Bordeaux to Cadillac

Bordeaux to Cadillac, Tuesday, May 26, 2009

We arrived at Bordeaux Merignac Airport at 5:24 AM (local time was 11:24 AM) 45 minutes early. It was raining. Passport control was a breeze. Waited 15-20 minutes to collect my paniers. Bike was waiting for me opposite side of baggage area about 50 meters away. Plastic bag was a bit ripped and left top handle bar gear shift was scraped but otherwise everything appeared to be in good working order. Spent half an hour getting the plastic off (I really got carried away with the wrapping tape) and pumped up the tires. By this time I was completely lathered. The humidity in the baggage area must have been in the 90s. I wheeled up to customs and they just waved me on through. Didn't even bother to ask me if I had any drugs to declare!!! In the arrival area I found a washroom where I was able to wheel my bike right into a "cripple" stall and changed into my biking gear.
Once I got outside I turned on my GPS and searched for Agen. The directions were a bit vague so I asked a couple of taxi drivers for directions. They pointed me in the right direction and said I had to take the highway by the Renault garage. So off I went into the wild blue (maybe not so blue because of the overcast skies) yonder. The Google Map directions I had printed off before leaving were totally useless. I managed to get quite lost and ended up turning into an autoroute access ramp and was told quite blatantly by some guy waving his finger at me that I was not allowed to go on the autoroute with my bicycle. Not far off I saw a restaurant so I turned around and headed in that direction. There I met a gentlemen coming out of the restaurant who was a cycling enthusiast. He suggested I try programming my GPS for the next village down the road. This I tried and with the directions from the GPS was able to make my way from village to village until I arrived at Cadillac at 5:30 PM local time. The rain only lasted about an hour and afterwards things began to clear up. I had to take my yellow jacket off as I was getting quite hot.

The manager of the hotel was waiting for me and showed me where I could store my bike behind the hotel in the laundry drying area. Later on I spoke to him about locking up my bike in a more secure area for the night. He said I could put it in the "garage" which was really a musty/dusty old cellar but at least it had a door that could be locked and my bike was out of site. The room was quite adequate but overlooked the main highway and as I suspected there was traffic noise throughout the night. A lot of lorries passing through at all hours of the night.
After freshening up I went down to the bar and invited the manager to have a beer with me. He hesitated, just for a moment, but eventually said because I was a Canadian he would accept my offer. Turns out that after Morocco received its independence his parents decided to relocate to Canada and he ended up living in Montreal for 9 years before moving to France.
Went out for a walkabout around the village and discovered there were a lot of ancient ramparts. When I asked M. D'Etrée about these he explained that they had been built by the British during the Aquitaine reign.

Returned to the hotel for dinner which turned out to be a three course affair i.e. mushroom omelet with lettuce and tomato, huge no hormones locally produced steak and chips with more lettuce and tomatoes and cheese and butter with bread and of course the obligatory 1/4 litre of red local house wine to wash it all down with.
Total costs for my stay at the hotel including room, drinks, dinner and continental breakfast the following morning € 74.