ST. EMILION, France — I imagined us pedaling in unison up to our hotel in St. Emilion, smiles on our faces, enthusiastic about the seven-day tandem bike trip through southwestern France that lay ahead of us.
But the steep cobblestone street leading to the Logis de la Cadene was slippery from the rain and too bumpy to ride our bikes on. So my husband pushed our bicycle built for two up the hill as the 13th-century church on our left glared down on us. The rain fell harder and I led the way to the hotel, which appeared to be closed.
"Too much work this week, so the boss decided to close today," said a young man locking the doors. But he offered to call "le patron" and see if anything could be done about helping us find a place to stay.
Moments later appeared Abdou Maarfi, the smiling chef and owner of the hotel. Since we had a reservation, he said we could have the place to ourselves. He offered us the room of our choice and showed us how to lock the doors and turn off all the lights.
As we wrapped up our pleasantries and he handed us the keys, he asked where we were from.
When we told him we lived in New York, his smiling face turned serious, and he offered condolences about the Sept. 11 attacks.
"It would be an honor to drink a cup of wine with you," he said.
And so a bottle of 1998 Chateau Lestrille Capmartin was uncorked as we sat on the terrace under an awning of vines protecting us from the rain. We made a toast, chatted, smoked cigarettes. Foie gras appeared before us on fresh bread. Sweet wine was served to wash down the pate. As he rose to leave, Maarfi implored us to make ourselves at home. He wanted no money for the feast.
"This is my gift to you," he said as he left us.
Our evening at the Logis de la Cadene set the tone for our tandem bike trip through the Dordogne, Lot and Cele valleys: wonderful, welcoming people, delicious food, exquisite wines and outrageously charming villages.
I was set to turn 30 and felt I should mark the event properly. My husband celebrated his 30th birthday by biking from Vancouver, Canada, to San Diego. I was inspired by his trip but thought I'd like a bit more civilization with my adventures, which made a bike trip through France the perfect choice. The idea of making the trip on a tandem bike started as an afterthought but ended up being the reason our vacation was so special.
A couple we met in the village of Espagnac, also riding a tandem with a group tour, said a man they encountered called such bikes "divorce machines." We were fortunate not to discover what that meant.
After much consideration, we decided upon touring the Dordogne region east of Bordeaux. Our route also gave us an introduction to the much calmer Lot and Cele River valleys. A handy book we picked up, "France by Bike," by Karen and Terry Whitehill, helped confirm the route and offered priceless advice. It noted the Dordogne is horribly packed with European tourists all summer but quiets down in fall and spring.
I had majored in French in college and spent one year studying the language in Montpellier, France. Although I was a little rusty after all these years, the language came back to me pretty quickly, and it helped break the ice with the locals. My husband spoke enough French to order coffee and beer.
By staying in campgrounds, we allowed ourselves to splurge on food and drink, guilt-free.
In Figeac, where no one could be found to take our camping fee, we indulged in a sublime meal at La Dinee du Viguier in the town's medieval center, where the staff treated us like royalty despite our casual garb and athletic shoes.
Camping is a vastly different experience in France than in the United States. Campgrounds are remarkably improved, all with hot showers, drinkable water, flushing toilets, and most feature restaurants, bars, swimming pools and tennis courts. Some have laundry facilities and offer canoe and kayak rentals.
Since we were visiting in mid-to-late September, at the end of the season, some restaurants were closed. But on the upside, the campgrounds weren't packed, and some nights we even had the place to ourselves. In our experience, the campgrounds were either beside the river, sometimes with clear views of the town, or far enough out of town that we felt as if we were in the country.
France is an extremely cycling-friendly nation, and the love of the sport isn't just due to the Tour de France. The bicycle actually evolved from a French invention, a wooden horse with fixed front wheel, made in 1790. German inventor Karl Drais von Sauerbronn added the steerable front wheel in 1817. Some history books say French father-and-son team Pierre and Ernest Michaux invented the modern bicycle in the 1860s. Others give credit solely to Ernest Michaux and place the date at 1855.
Either way, the bike has its place France's history.
Motorists pay particular attention to cyclists, learning in driving school how to operate around them and with them. In more than 200 miles of cycling, we had no negative experiences with cars.
