***

The view didn’t seem entirely real as I approached the sanctuaries of Rocamadour. Perhaps that’s because in addition to the natural drama of the way the sanctuaries are set into the cliffs above the Alzou River, Rocamadour has long stood in a shadowy zone between history and legend.

I’d been riding along the valley from the south. Between brief rain showers a spring sunrise illuminated the gray cliffs and the cité réligieuse. I thought that this combination of light, shadows, rocks, walls and mists would allow for exceptional photos for the Dordogne cycling guidebook I was preparing at the time.

The view of the cliff and the sanctuaries that hug it may have influenced a few movie set, including Raiders of the Lost Ark, but this is the real deal, and like much of history, what actually happened here seems more farfetched than fiction.

My own arrival was more like a scene from “Around the World in 80 days.” I’d flown in from Orlando two days before, taken public transportation from Charles de Gaulle Airport to the Paris Gare d’Austerlitz train station, had lunch next to the Jardin de Plantes, then taken the 4-hour train south to Brive la Gaillard. On arrival, I rented a micro van large enough to carry my luggage and bicycle, and off I drove to a small hotel in Souillac. The next morning, I rented a bike and took a first ride to Sarlat.

These cliffs facing south and some water from the Alzou, even though most of it is underground, is a lot like the area around the caves at Lascaux north of here. So Cro-Magnon, or even Neanderthal, groups could have lived here, plus Ice-Age bison and ibex. But what I would be seeing soon was more recent, 1,000 years old, though the legends date them back further.

And on up the valley I cycled.

Then came that slow (most are slow for me) climb up and through the two short tunnels to the castle level of Rocamadour.

From the top I could see the three levels of Rocamadour: the village at the base, the seven sanctuaries hugging the cliffs at the middle, and here at the top the medieval fortified castle that protected the pilgrims.

I locked my bike near the inclined elevator, stored my helmet inside the ticket kiosk with the cashier, and took the incline down to the village level. From there I would take the 216 steps of the Grand Staircase to the sanctuaries, with a few stories along the way.

The Roc part of Rocamadour refers to these rocks or cliffs. Amadour apparently comes from the hermit Amadour, who became St. Amadour.

Of the many versions of the identity of Amadour, my favorite is that he was actually Zacchaeus, the chief tax collector of Jericho, husband of Veronica, and that he once had Jesus as his houseguest. Zacchaeus and Veronica, disciples of Jesus, were eventually persecuted and driven out of Palestine. They followed the shore of the Mediterranean in a delicate skiff guided by an angel. After a journey halfway around the Mediterranean, they landed in southwestern Gaul, now southwestern France. There they met Martial, also a disciple of Jesus and spreading the Gospel in the region. The couple traveled to Rome and witnessed the martyrdoms of fellow saints Peter and Paul. After Veronica passed away, Zacchaeus returned to Gaul and constructed a chapel above the Alzou Valley. He lived in a cave as a hermit before he died.

There were a number of modern-day pilgrims ready to ascend the Grand Staircase. The group was quiet as the prepared to pass the Stations of the Cross indicated along the ascent.

Zacchaeus was buried next to the chapel he’d built. In the twelfth century, the nearby faithful started calling him St. Amadour, or Amator, though some say that the name refers to the fourth-century bishop Amatre of Auxerre. Whatever the case, in 1166 a body was uncovered near the very same chapel in such a remarkable state of preservation that people believed it could only be that of a saint.

In the Middle Ages, religious institutions thrived on possessing a piece a saint. During the twelfth century, every religious community across France wanted to give pilgrims a reason to stop for supplies, rest and exchange news. Much like drawing tourists, receiving pilgrims was good for the economy for that community. The major pilgrimage in Western Europe at the time was the journey to Santiago de Compostela in western Spain, site of the relics of St. James. Rich or poor, almost everyone that undertook a thousand mile pilgrimage had the means to complete it.

