Breakfast at 7:30. We’re instructed to leave our bags outside the door to our room, check out of the hotel, and meet at the bikes for the route talk by 9 am. We will find our bags in our room at the next hotel.

This is truffle country. During our ride along the Dordogne river (36.1 km) we learn about truffle hunting. We lunch at l’Estrella in the village of Saint Nexans. Always more on the plate than I can finish. After lunch another 40 km ride. It’s sunny and hot and I’m getting sun burned. At 2 pm we are welcomed at the Domaine des Verdots for wine tasting of the Bergerac appellation after riding through the unique vineyards of the region. Then on to the hotel, the Chateau des Vigier.

Dinner in another Michelin-star restaurant in the “Champagne dining room above Les Fresques”. Several of my new friends and I found the food quite forgettable, some of it indescribable. One dish I had, supposed to be a kind of potato soup according to my translators, was very creamy with some sort of raw seafood curled in the bottom of the dish. Maybe squid or cuddle fish. I couldn’t eat it after one very hesitant taste.

New friends Jessie and Don Armstrong riding past one of many vineyards.