I wanted to see parts of the French countryside inaccessible by train and inconvenient by car, at a pace where I could smell the bread baking, hear the bells around sheeps' necks and stop when I saw a chateau or vineyard without having to find a parking spot. I wanted to experience France, not view it from a car window.
The Dordogne and Lot regions are perfect for an intermediate cyclist. They also happen to be home to some of France's most charming villages, so stereotypically charming at times some looked like sketches from storybooks.
The Dordogne region (also referred to by its ancient name Perigord) is especially known for its hearty country cooking, where duck, goose and pates play a huge role. Vegetarians don't have much selection in most restaurants, and by the end of the journey my meat-eating husband and I were both were craving a huge salad.
The region is home to foie gras, confits of duck and goose, truffles and the potently delicious little disks of cabecou goat cheese. But a personal favorite were the pommes Sarladaises — potatoes fried in goosefat with garlic and local mushrooms.
Some of the most famous wines in the world are made in the area, ranging from the hearty Bordeaux around St. Emilion, to the sweet Montbazillac, and the peppery black reds of Cahors.
The picturesque, seemingly placid region took a beating in the past, first with the Hundred Years War, as towns traded hands from French to British rule and back again, then later during the Wars of Religion. Catholics and Protestants took their turns ravaging towns, castles and one another's churches.
We planned to bike from St. Emilion east to Cahors, averaging 35 miles a day through terrain ranging from easy riverside pedaling to challenging, steady ascents.
Because my husband is a much stronger rider than I am, our past experiences biking together have involved him waiting at the tops of hills for me to come huffing and puffing along. The tandem is the great equalizer. My husband called it the embodiment of communist ideology — work according to ability, receive according to need.
Not only did the tandem provide us with a wonderful way to get around the French countryside, it also served as a conversation piece and helped us meet and befriend people we never would've spoken to otherwise.
As we pulled into Tremolat, a speck of a village with red geraniums bursting from golden limestone windowsills, two sets of elderly people ambled out of a restaurant and headed straight for the tandem. Jokes and questions ensued, and they asked where we were from and where we were headed.
The French couple offered to let us stay in their guest house when we arrived near Sarlat. The wife insisted on giving us her phone number and describing the route, to the dismay of her friends.
"You can't just invite strangers into your house, especially not Americans, they're ready for war and armed to the teeth," said the English woman accompanying them. Our soon-to-be hostess waived off the words of caution and told us she hoped to see us. And she did.
We wheezed up the hill outside La Roque-Gageac to the ancient farmhouse they restored into their home. The guest house was once the bergerie, where the sheep slept.
They insisted we dine with them in the main house, where we learned they lived in America for 30 years after World War II. They said Americans were so open and wonderful to them, they felt the least they could do was treat us with the same graciousness.
They even offered to loan us their car so we could visit the area around the Lascaux caves. We declined the car but were forced to accept a basket of breakfast food handed to us as we set off for the bergerie. When we left the next morning to head to Rocamadour, the husband stood on the driveway and watched us leave, like any father or uncle.
The bike sparked small talk from locals in villages and playful honks from tour buses and big rigs on the road.
Outside the cliffhanging village of St. Cirq Lapopie, an elderly woman in a flowered housecoat stepped out of her gray stone home near the roadside to the sight of my husband and I pedaling by.
"Bravo!" she yelled, beaming as we passed by. I could hear her clapping as we turned around the bend. We both felt goofy and proud.
Seven days after St. Emilion, we soared downhill into sunny Cahors on a road called 911. We'd reached our final destination. We didn't mention anything to each other about the route number until that night.
Over a bottle of wine so deep red it seemed black we both admitted to feeling emotional at the sight of those numbers, which led to thoughts that maybe the mid-September trip was less about turning 30 and more about trying to detach from New York and those September memories.
Now we have September memories of lying on a riverbank under the stars in Bergerac, waking up at 7 a.m. to fog and church bells in Rocamadour and being treated like a regular customer as we bought fresh foie gras in the friendliest boucherie in Souillac.
We toasted ourselves and celebrated our accomplishments by ordering two huge salads.