The discovery of St. Amadour’s well-preserved remains led to Rocamadour becoming a destination for pilgrims and a major stop on the route to Santiago de Compostela. The Rocamadour community prospered. But during the sixteenth-century Wars of Religion that pitted Protestants against Catholics, Protestants burned those remains, and an emboldened knight bashed the bones with a battleaxe. In spite of that desecration, there were remnants, and they are now in the St. Amadour Crypt below the Basilica of St. Sauveur.

It was now my turn to climb the Grand Staircase, passing along the way the faithful at the Stations of the Cross. Traditionally, pilgrims would climb the staircase on their knees, though few do so today.

Even on foot I needed to rest by the time I arrived at the sanctuary level. No rush; the chance to take in the view while recovering (rapidly, thanks to cycling) before going down into St. Amadour’s Crypt below Notre-Dame Chapel.

A sign stated that Bishop St. Martial had lived in the third century, further complicating the history of Rocamadour. Some say that the faithful were referring to St. Amator or bishop Amatre. There isn’t much hard data to go on. Relics of the day were currency with little or no authentication. And beatification was as messy as the Lehman bankruptcy or the Greek tax collection system.

I climbed up to the Notre-Dame Chapel.

Here in this dark church, also called Chapelle Miraculeuse, is the celebrated Vierge Noir (Black Madonna). Legend has it that Zacchaeus (St. Amadour) carved her from local black walnut. I read in Helen Martin’s guide to the area that the Black Virgin was greatly venerated in the Middle Ages, most fervently in the 12th century. Honored for her assistance in fertility and childbirth, she was an heir to pre-Christian views of a mother-god.

Coming out of the Chapel one sees a diagonal gash in the cliff face high above our heads. It’s a mark that legend says was left by Durandal, the sword of Roland.

Roland was a military leader fighting for Emperor Charlemagne in the eighth century. Roland is the subject of many legends in Europe and this how the France’s eleventh-century The Song of Roland puts it: Roland was retreating from a battle in Spain through the Pyrenees when his force was ambushed here by the Basques. The battle went against him. He had a horn named Oliphaunt that he then blew hoping for help from the Emperor. And he had a sword named Durandal. It was embedded with Christian relics and was considered to be unbreakable. With defeat imminent, Roland didn’t want Durandal to fall into the hands of the enemy. He tried to destroy it himself but as I said it was unbreakable. Finally, the Archangel Gabriel arrived. He took Durandal and threw it high and away. The sword struck the cliffs above the Alzou Valley, where it stays impaled to this day. The slash in the cliff to the left of the Chapel is where Durandal struck.

I followed a steep path back up to the ticket kiosk, recovered my helmet and bike, took a last photo, and set off for further adventures, including a bottle of Cahors vin noir in the evening.

– Text and photos © Walter Judson Moore, 2011.

Walter Judson Moore is the author of five cycling guidebooks to France and four companion queue sheets in print and as downloads. His guide “Dordogne Valleys and Villages” includes the area covered by this article. His work is available on Amazon and other online booksellers, as well as directly (and personally signed) from the author, who may be reached at wjmoore@tampabay.rr.com.

For further information on Rocamadour and the departments of Lot and Dordogne

Rocamadour Tourist Office
Lot Tourist Office (department includes Rocamadour and Cahors)
Dordogne Tourist Office  (department includes Périgueux, Bergerac and Sarlat)
*Helen Martin’s Lot: Travels Through a Limestone Landscape in Southwest France. Moho Books, 2008 rev. ed.

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This is especially true in my two-wheeled explorations in and around the Morvan Regional Natural Park, a vast, lightly populated, protected green zone covering 1100 square miles in the center of Burgundy that’s exceptional for cycling, farms, forestry and history.

Celts and Romans

Three thousand years ago, during the Bronze Age, the area was inhabited by the Celts. Early merchants carried tin from Cornwall to the Mediterranean regions using the valleys of the Seine and Saône, and through Alsace, southern Germany and the Danube valley.

