We had a lovely day today – new bikes, beautiful country roads and perfect weather.

We started out visiting the main attraction in Agen, the Pont de Canal. This is a 19th century engineering marvel – it is a canal that crosses the (large) river on a bridge. The canal on the bridge is large enough to take a boat and you can walk along it and look at the river below! (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agen_aqueduct).

As an experiment we set off from Agen with no fixed end destination in mind – just a direction of travel (north east). Each time we passed a town or intersection we would decide which one to head for next (sometimes changing our mind before we got there).

Our first destination was Laroque-Timbout – where we stopped for coffee and bought some groceries – in case we ended up somewhere without a shop. We then meandered over easy country roads (hills not as steep as previous few days). We even had a breezy tail wind come up to ease our way in the afternoon. The gear change on the new bikes is different and is taking me a while to get used to, otherwise I am finding it very comfortable to ride.

We ended up in Montcuq at around three in the afternoon, having clocked 77km on the new odometer. This turned out to be a good place to be. It is a cute town, with a small medieval section and a tower on a hill. The main street has a wonderful pedestrian area shaded with trees down its length. A group of people were playing pétanque here when we arrived and later on several groups of old men were sitting at picnic tables playing cards. There were several people sitting in outdoor cafes.

The town has a couple of hotels; a few food and wine shops, a bakery (that does heavenly caramel tart) and a tourist office.

The tourist office helped us find a bed and breakfast in a house near by. We shopped for some extra luxuries, walked up to the tower; and then ended up eating our picnic on a picnic/ card playing table in the center of town. Each old man wished us ‘Bon Appetit’ as they left their card games.