Wednesday, September 10, 2008
A daytour around Montcombroux (part 1)
At seven AM I got out of my bed in the hotel in Bert. I went to the bathroom
for a shower to find out there was no towel.......
Well, I wanted to have a shower anyway so I used a T-shirt as a towel. Then
I got the BMW from the garage and went to Robert and Janny's house in
Montcombroux.
After a good breakfast Robert and I left to tour the surrounding of
Montcombroux. We needed to ride to Lapalisse to get fuel but first we had
to get back to my hotel to ask about the towel. That was no problem.
The towels were in the kitchen and I could have got one myself.......OK,
no problem.
The hotel
After sorting out the towel problem, we drove to Lapalisse to fill our tanks
at the "Champion" gasstation. 13.5 liter for 335.3 km.
With our tanks filled, we left Lapalisse at a quarter past nine and drove to
the castle at Puyal. A nice castle that is still occupied and not open for
the general public.
Nice castle at Puyal
We left Puyal and had a great ride on wonderfull roads with almost no
other traffic. We saw some very nice farmhouses and beautiful scenery
and then we saw the castle ruin of Montaigu le Blin in the distance.
While we were looking at the castle ruins, Robert noticed five cows looking
at us and that made a nice picture.
Five cows in a row
We made a few pictures of the castle ruins and then jumped on our bikes again
to get closer to the castle.
The castle ruins of Montaigu le Blin
Through the streets of Montaigu le Blin we rode to the castle gate and
parked the bikes and then we walked through the gates into the castle.
At the gate a man was mowing the gras and inside the castle walls were
a whole group of pretty girls, cleaning stones and removing weeds from
between the walls.
We walked around the courtyard and chatted with one of the girls (the chatting
was mostly done by Robert because he speaks very good French) when they invited
us for some bread and chocolatbars. We accepted and found out the were comming
from all over the world. Japan, Germany, Ukraine and some other countries and
fortunately for me, some of them did speak English so I could talk with them
in English.
When they got back to work they invited us to stay for lunch but we wanted
to do some more riding and also found it hard to explain to our wifes if we
spend the whole day with eight nice young girls intead of doing the
bike trip..........
Life is good in France
After we left the girls and the castle ruins, we rode to a thousand year old
church in Montaigu le Blin. In this area there are a lot of churches from that
period.
The old church in Montaigu le Blin
I made some pictures of the church and then we got on the bikes again. Past
Varennes we arrived in the center of St Pourçain sur Sioule and had a coffee
and a pancake at a outdoor café.
A pancake with sugar in St Pourçain sur Sioule
In St Pourçain sur Sioule we also visited the "Eglise of Sainte-Croix" (
"Church of the Holy Cross"). An old church with very nice paintings and
beautiful stained glas windows. The porch of the church is the oldest parts
and was build in the 11th century.
The exterior of the "Eglise of Sainte-Croix" in St Pourçain sur Sioule
The interior of the "Eglise of Sainte-Croix" in St Pourçain sur Sioule
Beautiful paintings
Stained glas windows
Through the nice streets of St Pourçain sur Sioule we walked to the bridge
over the river Sioule. The weather is almost perfect. Sunny but not to hot.
St Pourçain sur Sioule
The bridge over the Sioule is next to a waterfall in the river, a very
nice view. They used to generate electricity from the waterfall.
The waterfalls. The building in the background
used to be the power
generator building.
Then we left St Pourçain sur Sioule in the direction past Louchy-Montfand to
Montord.
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