So yeah, I’m relocating from Instagram. It was all bike stuff over there anyway… I departed late this morning having visited the market for fruit, and a chicken thigh to pair with the chunk of bread my host had packaged as fortification. She also supplied a bit of sour jam made from the bright yellow Mimosa trees that dot the hillside, and are indeed related to acacia Cars, bikes, and medieval, are the bridge options for leaving Ceret. I chose the medieval bridge as it would take me under the bicycle bridge and into the hills. The snowy peaks would loom around every corner of the day. Three cols before lunch, though 2 unmarked as the dirt road passes are rarely signed. The road down from Col de Puig is steep, rocky and rutted as it ducks in and out of the forest. But it’s also quiet. It’s just me and the boar hunters out here today. I paused for lunch in the park at Montauriol. Unwrapping my still warm chicken made me exceptionally popular with the band of feral cats that had taken up residence behind the mairie. Another dirt spur took me through Col de La Roca, not far from Castelnou, one of France’s many “plus beaux villages”. And beaux it was, but as I’d neglected to change shoes, I chose not to wander too far up its steep, cobbled and cleat incompatible lanes.
