (to consume as few of the remaining gasoline as possible) I finally I found a very modern, automated gas station :-). It even had a multi lingual display with German as option :-). Just to tell me, in German, that I only accepts French credit cards! :-( No cash, no German bank cards, no German credit cards :-(.
However, French people are way nicer than French gasoline machines. Some other customer of that station understood my situation and gave me gasoline with his card in exchange for cash :-D. So I didn't have to spend the night in some canyon in the French countryside, only millimetres away from gasoline...
And I am finally convinced that getting a French credit card was a very good idea. I hope it arrives soon :-P.
posted by IC at
12:12 PM
1 Comments:
hey dude how is france going?
i hope you are satisfying your stomach with something else than sausages... ;)
i hope and i guess you enjoy a better weather than this cold and lost island that is UK...
you should update me blog but i don't have (find) the time to do it...or maybe i don't want...
bon courage et amuse-toi bien (you're learning french right?)
a bientot
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minou-san, at 4:59 PM
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