Our route today took us through the ‘Parc Naturel Regional de Millevaches en Limousin’, from south to north. We went through the towns of Soudeilles, Maussac, Meymac, St German Lavolps, Sornac, La Courtine, Felletin and Aubusson.

It was overcast for the whole day and threatening to rain at times, but never quite raining. We rode mostly through forests and some farms with lazy cows and calves spotted along the way. Even though it is a park, there is some farming and logging activity. We had very pretty, quiet, country type roads most of the way.

We stopped at the supermarket at Maymac to buy some breakfast (bananas and pastries) and stopped for a coffee at Sornac. Locals in the Sornac cafe were eating huge lunches of meat and potatoes. It was tempting, but we knew we wouldn’t be able to ride the bikes after a meal like that.

We did 97km, the distance eased greatly by a long mainly downhill run of about 20km dropping from a plateau. This was from about 5km past La Courtine to Aubusson.

Aubusson is an large attractive town on a river. It is known for tapestry making. Unfortunately the tapestry maker in the tapestry house wasn’t working today, so we didn’t go through it. There was an outdoor exhibition on beautiful French landscape photos near the museum which we enjoyed viewing from our bikes.

Our hotel is in the town center and has a bar at the bottom. After cleaning up we spent some time riding around and exploring the city, before having some food and beers at the hotel bar. We tried a Croc Monseur (toasted ham and cheese sandwich) for the first time, it was very good.