The man that ran our hotel in Tulle let us keep our bikes in a spare dining room of his restaurant. Our bikes leaned against a carefully set table with napkins folded like flowers, wine glasses, silverware -- all the trimmings. The main dining room was upstairs and he didn't expect to need the space.

So far, every hotel in France had been exceedingly kind about the bikes. They spent every night indoors except one night in a garage. We have only stayed at the small, inexpensive family run places where the patrons seemed anxious to please.

We stayed in our room and had sausage sandwiches with cheese for dinner again, this time with cheap table wine.

Tulle seemed to be a fairly large, attractive, interesting town so we took the next day off. Anyway, we needed to get our laundry done.

Tulle sits in a deep gorge so we were quickly able to walk up small streets and stairways and get great views of the town and all its steep roofs surrounding the towering cathedral.

We had "pain chocolate" (croissant with chocolate) at just about every bakery in town. The French are extraordinarily polite. Every shop owner seems determined to get the last polite word in--like the way my Grandma always got in the last "Amen" at every prayer.

Here's a typical conversation after we've paid for our croissant:

US: Merci. Shop owner (singing): Merci, au revoir. US: au revoir. Shop owner: (still singing) Bon Appetit! US: Merci! Shop owner (still singing): Merci beaucoup! au revoir! Bon Journee! US (now singing): au revoir! (close door quickly)

In the morning we stopped at a shop selling crafts -- paintings, ceramics, weavings, metal sculptures, etc. -- made by local artisans. Hillary Clinton had visited the same shop just three weeks before.

The woman who ran the place was very talkative and enthusiastic about the stuff she sold. Fortunately Joan understood her. She told us that Hillary didn't like French food so she stayed in her room and ate the American food she had brought with her--simple food like chicken and pineapple. I have a hard time believing that but Joan does believe it. If anyone out there knows whether Hillary really does or doesn't like French food, please e-mail us.

We bought a baby basket for some friends then spent the next two hours trying to find a box large enough to mail it in. We finally found a box at a hardware store. The woman who ran our laundromat supplied us with packing tape, scissors and a marker. (JOAN: People are amazingly friendly here. I don't know how the French got their reputation for being rude).

The next morning was sunny again. I kept waiting for the rain to start but that morning made five consecutive days of sunshine. That's far more than I ever dreamed we'd get in January.

The next day we planned just a short ride to the town of Donzenac. Right off we paid for the great descent into Tulle by climbing about 1,000 feet up out of the Tulle valley.

Since it was a short day, we took chances on some really out of the way back roads and they were well worth it. We were in beautiful rolling countryside. Even these back roads, barely one lane wide, were paved. It was quite pretty, though we were low enough that there was no snow around.

We got back the 1,000 feet in a long, gorgeous, high speed descent through a forest.

In Donzenac we sat in front of a octagon shaped fountain where eight gargoyles spewed water out of their mouths and ate lunch (the usual, sausage and cheese on a baguette). A couple of kids came by and kicked a ball around. Other than that the town was completely dead except an occasional car racing by at high speed.

The quietness of the town made us hesitate to stay there. The high hotel price confirmed our decision. We rode on into the town of Brive, pop. 50,000, just 20km away.

Brive was exactly the opposite of Donzenac. It had a thriving city center with some sort of outdoor market going on. Strange for January. It encouraged me about the weather. Maybe rain wasn't going to be so common as I expected.

The center of Brive is made of concentric circles radiating from the cathedral. Many of the streets are pedestrian ways. It was a terrific town for walking around and it was a relief that so many other people were out and about with us. We were getting a little tired of every town being so empty. At one Salon De The we were actually turned away due to lack of seating. Every place we went, we had to wait in line.

I didn't mind though. We loved just strolling along eating croissants, looking in the shop windows, picking up a few things for dinner.

In France, if the supermarket is closed, you have to go to three different shops to get four different items. For instance, you get fruit and yogurt at a mini-grocery; sausage from a butcher; bread from a boulangerie. Wine, cheap table wine anyway, we bought only at supermarkets where it was really cheap. A $5 bottle of wine, available at awine store, really wasn't much better than a $2 bottle from a supermarket.

The next day was Sunday so we didn't ride. We had read that the small towns in France really close up on Sundays. Considering how closed they were all week, we decided to stay in Brive where there seemed to be some action.

But Brive was almost completely dead all day Sunday anyway. There were more cars on the pedestrian streets than pedestrians. And the cars were going really really fast! I wish I knew how to swear in French. I thought they were going to kill us.

The drivers gave us more room on the bikes the next morning, even though we had to ride though four miles of unpleasant suburban strip on the way out of town. We passed shopping malls, Carrefour (France's version of Walmart), McDonald's, everything suburban -- just like an American suburban strip except with traffic circles at the huge intersections.

The noise of the trucks approaching behind you is the worst part of riding in traffic. When we finally got on a white road the silence was wonderful.

We were definitely out of the mountains and into rolling hills now, though that didn't make the riding any easier. If anything, it got harder. We were now in land where eroding rivers and streams had sliced into the soil rather than mountains land pushed up by volcanic activity. I've always found the former more difficult for cycling.

It's fairly east to plan however, because we can know roughly where the hills will be. We spent the morning out of Brive following the Vezere river so the road was flat. In the middle of the day we would cross over to the Isle river. This would be hilly. Once we reached the Isle, the road would hopefully be flat again.

As it turned out we had once massive, very steep hill out of the Vezere valley. At one point the road zigzagged across a steep pasture with a couple horses in it and surrounded by forest. They walk over to inspect us as we climb at about 3mph. They snorted, then turned and galloped away like a couple of teenage girls.

We had to stop to eat some oranges and cookies half way up, leaning our bikes against an old stone wall. We noticed several rusty, smashed up hulks of old (1950's?) Renaults and Citroens resting against trees at the bottom of a steep field.

In a very light mist, we ate a full lunch of sandwiches (smoked trout, camembert cheese, and Dijon mustard) at the top of the next steep hill. A couple of beagles joined us. Dogs roam free in France (we even see them in grocery stores and restaurants) sort of like in Nepal except in France they are well fed and friendly.

We must have had lunch close to the watershed divide between the Vereze and the Isle rivers because after that, we had terrific downhills. I don't mean fast and steep. It was just a pleasant little grade that allowed us to make good speed by pedaling easily. We spent 20km losing the altitude we had gained in just four kilometers. If I were going to draw the cross section of the ideal ride, this would be it.

We had a nice flat ride along the Isle before arriving amidst a lot of construction and traffic in the very old pre-Roman town of Perigueux.

Next: Bordeaux Wine Country

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