Around 100 B.C., the control of these routes allowed the Eduan tribe of Celts to establish power over most of what is present-day Burgundy. Their center of authority was Bibracte, an oppidum (or fortified settlement) at Mont Beuvray in the southern Morvan. That’s where the united Celtic tribes elected Vercingétorix chief to repel the Roman army under Caesar. The name Vercingétorix fills Frenchmen with pride since he was a homegrown hero brave enough to go up against an invader. He was nevertheless soon defeated.

From his camp at Flavigny-sur-Ozerain, Julius Caesar directed the final defeat of Vercingétorix and the Celtic tribes at Alesia, at the top of a nearby hill, in 52 B.C.

Caesar wrote that the Celts fought naked, perhaps as a way of saying that the men they set out to defeat were less than human, but in these warrior tribes men and women wore full armor, including chiefs and elders, who fought side by side on small horses. The Celts had a flourishing civilization. In the second and first centuries B.C. men shaved with obsidian razors, made fine jewelry, enjoyed wild boar, and imported oil and wine from Italy. These were tall people and had long blond hair. The hair color may have come from washing in a lye solution to rid their scalps of various critters.

Archeologists estimate that prior to the Celts’ conquest by Julius Caesar, traders brought 40 million amphorae (two-handled pottery jugs used to transport liquids such as wine and oil) into Gaul. After Caesar’s conquest, there was a decrease in the wine traffic as, instead of wine that easily turned to vinegar en route, Romans brought vines and their winemaking methods to eastern Burgundy.

Cycling around the Morvan has allowed me to acquire a sense of how Celts and Romans might have lived 20 centuries ago. In spite of small paved roads (a few following old Roman roads) allowing easy access, the rocky hills are covered with square mile after square mile of mature, dark forests. There are probably more villages now, but fewer permanent inhabitants.

From Forest to Wood for Paris

By fits and starts through the Middle Ages France became an increasingly powerful and centralized kingdom as far as most Parisians were concerned. But not much changed in the Morvan.

Paris only began paying attention to the Morvan—and perhaps the Morvan to Paris—because of the rich supply of wood in the area. Paris managed to find sufficient wood within its own surrounding region through the Middle Ages, but by the early 16th century that resource was nearly depleted. The kings, starting with Francis I, would not allow woodcutting in the royal domains that they reserved for hunting. Some wood was coming from northwest Burgundy by oxcart, but this was slow and costly.

In 1545, someone came up with the scheme to raft wood down the Cure River to the Yonne River, the Seine River and into Paris. It was a good idea but he had no funding. Charles Leconte, a native of Nièvre and prime carpentry contractor for the City Hall of Paris, then jumped on the idea and obtained funding.

On 20 April 1547, Leconte brought the first profitable raft of logs on the Yonne to Paris. Two years later an epic number of logs began floating to the capital.

This enterprise thrived for nearly 300 years, until wood was displaced in Paris by charcoal and then coal. At its peak, the annual volume of wood down the Yonne provided 90% of heating wood for Paris, exceeding 900,000 cubic yards of wood per year.

The annual cycle of selling and floating wood started on All Saints Day, 1 November, when the previous year’s wood harvest was auctioned at Châtillon-en-Bazois to 22 brokers by the owners of the forest properties. Within 15 days, the crews of those brokers and the forest owners marked each end of each length, called hammering, with a registered brand. These marked logs were stacked close to streams that ultimately flow to the Yonne. They were then moved into the streams in preparation for the “small wave” that started on 15 November. To obtain a sufficient flow of water, many reservoirs (made for this purpose) released water. Men and boys lined the streams and threw logs back into the flooding streams. This took the upstream logs to the 22 accumulation ports at the streams’ confluence with the Yonne.

After 15 November, the upstream reservoirs were dammed and an army of workers swarmed back into the Morvan forests for the winter to cut logs for the following year’s auction.

