I flew into Toulouse from Seattle on Sunday, May 10, 1998 in warm, sunny weather.  My bike
didn't arrive on the same plane with me, because there was very little time between planes
when I had changed in Amsterdam.  So I took the bus from the airport and walked through
the historic old quarter of Toulouse to the hotel where I had phoned ahead for a
reservation.  On Monday I made a day trip by train to Albi, to visit the wonderful collection of
the art of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec there. Afterward the visit I strolled along the Tarn River
below the art museum, where trees were in blossom and filled the air
with their intoxicating perfume.

My boxed bike and my bike bags, checked-baggage-come-lately, had been delivered to my
Toulouse hotel by the airline while I was in Albi.  I put everything together and the next day
began my trip south toward the Ariège region. Getting out of Toulouse by bike was interesting.
After a delightful ride for some distance on the quai along the Garonne River which runs
through the city, it was a challenge to find the road I wanted, the D4.  Finally I found it,
unmarked, splitting off from a freeway entrance at the edge of the city.  The first several
kilometers were nerve-racking, because the narrow shoulderless road carried fast, heavy
traffic.  A wrong turn in the right direction took me through suburban Villate for a
short respite, but I soon had to rejoin the D4 to continue south through the Haute-Garonne
region.  In the distance I sometimes could just make out the Pyrenees ahead of me, but the
atmosphere was very hazy and I couldn't see much.

I made a rest stop at the interesting village of St Sulpice, where many old buildings had been
preserved.  I decided to leave the busy D4 road at this point, and took off westward for a few
kilometers on the less traveled D622 to Capens, then south again on the D10.  It was getting
late when I rolled into the small town of Carbonne.  I rode through the town to get the lay of
the land, and stopped an elderly couple to ask directions.  I asked in French where I might find
a hotel.  They replied in a language or dialect I couldn't understand, but pointed me up the
street.  The hotel was closed, and an elderly woman I approached also responded in this
mysterious dialect.  I caught enough of what she was saying (she tried over and over to make
sure I understood) to grasp that the hotel owners would be back soon.  Talking to a younger
man in front of  the hotel, where I waited for the owners to return, he said he grew up here and
could understand the old language but couldn't speak it, referring to it as a "patois" spoken
now only by the older people.  The hotel in this town of Carbonne was called (presumably in
this local language) the Carbona.

The next morning I followed the D627 road south to Montesquieu, then the D628 into the
Ariège region and on to the village of Le Mas-d'Azil, where I had hoped to stop for the night.
Le Mas-d'Azil is a pretty little town in low hill country, with an interesting museum. I toured
the historical museum on the first floor, which was free, and planned to come back later for
the prehistory displays upstairs.

I stopped at a restaurant that I thought would have chambres d'hôte (bed & breakfast rooms),
but the woman in charge said they were closed.  I went to the hotel in town and learned that it
was full.  The lady there said she thought there was a "château" about "two or three
kilometers" out of town.  I envisioned a posh hotel more expensive than I prefer,
but it might be my only hope for the night.  I decided to cut short my museum visit in order to
find a room before it got too late, so I headed out in a gentle but steady hillclimb.

Not far out of town the road went through the Mas-d'Azil cavern.  This was a beautiful and
unusual experience, traveling through a cavern that had been carved by a river coursing
through a mountain.  There was a sidewalk and the roadway was dark and winding, so I
walked my bike for the kilometer or so through the cave, in near darkness, alongside the
surging water.

Much more than "two or three kilometers" later I passed through Clermont and before long
spotted a large house with a sign announcing "Le Château" and offering "chambres d'hôte"
and "table d'hôte".  No "château", really, but a simple two-story stone house with a turret
promising a room and dinner.  After a lengthy consultation, the young couple from Bordeaux
who owned the place decided I could stay.  Apparently the room needed to be readied, so I
was asked to wait in the dining room/parlor.  They put on a tape, evidently sizing my tastes up
well, and I relaxed and listened to wonderful Chopin piano sonatas punctuated by the sound of
cowbells from across the way.  My room was comfortable, the dinner wholesome, the owners
friendly and hospitable, and the prices reasonable.

