Really nice campsite, very friendly guardienne, Stephanie, who put things on to charge for me and told me about a nice place to eat and invited me to a 'meet and greet' with the mayor and other worthies at the campsite later.
If you rolloever this image of the reception, washblock, playarea you'll see my tent spot and if you click you see this latter in a wider shot. Not that I imagine anyone other than me is interested. But it helps me remember. Remember fixing up the washing line from the branches of the hedge, remember the dutch bike parked with a tent opposite that no one every appeared for, and the sunny spot to the left where I eventually hung the washing up to make sure it dried for tomorrow.
I decided that eating was more important than greeting. Even if the greeting was with the mayor. So I rode into Billom. A pretty town and, as you can see, quite old.
I was cycling about this other old part of town, in fact all the town was old, when I stopped to ask someone about where to find La Galerie, the creperie that had been recommended. Ah, they said, that's in the old part of town. Sure enough it turned out there was a whole section of the town that made this old part positively futuristic.
The whole of this part of town was medieval. Cobbles, carvings, low doorway's and timbered houses. Which makes it easy to understand why they didn't bother inventing either the bicycle or the cycle shoe in medieval times. It's impossible to get about on cobbles either on the former or wearing the latter.