By 15 March, winter snows melted and the reservoirs were full again. Early that morning, water was released and marked wood from the accumulation ports flowed into the Yonne and on to Clamecy. All along the Yonne, men and boys risked their lives pushing the logs back into the river. The wave of wood was enormous; the river was covered with logs many feet thick and miles long.

Five hours later the residents of Clamecy, 20 to 30 miles downstream, heard the thunder of the approaching “Great Flood.” That was the signal to gather along town’s riverbanks to watch the logs arrive. With the initial roar of logs, the temporary wood dams below Clamecy were closed to raise the Yonne level and stop the flow of wood.

On the river banks, workers—men, women and children—drew wood out of the river with spiked poles up to 12 feet long. Women and children sorted the recovered logs and loaded them on special wheelbarrows. Then the wood was distributed to 30 workshop areas near the river depending on the logs’ marking.

The sorted logs were stacked 10 feet high with layers in alternating directions, roughly 5 cubic yards. There the wood dried until November.

In November, as the annual wood auction began way up stream, teams of six experienced workers in Clamecy assembled individual and complex rafts of logs, 250 feet long by 15 feet wide, with about 200 cords of wood. They then slid and levered the rafts into the Yonne and the next phase began. Two people were on each raft, the floater (a male adult) and his “little man in the back” (a teenager). When the raft got past the narrows upstream from Auxerre, the teenager left the raft and walked back to Clamecy. The floater guided the raft the rest of the way north down the quieter Yonne to the Seine and on to Paris, 155-mile ride that took 10 to 15 days.

Then innovation intruded into life along the Yonne. By the end of the 17th century the French had become master builders of canals and were extending the canal network throughout the kingdom.
Construction of the Canal du Nivernais began in 1784 with the goal of connecting the Loire basin with the Seine. This final 113-mile waterway for barges up to 99 feet in length and 16½ feet in width, including 110 locks and three tunnels, was finally inaugurated in 1841.

Paris had then started turning to coal for heat, and the Canal du Nivernais was also transporting upwards of 100 tons of coal per barge. With all that excess wood, the shops in Clamecy started making and shipping charcoal.

Canal tourism by barge and by bike

Commercial traffic along the Canal du Nivernais declined when a rail line was built nearby. That could have been the death of the canal.

Then Pierre Zivy pioneered canal tourism in France. The Canal du Nivernais had been effectively abandoned and was overgrown with vegetation. Between 1965 and 1970, traffic was virtually non-existent and there was consideration to close the waterway. But Zivy saw a future in the canal and put forward a plan. The region of Burgundy, supported by local and national funding, stepped in with money, renovating locks, tunnels, bridges, and the waterway for exclusive use of pleasure boats. To the great pleasure of cyclists like me, they implemented bicycle routes throughout the region, with old towpaths upgraded and paved for much of their length.

I rode here for a week in spring when the area is green, temperatures are moderate and the risk of rain acceptable. A bike path runs along the length of the canal, allowing easy cycling for those who wish to avoid hills, offering a leisurely pace during which to visit surrounding villages and absorb local culture and history. There are plenty of decent restaurants, and those in search of Burgundy wines and wine knowledge can certainly find them. Undoubtedly, fewer people here speak English than in the more popular eastern Burgundy wine region, but whenever I attempt a little French, even just a greeting, conversation thrives.

Along the gentle slopes above the canal, I bicycled through a couple of small villages and a section of woods that seemed right out of the eighteenth century, albeit with a wider and paved roadbed.

To get an idea where the annual wood auction took place, I rode south along the canal to Châtillon-en-Bazois. In addition to a few normally spaced locks, the canal flows through the Sardy Locks Ladder with its 16 locks and the three Collancelle Tunnels at the highest elevation of the canal. Built into each tunnel is a towpath just wide enough for a man to walk pulling a barge, but not wide enough for a weary horse that might misstep into the canal.

Discovering a new part of France by bike is always gratifying for me, whether the day ends with a glass of beer or a glass of wine. I thank Pierry Zivy and his appreciation for the canal for this one.