The next morning I headed into pretty green hills toward St Girons.  The wild flowers of mid-
May followed me everywhere on the roadsides.  After several kilometers of fairly low-gear
climbing I could get better glimpses of the Pyrenees, but still couldn't see much due to the
haze. Then a great downhill and I was approaching St Girons, a fair-sized town, busy at the
time I was there.  A river ran through it, and a dam had been built in the middle of the town
near a church.  That must have been an interesting construction project!

After a lunch stop in St Girons I started the gentle climb toward Biert and Massat.  The road
followed the Salat and Arac rivers through a lovely green forested gorge.  Along the way I
stopped at two roadside parks, the only ones I have ever seen in France outside of urban
centers or major attractions.

I had made advance arrangements to stay in Biert at a guest house run by Britishers Nick and
Jan Flanagan especially for cyclists.  As I entered Biert I passed it up the first time, asked
directions, and turned back to find it.  I wondered how I could have missed it, because the
ingenious terrace entry gate was made of old bicycles welded together and set on hinges.
Nick turned out to be a wonderful and fascinating host and a great cook as well.  His magré
de carnard (a regional preparation of breast of duck) was the best I had.  He said I was his first
American guest!

He encouraged me to take a three-kilometer hike up the hill behind his house (the grade was
only 8% or so!) before dinner, so I took the challenge and did so.  A nice little village every
kilometer on the way up (I memorized the names so I could prove to Nick that I had really
done it), with lovely views of the countryside and the next town over in the valley below.   Again
I talked with friendly people along the way who spoke a language or dialect I couldn't
understand, though they understood my French.  And again tantalizing glimpses of Pyrenean
mountains with snow fields on them across the valley, but too much haze to see clearly as the
light failed and some rain threatened.

After dinner Nick's wife Jan brought by their two cute bilingual kids.  Nick waved to a man passing
by on the road driving a tractor, explaining that that was the mayor of Biert!

Later Nick pulled out a bounty of maps with cycling information on the surrounding area.
When I realized the steepness of the 12-kilometer grade ahead of me to the Col (mountain
pass) de Port, I managed to persuade Nick that I probably wouldn't make it, with my ten kilos
of baggage and my gift for attracting headwinds.  He finally took pity on me and gave me a lift
up the hill the next morning.  It had rained that night but the rain had stopped by morning.
The pass was partly shrouded in low clouds, lending the area a quiet beauty.  Everything was
green. Unfortunate that I couldn't see the higher mountains, but it was beautiful anyway.
>From the pass I had a great 18-kilometer downhill through the mists.

Around Tarascon I made a wrong turn and rode 6 hot and sunny kilometers toward Andorra.
When I realized my error and turned back I had a terrible headwind and berated myself for my
stupidity with every pedal stroke.

I stopped that night near St-Paul-de-Jarat, and had breast of duck (again) and foie gras at the hotel
restaurant.  An overnight rain again, but dry by morning.

I decided the next day to take the very hilly back road D9 instead of the main highway towards
Lavelanet.  This went out of Montgaillard past Pain de Sucre (Sugarloaf) Mountain and up into
the clouds, through green hillsides and over green hilltops where there was virtual silence
except for the songs of birds.  I walked a kilometer or so of the steepest part.  Then a downhill,
then up again as I approached Roquefixade.

Roquefixade is a very small hill town (Ròca-Fixada in the old language of the area), with a
monument listing 17 men from this tiny hamlet who gave their lives in wars of this century alone.  Probably wasn't
the first time either: towering above the village was a massive rock formation with the
ruins of a medieval fortress/castle at its very top.

After a nice downhill from Roquefixade and pedaling past Lavelanet on busy D629, I left the
traffic at Aigues-Vives (from a Provençal or Occitan phrase meaning "living waters").  I went
toward Léran and Belloc on narrow, peaceful country roads and then via the D626 to the "Cité
Médiéval" of Mirepoix.

Well-preserved Mirepoix is built around a central plaza.  The plaza is bordered by old half-
timbered buildings with overhanging second stories supported on massive hand-hewn
timbers, making a sheltered walkway around the plaza.

After overnighting in Mirepoix I cycled out of the Ariège and on to Carcassonne, the Canal du
Midi, other beautiful villages, and the Mediterranean, then on to Montpellier to meet my wife,
who was flying in with her bike. We would cycle up through Provence and beyond before
returning home together.

I had cycled in several regions of France before this trip, and I was looking for an area that was
less well-known.  I was fortunate to find the Ariège, a region that is both beautiful and
interesting .