Laugerie basse and Bordeaux

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Laugerie basse

   In the nineteenth century, a gentlemanly sort of archaeology took place in the Vézère valley. Édouard Lartet, a French geologist, and Henry Christy, an English banker and ethnologist, came to the cliffs near Les Eyzies in the 1860s and began digging in the rock shelters at the foot of the cliff, the Laugerie sites. They found worked flint and bone, and above all engraved objects: a reindeer carved on an antler, a fish, and a small figure of a naked woman that the finders, with Victorian delicacy, called the Vénus impudique, the immodest Venus. These finds helped to show that people had lived here alongside reindeer, in a cold climate, many thousands of years ago.

   Read the complete Laugerie basse write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Laugerie basse is where the day begins. Next is Jurisdiction of Saint-Emilion.

2. 2. Jurisdiction of Saint-Emilion

   Saint-Émilion is a wine village that looks like a stage set, with steep, cobbled lanes tumbling down a limestone hillside, golden stone houses, and a bell tower rising above the rooftops. The UNESCO listing covers not just the village but its whole jurisdiction, eight parishes of vineyards around it, recognising a landscape in which vines have been cultivated since Roman times. The village grew around the hermitage of Émilion, a Breton monk who lived in a cave here in the eighth century, and its most remarkable monument is the monolithic church, carved out of the rock beneath the bell tower.

   Read the complete Jurisdiction of Saint-Emilion write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Jurisdiction of Saint-Emilion comes up about 136 km into the recorded legs. Next is Bordeaux.

3. 3. Bordeaux

   Bordeaux makes a confident start or finish to a ride, and you feel it the moment you come along the left bank of the Garonne: a curved river front of honey-coloured eighteenth-century facades that runs for kilometres, the Place de la Bourse at its centre, and the shallow Miroir d'eau in front of it reflecting the whole thing back at the sky. The crescent bend of the river gave the city its old nickname, the Port of the Moon.

   Read the complete Bordeaux write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   about 179 km into the recorded legs you reach Bordeaux. Next is back through Jurisdiction of Saint-Emilion.

4. 4. back through Jurisdiction of Saint-Emilion

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Jurisdiction of Saint-Emilion write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   back through Jurisdiction of Saint-Emilion, late in the day. Next is Laugerie basse.

5. 5. Laugerie basse

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Laugerie basse write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Back at Laugerie basse. That is the ride.