Today’s cookie-inspired ride was born around Christmas last year when Shoko and I met an American woman selling her delicious cookies on the Place de la Comedie. We chatted for a while and it came to pass that, although I thought I had pretty much been everywhere there was to go in this area, she indeed lived in a village that I hadn’t gotten to. That’s the extent of the cookie connection actually, since I never did visit the factory she has in Argelliers. But I have to say her cookies are amazing (moist like cookies should be), so here’s her website. They deliver ‘anywhere’, according to the site.

But today’s ride had little to do with cookies. What it did entail was a lot of this:

And this…

And this.

Although only 20 to 30 km from the city, this area is pretty wild and isolated. It’s mostly bush interspersed with a few fields here and there. I did see a couple of ‘Terrain Militaire’ signs so that could explain it.

Here are a couple of pictures of Argelliers (the cookie village). Quite a cute and well-healed little village. I especially like the street signs.

Further up the road sits the equally middle-of-nowhere (and equally quaint) village of Viols-le-Fort.