Cycle Touring in France. Stephen Fox

      Along the Route des Vins d'Alsace (Route 3)

      If you are not fortunate enough to be in a village or town on market day, then head for the boulangerie, the baker's shop. Every sizeable village has one selling bread rolls and baguettes, long thin loaves that the French buy daily to accompany their meals. You can also buy sweet breakfast rolls like croissants, brioches and pains au chocolat, as well as cakes, flans, pizza slices and quiches in some boulangerie shops. On Mondays this may well be the only shop open in a village. Buy a baguette or two and then pop over to the charcuterie, which sells cooked meats, pâtés and sausages. Follow this with a visit to the alimentation or épicerie for cheeses and salad (there may even be a fromagerie, a cheese shop, if you are in a larger settlement), and you have all the ingredients for a cheap, delicious picnic at a roadside aire (a grassy or wooded area with picnic tables) after your morning's cycling. Otherwise, lunch can be taken in a village café or brasserie fairly cheaply; the croque monsieur (toasted cheese and ham sandwich) is nearly always on the menu, as is steak haché avec frites (steak and chips), served with salad or vegetables. There is usually a vegetarian dish or two, and crêpes (rolled pancakes with a choice of fillings) may also be on offer. A buckwheat variety of crêpe called galette is very tasty and is particularly popular in Brittany. The plat du jour (dish of the day) or menu touristique are set meals that can be tasty or bland depending on the establishment or the chef's imagination, and usually appear on a restaurant's menu too. If you decide to eat lunch at a restaurant why not be a little more adventurous and choose something with a local twist. Restaurants are only open for lunch or dinner, whereas cafés, brasseries and bars are open all day and will normally serve food throughout the afternoon. If you are running low on water and the shops are shut you can buy bottled water here too, but it won't be cheap.

      Supermarkets are plentiful. In towns and villages you will find a Casino, Huit-à-huit or Coccinelle, mini-supermarkets selling fruit, vegetables, salad, tinned food, water, wine, beer, soft drinks and packaged meat slices and cheese. Unlike bigger supermarkets there are no cheese or meat counters, only shelf items. Intermarché and Ecomarché supermarkets are larger and are usually found in the suburbs of towns or on a main road just outside big villages; they have bread, meat and cheese counters that also offer local produce. Some also sell maps, CDs and other such items. Bigger still are the hypermarkets such as LeClerc found on the outskirts of large towns and in cities which sell everything imaginable, most importantly basic bicycle accessories, tools, inner tubes, and so on. Most supermarkets, regardless of size, are open from 8.30am to 12.30pm and 3pm to 7.30pm, Monday to Saturday (although some are not open on Monday mornings, or not at all on Mondays). Many are open on Sundays from 8.30am to 12 noon. Many big supermarkets, on the whole, do not close for lunch.

      Small villages may just have an alimentation which caters for all basic needs regarding food and drink. Although most items are a little more expensive than in supermarkets, these tiny shops are very useful when you might be camping in the middle of nowhere, or need to pick up something for lunch on the road. Generally speaking, if a village has a church it will invariably have an alimentation, boulangerie and probably a boucherie (butcher's shop).

      Finally, if you have a sweet tooth or are feeling ‘bonky’ (when blood-sugar levels fall too low and you feel weak and wobbly), there's the pâtisserie shop that sells a delicious, colourful array of cakes, flans and tarts. I will never forget feeling bonky once in the Limousin region and finding a pâtisserie open in Bourganeuf – on a Sunday afternoon! Marvellous.

      See the maps marking several regional specialities and major wine regions of mainland France in Appendix D. A brief description of each speciality and wine region is also given.