My appreciation for the lives of the Celts, the early foresters and floaters, Caesar’s legionnaires and residents of then smoky Paris increased during my week in the Yonne Valley and along its canal. The gîte I stayed in was clean and warmed with electric heat. The roads and bicycle paths were smooth. There were no critters trying to take up residence in my scalp. And I didn’t have to defend against invaders while cycling up Mount Beuvray, though I did once have to dodge a group of archeologists while barreling down a hill.

Text, photos and cycling map © Walter Judson Moore, 2011.

Walter Judson Moore is the author of four cycling guidebooks to France and three companion queue sheets. His guide “Bicycle Your France: Secret Burgundy” includes the area covered by this article. His work is available Lulu, Amazon and other online booksellers as well as directly (and personally signed) from the author, who may be reached at bicyclemoore@tampabay.rr.com.

More history of the wood commerce on the Yonne can be found here.

Official website of the Nièvre Department Tourist Board, specifically biking information.

Site of Les Amis du Canal du Nivernais (Friends of the Nivernais Canal).

Official website of Morvan Regional Natural Park.

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By Walter J. Moore

It’s an astonishing sight: a 2.46 kilometer (1.53 miles) long, stay-cable bridge supported by seven pillars that look like tuning forks. At the top, each fork of a pillar has enough room for a tennis court. The bridge tops out at 343 meters (1,125 feet) above the Tarn River.

Until the bridge opened, in December 2007, all that traffic would have passed through the town of Millau. I’d taken a restful coffee break at a café in the center of town, a pre-cycling pause that would likely have been much less peaceful if it involved watching a slow parade of long-haul trucks.

Geography

Earlier the prior day I’d set out on what I expected to be a 70.3 kilometer (43½ mile) ride on Day 1 of an 18-day self-guided cycling tour in the Aveyron, Lozère and Lot departments of southwestern France.

The resulting gorges, often 600 meters (1,970 feet) from the river up to the tops of the cliffs, split a series of plateaus known as causses in central and southern France: Causse Sauveterre (north), Causse Méjean (northeast) and Causse Noir.

These sparsely populated plateaus are the domain of sheep and shepherds. The sustaining and commercial products are wool, meat, and milk used in local cheeses, including the lesser known pélardon and the greater known Roquefort, the latter made in a village of the same name 10 miles southwest of Millau.

The gorges involve about 330 feet of ascent over 22 miles of bicycling. Once up on a causse, the terrain is rolling and also pleasant to bicycle. It was the change from gorge to causse that was my challenge on this trip.

Tarn Gorge and Causse Méjean

This was my sixth cycling trip in France. As on previous trips, I began by hauling my bike out of the rented micro-van and mounted my cycling computer/altimeter.

I was starting out from the Grand Hôtel de la Muse, a few hundred yards northeast of the center of Le Rozier. From my third floor balcony on the first cool morning I saw large, circling birds high above me close to the cliff tops and just below the clouds. After a decent breakfast, I walked out onto the lawn along the Tarn and watched a skilled fly-fisherman casting across the river.

I was wearing three layers of cycling shirts, a high visibility jacket, shorts, leg warmers, socks and shoes. Surely the moist, 52°F air did not cause me to think of waiting for another day. This was cool for May in southwest France and much cooler weather than I would choose to ride in at home in Florida. Aside from the temperature, though, there was nothing else about the weather to give me pause.

Off I rode north on D907 with the Tarn on my right and high cliffs on both sides of the river. Best of all for cycling, the road was paved and automobile traffic was light. My lunch destination was Sainte Enimie, 22 miles (35 kilometers) upriver. I set out hoping that the overcast would burn off during the morning.

The ride to Ste-Enimie revealed the power of a river over time. Steep cliffs rise 1475-1650 feet to the Causse Sauveterre on my left and the Causse Méjean on my right. Humans have attempted to alter small portions along the cliffs and river for over 5,000 years. I had read that the Ferrière tribe established Dolmens on the plateau, and I noticed evidence of several abandoned lignite mines hand tunneled into the cliffs.

