I can’t believe it’s May already. At the same time, it feels like we’ve been gone for ages.
One of the friends we are staying with is a native of Aix-en-Provence, so it was a real treat to have him show us the city today. It’s May Day and also France’s labor day, so many shops were closed except for flower shops selling lillies of the valley, or muguets.
We had a nice lunch at our friend’s favorite restaurant.
Here are some random photos from walking around Aix-en-Provence.
The weather forecast inland has taken a turn for the worse, with cold and rainy days predicted, so we’ve decided to stay one more day with our friends and then take the coastal route along the Cote d’Azur, where there is less rain and milder temperatures predicted. We are both ready to be back on the bikes but prefer to wait out tomorrow’s predicted rain showers so we can stay dry camping. It is also going to be hard to say good bye to our friends; it has been very good spending time with them.
I’ve also started working on our plan for June-August while we wait for our Schengen visa to renew. I’ve planned a possible trip from Dubrovnik, Croatia to Sarajevo, Bosnia that looks fascinating along a recently renovated cycling trail, and I’m going to start working on a new route after Albania since we will not have enough time to see Greece right now (we plan to come back after the visa resets). I’m thinking we will head east through Macedonia and Bulgaria to Romania, where we will pick up the already-planned route through Transylvania, and then possibly visit Serbia and/or western Ukraine before heading back into Hungary towards Germany.
Tomorrow I will continue this planning, and we will clean our bikes, catch up on some bike maintenance, and re-pack our bags for the next leg of our trip!