Day 10 Chantelle to Riom – Eclectic Items

A trip across country today, heading towards the Auvergne and it’s extinct volcanoes.

I found that keeping to the roads made sense, since the trails usually ran parallel and were simply harder to ride on without being interesting or fun.

Swallows massing on telegraph wires, used to see this a lot in England, not recently though.

In a run-down area of Charroux I stopped for a breather in this little square with a curious monument with Egyptian symbols. I thought it might be to Napoleon.

But the list of battles on the other side included a couple of non-Napoleonic defeats. It turns out that the words “Tell the consul that I die with o n ly one regret, that of not having done enough for my country or for posterity” were spoken by General Desaix, just after being shot before his regiment charged at the battle of Morengo, a famous Napoleonic victory over the Austrian empire.

Then along a street called “Rue de Four” which means “Oven” so I might see a bread oven along here, and this turned up, “Ah, here is the oven” but I looked inside and there was a deep circular hole like a well. Don’t know.

I remembered to buy something for lunch today, the cheese is like a mousse, just slightly fermented cream. Ate this at the top of a long long hill, beside a deserted road, lovely.

Nearer my destination, Riom, I took to the trails again, the guide promises that they are “easy” which is misrepresentation, they are bumpy, muddy and hilly.

Riom has a central section, within old city walls I imagine, that has a warren of narrow windy medieval streets, but unlike many such towns, not gentrified here but quite down-at-heel, a very different atmosphere from the manicured medieval towns one often finds.

My accommodation was outside town. An old manor house with huge rooms and a small outdoor heated pool – so I had an outdoor evening swim for the second day running.