Our cycling trip could be called the nooks and crannies of France. As Rich mentioned we have a few anchors we plan around, and a house sit in Massat was one of these anchors. It’s a great feeling to be flexible enough to accept a house sit in rural France, tucked up a valley near the Pyrenees. We were up for the challenge of how to get there, and how to spend a week there without a car.
One of the cycling tricks we’ve learned is to ride through the traditional French lunch break, especially when we’re on roads instead of trails or bikeways. There is a rush of traffic just before noon, as everyone dashes to the bakery to buy bread for lunch, dashes home, or pulls over at a restaurant to eat lunch, but then we have the roads to ourselves for about an hour. So we either stop for our picnic lunch early or late, and pedal through the quiet time.
At the brewery in Saint Gaudens we were told by the bartender that Massat’s own local beer, BIM, was very good, and that Massat had a lot of baba cools. He and Rich were conversing in French and English so it took us a while to figure out that baba cool is French slang for hippie. Fantastic! We’re San Franciscans at heart so we love hippies and the culture that comes with them.
Our wonderful hosts confirmed that the area did indeed have a lot of folks who lived off grid, and raised their own food, and helped create an easy going communal vibe. Like many small villages in France there was a lot of depopulation in the 1830s and 1840s. The thriving town of Massat went through crop failures and epidemics that saw the town shrink dramatically.
It’s not surprising that a hippie/back to the land movement saw Massat as a fantastic place to settle. It’s an idyllic place, with so many small valleys and farmland and houses that have been fixed up and maintained by French, German, and British, all with the underpinnings of a traditional French village.
None of the map or trail apps we usually use are useful in this part of France, but our host pulled out her topographical maps and marked a few hikes for us in highlighter. We’re always happy to get off the bikes for a few days and work our hiking muscles.
Spending time in rural France as a tourist it would be easy to simply soak up the charm and not think about how life is for locals, especially those who make their living off the land. But the time we’ve spent in the Haute Savoie at our friends’ place watching the long hours their neighbors who are farmers work, and now having this time in Massat, we have a huge appreciation for the hard work of farming. My sister in Colorado raises cattle so I have a good idea of how hard the work around food production is. Our hosts had a wood fired hot tub and after getting it heated up, which took about four hours, we’d sit in comfort and watch the sun go down. Across the valley we could hear the farmer getting his sheep moved to a new pasture with the help of his sheepdog. At times like that we are really reminded of our privilege. Just as when in the Haute Savoie the farmers will be haying at 9 in the evening to get ahead of predicted rain, while we relax on the terrace. Farmers and those of us who depend on farmers – everyone – are more closely linked than many of us acknowledge.
Our French countryside week included two cats and two donkeys to care for. The donkeys were easy since they were grazing and only needed a daily check in and carrot. One cat we barely saw as she was super shy, but the other, a three legged charmer who couldn’t use the cat flap and never passed up a lap sitting opportunity, was a constant source of amusement.
Before we left our house sit we needed to replace the wine our hosts had graciously offered up. They told us that if we needed to replenish the seemingly limitless 5 liter boxes of local wine to go to the wine shop in town and the proprietor would sort us out. Although we didn’t empty the boxes we wanted to be good house sitters, and we were curious about the shop, so we did coast down to town on our bikes.
We loved our house sit near Massat. Spending a week in a renovated stone farm house, lighting fires to stay warm, and cooking all of our meals in is such a wonderful break when we’re bike touring. The house was cozy and comfortable, and the area is stunning. We both agree that for us living in such a rural area is not something we want to do. Although we used our feet and bicycles for our week there, for the long haul you would need a car. We saw locals on bikes and e-bikes, which is great, but the closest major town, Saint-Girons with the fantastic Saturday market, is 27 kilometers away. And, as we discovered when we left our house sit on Saturday, hundreds (if not thousands!) of locals drive to Saint-Girons for that market. It made for a not so fantastic ride down the valley. French car drivers are quite good around cyclists for the most part, but a few encounters with impatient drivers on that ride down were enough to put me off. One challenge of living off the grid in a rural area is having to get to things in your old car or van.
Once we got to and through Saint-Girons and its market day crush of cars we got onto the rail trail to Boussens. Ah, rail trail. Separated from automobiles, catching glimpses of life as you pedal by and through towns: a garden party here, a Boules tournament there, hawks and buzzards soaring overhead. And it was slightly downhill all the way to our train. Yes it’s a bit stressful for the planner having to get us 60k in time for a train, but we made it.
Leaving a house sit is always a bit of work, we always want to leave the house squeaky clean for the hosts to come home to, and make sure all the animals are where they should be with sufficient food and water. Add the travel day to that and we decided a rest day in Toulouse was a good idea. We had spent a day in Toulouse but there was definitely more to see. It was a treat to have a full day to walk around Toulouse. Another French city that is working hard to make itself a pedestrian, public transportation, and bike friendly place.
Less Car, More Life 