It turned out to be a full day's ride to Sancourt du Sud, almost 60kms and quite a few hills we needed to push our bikes over. We passed through many eerily quiet towns and ran a little short on food as no shops seemed to be open past midday.
Using good maps made a world of difference. Navigating was a breeze and the IGN maps even had contour lines but sometimes it was hard to motivate yourself when you saw the steep inclines ahead. At halfway I was ready to give up and catch a train but when we reached the town which showed a station on the map it turned out that line was no longer running passenger trains. The closest one that did took us even further away from our destination so there was no avoiding it, we had to push on.
When we finally arrived the owners greeted us with a good laugh, remembering us from the night before. Our accommodation was comfortable and spacious, all the more appreciated given the effort in getting there.
We were so hungry from the ride it wouldn't have taken anything special to impress us but the food was simply delicious. The farmer's wife cautioned us not to spoil our appetites on the first course, a fabulous duck rillette served with warm, crusty baguette. We still managed a reasonable effort on the rest of the meal, slow cooked leg of duck, dripping in it's own jus with the meat just falling off the bone, served with a huge dish of ratatouille and for dessert, P2's favourite, rhubarb tart.
In the morning the farmhand showed us around the farm, his explanations brief in his coarse, mumbling. We saw many kinds of duck including the multicoloured Mandarin, pheasants, honking geese and a pair of enormous Goliath horses. The saddest though were the Giant Flanders rabbits, all terribly cute, some impossibly large but all destined for the table.
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