As the French say, la boucle est bouclée — the circle is complete, almost. I’m heading home via La Flow Vélo, a cycling route threading through the Charente valley and the Périgord, then cutting across through Brive and down to Prudhomat. The river flows west, while I ride east.
Day 1 – Rochefort to Cognac
I left Rochefort with the sunrise and arrived in Cognac five and a half hours later. In between was a lot of meandering — half on dirt roads, half on pavement. I streamlined a few turns that struck me as optional, and the pavement stretches happened mostly because I’d ditched the official La Flo Vélo route — in places it was a route in name only. I skipped the only town along the way, Saintes, because I’d booked a cognac tasting and didn’t want to miss it — so I hurried.
Once in Cognac, I had just enough time to pitch the tent, shower, and get to the négociant for the tasting. (A négociant, for the uninitiated, is a merchant house that buys eau-de-vie from growers and blends, ages, and sells it under its own name.) This one was Bache-Gabrielsen, a smaller, family-owned house. I was the only visitor — maybe that’s why I got the royal treatment: they let me taste almost everything, ten or twelve cognacs. I walked out with a bottle of their limited edition XO and, fittingly for a man sleeping in a tent that night, a genuinely happy camper. Where exactly that bottle goes for the next three days remains an open question, but I’ll have something to toast the end of the trip with.
Today in numbers:
88 km — distance cycled
280 — Cognac houses that distribute and sell their products directly