Saturday May 30 to June 3

Arrived in Issoire at noon and on the way through town passed by an Internet Cafe. Decided to go in and do some blogging. Unfortunately all blogspots had been blocked because of some guy posting anti semite stuff. The boss made a call and 5 minutes later I was able to access my blog.

I forgot to mention the other day when I was using a PC at a cyber cafe (as they are called in France) in Cahors I asked the young fellow managing the cafe how to make an e circonflexe i.e. ê. He had no idea. I asked him if he knew what the DOS code was. He had no idea what I was talking about. He had never heard of DOS. I showed him that by holding down the Alt key and pressing 136 (which I discovered through trial and error) on the numeric pad the character ê could be created. He was amazed.

Getting out of Cahors was a bit of a challenge. I had programmed my GPS for Limogne-en-Quercy and followed the signs indicating direction Rodez. GPS kept telling me to make a U-turn. After about 1.5 kms the road became more and more a major hwy so I decided to turn around. Followed the directions given by the GPS and eventually after a lot of hard climbing arrived at a small village called Valaire. I went into the corner gas station general store and bought some food and had a picnic out in the main sqare. It was a lovely sunny fairly hot day. I managed to go through 4 bottles of water before arriving at Villefranche-de-Rouergue around 3 PM. By this time I was totally shattered. The climbing went on and on and on. I managed to find a room at Hotel de l'Univers next to the Lot River. Very nice but on the 3rd floor.

Later on in the evening I went out for a walk in search of a cyber cafe. I had been told there was one by Hotel de la Poste. I had passed by this hotel on my way into town and had stopped to ask for a room but it was full. I walked for 2 kms and managed to find a small Arabic snack bar and asked about internet. I was told that they had shut down the cyber cafe sometime ago. Oh well it was a lovely evening for a walk. Went back to the hotel for a nightcap and had an early night.

The following day, Sunday, May 31st, it was raining. I decided I would stay another day rather than cycle in the rain. The hotel manageress agreed to let me use her PC to access the internet. Just as I was getting started a German fellow, from Cologne, that I had met earlier came along. He had collected his bicycle from the garage and was setting out for Cahors - the direction I had just come from. By this time, 9:30, the rain had stopped and the skies were clearing up. I told him I was headed for Rodez. He said it was a terrible place and that instead I should go to Montsalvy. I checked my map and his book on cycling in France, which was in German, and decided to follow his advice. I checked out of the hotel at 1030 which was a rather late start but I thought it would be a short ride to Montsalvy!!!

I cycled to Montbazens, Aubin, Decazeville and finally along the Lot River which was a welcome relief from all the previous hills I had been climbing. I eventually arrived at Montsalvy at 7:45 PM much later than I had intended. There was only one hotel in town and when I asked about a room for the night I was told they were full. They did suggest I go to the corner bar and ask about a room there as they sometimes had rooms available. Off I went. I was told by the barmaid that they didn't rent rooms but that M. Fau, a local farmer, rented rooms.