There are three villages with restaurants along this stretch to Ste-Enimie: Les Vignes, La Malène and Saint-Chély-du-Tarn. Beyond the paved road there is rock and water. The views along the river often inspired me to stop to take some pictures. I spotted a first-time group of two dozen children learning to pilot canoes down the river. They were clearly novices. Their screams of anxiety and fun while avoiding cold water, rocks and each other could be heard over the next two miles as I pedaled on.

Saint Enimie

Arriving in Sainte Enimie at lunchtime, I easily spotted a good place to eat. There are a number of choices in the center of the village along riverfront. My favorite choice early in a multi-week trip is pizza with a load of carbohydrates. Alone in the pizzeria, a beer and large pizza in front of me, Willie Nelson and Loretta Lynn serenaded the room from the sound system with “God Bless America.” Could the moment get any better than this?

Enimie, after whom the village was named, was a seventh century Merovingian princess, daughter of King Clothar II and sister of King Dagobert I. When the beautiful Enimie reached the age to be married, Clothar brought several eligible nobles to meet her. Wanting to continue her good works nursing lepers, she refused them all.

Legend has it that Enimie implored divine intervention to get out of marriage. She became afflicted with leprosy. This solved the marriage problem but then she wanted to be cured. An angel guided her up the Tarn River to Burlats (now the village of Sainte Enimie) and a curing water source. She bathed once and was miraculously cured. She then traveled out of Burlats but the illness came back. Revisiting the water source, she was again cured. Again she left, and again she relapsed and came back to the curing source. Ultimately she decided to stay and live in a cave. She had many confrontations in the cave with a devil-type named Drac. Surviving these encounters, she established a convent in the village where she lived out her days treating lepers.

After lunch, I sat outside thinking little about the light sprinkles and much more about getting out of the gorge and over the causse. I looked south across the river and up. The temperature was still cool and wet clouds sat below the tops of the cliffs. It was only my first day of cycling—I wasn’t going to spoil it by heading directly back down the Tarn to my warm hotel.

Cycling in the rain

Riding cross the river, I climbed the 1,325 feet to the Causse Méjean and the initial summit of Col de Coperlac, where the sprinkles turned into cold rain. During the climb, I didn’t notice the cold so much as being soaked through and through.

After the Coperlac the route drops 230 feet, I started to feel cold and thought I was in trouble. Trouble was wind-chill and my clothing soaked through to my skin, along with knowing that the way to the hotel would be even colder whether I continued as originally planned or turned back. Continuing forward after that descent, there was a 540-foot climb, which warmed me some without drying me in the least.

Next was the final 1,900-foot descent into La Jonte Gorge. That road is no more than 13 feet wide most of the way with all kinds of switchbacks, shear drop-offs and descents up to 8%. I was shaking with cold during the last 200 yards of descent and had difficulty controlling the bike.

About 4 p.m., I pulled over at the lone restaurant that appeared just as I rode onto the gorge road.

I asked the proprietress of Chez Armand if I could drain some on the porch. “Non,” she said and pulled me into the empty main room, sitting me in front of glowing fireplace. “Café, monsieur?” she asked. “Oui.” I replied. “Petit?” “Non. Grand!” I held the large cup tightly in my hands and sipped for ten minutes until my hands stopped shaking.

Somewhat restored I then cycled the final three miles to the hotel in the rain.

Vultures Sanctuary

Day 2: The sky was crystal clear in the morning. Speaking with the waiter at breakfast I had mentioned that I planned to cycle across the Causse Noir to the village of Meyruies during the day.

Not wanting to discourage a guest, he reluctantly let me know that snow had fallen on the high plateau overnight, but maybe it would melt during the afternoon. Of course, the melt would freeze during the late afternoon. That was serious. Along with lightning and snow, ice is no friend to the cyclist. I had to implement plan B.

