fireweed

For countless hours I pore over Michelin maps of central France to find the best base for my week’s stay before the official Cycleworks tour begins. For untold hours I surf the interweb examining French gîtes and chambres d’hôtes.

Clermont-Ferrand is the northern gateway to the Massif Central, the ruggedly mountainous and least touristy département of la belle France. Architecture here is medieval and some travel guides suggest life here borders on the primitive.

Villages dot the hills and valleys as they do everywhere in Europe. I am looking for a small town on the railway network with a boulangerie, a place or two to eat at night, and plenty of green-bordered roads snaking out of it on the Michelin; green borders indicate scenic routes.

I choose Langeac. Initial searches for accommodation are fruitless so I turn my attention to a bigger town 25 kms north—Brioude. I email the owner of Gîte Azerat requesting shelter. I get no reply and resume combing the web.

Whatever the search criteria, the same places present themselves again and again; only occasionally does an unseen place bob up. So it is with L’epilobe, or Fireweed.

Fireweed sounds like a noxious plant that might attract the attention of either quarantine officers, the narcotics branch, or park rangers sporting backpacks of lethal chemicals. In fact epilobium angustifolium has an attractive pinky purple flower: it’s a willowherb, the floral emblem of Yukon and the county flower of London, no less.

Madame Pillaud is the proprietor of L’epilobe. Her tariff is reasonable. She and I manage the contrat réservation in French: I can’t speak or write the language, but I read it well enough to understand what is required of me.

I surmise that Mme Pillaud is an older woman who speaks no English. The contrat réservation is composed using an ancient edition of Works, Madame has no credit facility or online money transfer, and deals only in cheques. It costs me an arm and a leg to remit a 90€ cheque by registered mail.

I hesitate to inform her that I don’t eat meat: vegetarianism is illegal in France, and probably viewed as satanic in the medieval massif. I disclose instead that I am coming to Langeac to see le Tour de France, to ride my bicycle, to write, and to read—nothing that would frighten the horses, surely?