Tentative flight on terns.

Today was the day. We woke early (or late if you are Mary) and donned our riding gear. We were excited to try out our bikes to see if they would perform. We set out. Noisily! Brakes squeaking, we probably woke a few people in the quiet still of early morning (people sleep with windows open here.. it's hot). There were a few adjustments to be done, but all was reasonably well. I couldn't easily select gears 2 and 3, but could cope. The three speed hub gears made such a difference- this means you have much flexibility as there are no gear combinations that put strain on the chain. We headed out into the countryside and soon were loving our freedom. This was to be only a small ride.. just to test out the bikes, and return for breakfast.

Finally the terns were free to fly again after the long rehabilitation. Quite soon we were on a side road with avenues of trees, the usual agricultural scenes and old barn houses along the way. We made our way around a range and found a local golf course which we slowly sidled past. 
At some point we realised that to get back to Belves we must cross a small range and the bicycles did a creditable job on the hill. 

Selfie.

Before long the wonderful perched hilltop village of Belves was visible on the horizon.

Another selfie

Thats Belves. It's high.

It's uphill to the town from whichever direction you come, so there was no alternative but to inch our way up again and we arrived right at the boulangerie which was quite convenient! 

I have to say it was really wonderful to be outside cycling in the early morning in France.The temperature was pleasant and the days have been quite hot so it was lovely to arrive back by eight just feel the warmth starting to permeate. 

Thereafter ensued another scene of thinly disguised voracious eating. I think I need some serious personal trainer to help me through this one! 

We then realised that it was probably a good opportunity to make the trip to Perigueux to enlist both Mary and myself as drivers of the hire car.

We tried to upgrade our hire car to the one we had actually arranged to rent (the current one being too small, but all that was available as our car had been given to other people because of the sudden appearance of hundreds of laden tourists unable to get to their destinations in the train strike

A joke played on me by the Hertz man who took me outside to show me a bigger car we might be interested in. He indicated a Twingo (one of the smallest cars available). Watching my face drop in disappointment, he smiled and told me this was a "Friday joke" and pointed to a much larger vehicle further down the street. 

This little administrative trip turned out to be an all-day adventure with visits to the Hertz rent a car place and walk around Perigueux itself 

 including a visit to the magnificent cathedral 

with some not so magnificent wood carvings at the pulpit.

Lovely restoration- Perigueux street scene

After that we had a visit to the Gallo-Roman Museum complete with restoration of quite a lot of the walls of the central administrative residences of Perigueux. The museum contains many artefacts including some rather grand statues both of Mercury and Jupiter the God's worship of the time. Mercury was in many pieces because the roadside builders were cracking away at a large buried piece of stone when they finally turned it over to realise that they had been destroying something of profound historic significance. Here's a photo of the restored sculpture.

Mercury

After the museum we made it quite a fun trip to the zone commercial of Boulazac. Here we looked at the local sports store with the intention of buying some cheap bicycles for Rani and Ben. It was here that I chanced upon the newly released French folding bike the D.This is not a bad piece of engineering. Not as sophisticated as the terns with only 7 gears, nevertheless it has a great price at €159 and seems to be quite well constructed.

the fold is quite similar to the terns. Here's a short video featuring the B-twin tilt and a song about Swedish ladies. (???)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4rw87FFST4

We followed this excursion with an attempt to find the hot air ballooning place in St Cyprien. We have a navigator called Martin who came with the hire car. He's a bit of a practical joker, and we ended up ascending an incredibly steep, narrow (one car width minus 1cm, or thereabouts... we had to breathe in to avoid scratches) street which ended abruptly at a T intersection so cleverly constructed that at the approach angle, I couldn't see the road because the dashboard was in the way and my windscreen only showed blue sky and jet trails. It was a blind turn and we lurched back horizontally to find ourselves indeed on a road.. the whole exercise was a test of faith.

The Montgolfier balloonists had fled their mythical location, taking their "dit-lieue" with them, so hot and flustered with Martin's pranks we returned to Belves for dinner.