After two weeks of sunshine punctuated by the odd dramatic night-time thunder storm, Poitiers surprised us with a (very welcome!) respite. I woke up to this view from my window today:
It felt a little eery, and a little magical, and perhaps the sort of day that invites hunkering down in some book-drenched coffee shop with a hot drink and a warm cozy view of the rain outside. But I had woken up with a plan, and nothing short of monsoon-level rain was going to change this. A little drizzle? No prob.
The plan: get out on that battered, second-hand bike-of-mine, and see some France. The bike, which I acquired in my second week here through a handy Craigslist-style site called Le Bon Coin, is clearly a salvage of some sort: but it rides well, and has that sexy dropped handle-bar shape of a racing bike. With a little fine-tuning (including restoring the functionality of the 18 out of 21 gears that don't work...), it will serve.
The destination: Chauvigny, a medieval town tucked into the countryside about 13 mi (21 km) east of Poitiers; the perfect distance, and beautiful:
Heck. Yes. The ride was damp and exhilarating, and apart from the frustrations of having only three functioning gears, not so hilly as to make me give up and walk home. I locked up in the city center of Chauvigny, and struck out on foot to discover its winding alleys and its hilltop castle. Each street and alley was beautiful - so intrinsically French in their beautiful stone and stucco architecture, with wisps of television and conversation floating out of open windows as I walked past.
The heavy fog made buildings materialize out of nowhere as I climbed up along steep alleyways that wended circuitously toward the medieval quarter. I hadn't been expecting a castle, but I turned a corner and there one was: grandiose, regal even in its disrepair, suspended over the city like some sharp-eyed eagle on its perch.
Chauvigny's medieval quarter extends for what seems like ages, and the roads are (if possible) even more tangled than those of the "modern" Chauvigny down below. But beautiful buildings and cobbled streets and red tiled roofs wait at every twist and turn - the exploration (and the getting lost) was worth it.
When at last I tore myself away to return to Poitiers, I took a detour route and saw something incredible I had missed on my way to Chauvigny: miles upon miles of fields filled with the empty husks of sunflowers, sprawling out unendingly in each direction. It was eery and empty, and when I stopped to walk a short way into one of the fields, I felt like I was walking through some Miyazaki film next to spirits that I couldn't quite hear or touch or feel, but which I could just see all around me through the damp mist. Beautiful and strangely poignant with the fog all around us.
And so my bike has passed its first big test (I'll still be getting those gears fixed, however...), and I have meandered a bit further afield in my explorations of Poitiers and its surroundings. This first week of classes has been exhausting and challenging and exciting, and I suspect that it will just get more intense from here - these adventures out into the veins of the French paysage will become a lifeline.
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