I wanted to know more about those big soaring birds as well as return to the restaurant that had provided me shelter the previous afternoon so as to thank the proprietress. An inquiry at the front desk sent me cycling up the Jonte Gorge to both the Belvédère des Vautours (Vultures Viewpoint) and Chez Armand.

First to the viewpoint. There is a parking area a little over 2 miles east of la Rozier along the Jonte on the river side of the road. South across the river is the Cirque de Madasse, a loop carved by nature into the Corniche du Causse Noir. Way up in the gorge near the top of the cliffs sitting on a ledge at least 150 yards above me was a large dark tan bird with a white collar. A local birdwatcher let me use her binoculars and told me I was looking at a Griffon Vulture (Gyps fulvus).

A half-hour later we also spotted a couple of Black Vultures (Aegypius monachus) and the smaller Egyptian Vultures (Neophron percnopterus). The Blacks have a wingspan of 9 feet, the Griffons’ typical wingspan is 8¼ feet, and the Egyptian has a wingspan exceeding 7 feet.

Vultures have the unwarranted reputation for snatching lambs, but vultures really feed on carrion. The French government passed a law, perhaps in the eighteenth century, that all carcasses (not slaughtered for food) must be buried. Later the government encouraged shepherds to poison some carcasses left out for vultures. As a result the vulture population starved or was poisoned, and vultures became extremely rare in France during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. (An unintended consequence of burying carcasses was that ground water became contaminated.)

In 1970, Michel Terrasse and some fellow bird-lovers started reintroducing Black Vultures into the Jonte Gorge just above that viewpoint. But the program was halted for two decades as they learned how to familiarize the birds with the area. Meanwhile, Mr. Terrasse convinced local shepherds, with government permission, to place sheep carcasses on wooden stands. Reintroduction started again in 1992. Within a decade the population of Blacks was 60 and self-sustaining.

Previously, starting in 1981, the same bird-lovers had introduced twelve Griffon Vultures with the first chick from a breeding pair taking flight in 1982. No further additions have been necessary since 1986. By 2003 the Griffon population had grown to 400. The birds travel as far as Switzerland, The Netherlands, Latvia and Senegal, returning to the Jonte Gorge to nest and reproduce. In the mid 1980s, the Egyptian Vulture also returned to the Jonte Gorge, perhaps following the Griffon Vulture.

Vultures from a single colony share the task of searching for food over their territory. Griffon Vultures are able to distinguish a sheep at rest from a dead sheep at more than 300 meters. Within minutes of a Griffon reaching the carcass, ten to fifteen more turn up for the spoils, hastily eating the more tender parts. They leave immediately afterwards, making way for the more imposing Black Vultures that tackle the tougher and stringer bits of the dead animal. Finally, the Egyptian Vultures arrive, making do with leftovers. Within a quarter of an hour, a whole carcass has been converted into a clean skeleton.

My vulture education much improved, I rode on to Chez Armand where Gisèle Costecalde had provided coffee and shelter the previous day. I thanked her for her kindness, and she and her husband allowed me to take a picture of them as a memento.

After another half hour cycling up the gorge, I returned to Le Rozier village where I ended the afternoon slowly cycling around the village. I stopped to relax in the sun in a café. I listened to the river and hoped the weather would be kind during the next sixteen days.

Later in the afternoon I stopped again for an aperitif and found myself contemplating what I would choose for dinner; lamb might be nice.

Then I got back on my bike one last time for the day and a slow ride to the hotel.

© Walter Judson Moore, 2011

Walter Judson Moore is the author of four cycling guidebooks and three companion queue sheets guides for France. His guide “Lot Vineyards to Tarn Gorges: A Bicycle Your France Guidebook” includes the area covered by this article, as does his “Lot Vineyards to Tarn Gorges Queue Sheets.” His work is available Lulu, Amazon and other online booksellers, as well as directly (and personally signed) from the author, who may be reached at bicyclemoore@tampabay.rr.com.

Hotel Doussiere is a 2-star hotel with restaurant in the center of Le Rozier.

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