Cycling along the canal and a visit to Bages

We caught our second wind today. Woke up to a clear blue sky and no wind. Hooray! We walked down to the market and rented a couple of really good bikes and went for a ride south along the Canal du Robine. The path varied from paved to dirt to gravel to dried mud to rutted concrete--but the ride was lovely. We've been thinking about our friends Jenn and Jim, who rode over 1,000 km on paths like this in France.  What an adventure they had.

We celebrated our approximately 18 km ride with a lovely lunch at a bistro on the canal and then in the afternoon headed out to explore a couple of nearby towns. The first one, Sigean, was somewhat underwhelming--except for one place, a corner bar where we stopped for refreshments. This place has been around for a century or so. It dates from 1852! Pretty cool, eh?  The interior was equally elegant with a sculptured and painted ceiling. 

From there we drove north along the étang (salt water marsh) to a lovely little fishing village called Bages. Wow! Are we ever glad we didn't miss Bages. It's a sweet place with fishing boats pulled up on the shore, a medieval town on the top of a hill with a fabulous view across to Narbonne, and a central plaza out of the movies.  This is one of the prettiest places we've seen so far. 

Tomorrow is our last day here and we're still deciding where we might head to. The weather is supposed to be cooler and a bit rainy so we won't be able to duplicate this special day. But I'm sure we'll find a way to make it count.