Striking South from the Loire

Day 5
Striking South From The Loire
Fontevraud to Parthenay

Loading up the bikes outside our Chambre d'hôte we were passed and greeted by an elderly English couple in an even older open topped racing green Bentley.
We rapidly regained the route without the usual multiple lap circuit of medieval streets which seems to have become our signature mode of urban escape.
From Fontevraud to Loudun the road runs arrow straight for 22km with only two bends, one painfully uphill and the other a glorious downhill sweep on perfect surfaces where we hit 64kph.

The church spire on the hill at Loudun remained defiantly distant for ages while we sped past fields of dead sunflowers, though we eventually reached the medieval walls of the town made famous for Brits of a certain age by Ken Russell's film The Devils of Loudun (naked nuns possessed by the Devil, I believe).
Entry to the town through the southern gate was enlivened for some of us by Jim being showered by authentic XIIth century mortar dumped at the strategically perfect moment by one of the stonemasons. PS Plenty of work for masons here as the place is falling down with lots of buildings awaiting restoration.

Following coffee and the customary trail round town looking for the way out we set off on small rolling roads through beautiful but deserted villages, the most perfect of which was St Jouin des Marnes 

with its Romanesque abbey wherein, amongst the usual funerary statuary, was a bizarre wooden device outside the confessional box that looked strangely reminiscent of a Tibetan prayer wheel.

Answers on a postcard please. 
Lunch followed some miles later in the town of Airvault where our repast in the XV century market hall was enlivened by a funeral procession. A very jolly affair indeed. 

Later in the afternoon we stopped briefly in Gourge for refreshment which, while sufficient to carry us to Parthenay, was clearly not up to the task of reviving our cultural sensibilities, as we resolutely spurned the opportunity to view a fine Roman aqueduct a few kilometres the wrong side of town. 

(This is not the Roman Aqueduct (obviously))
Parthenay was reached in our usual high speed descent followed by the usual backtracking to find the correct route. Having mooched around outside the seemingly impregnable walls we were given what seemed like improbable advice from one of the local youths who directed us down a narrow gravel path until (mirabile dictu) we found a small postern gate through which we gained admission to a fantastic medieval street, the Rue de la Vaux St Jacques, 

which wound up a narrow valley in the lower part of the town to our B&B with M and Mme Giboury. Of Monsieur there was no evidence but Madame was effusive, philosophical and trés gentil.

Our Cyclo-Gastronomic education continued at La Citadelle restaurant where we enjoyed Pineau de Charentes, a fine sweet wine, as well as Gesiers de some poor animal (perhaps chicken or maybe something bigger and gamier). And so to bed.

Km cycled : 77
Injuries: some bottoms rather sore
Mechanicals: 0