Month: May 2017

It’s hard to believe we’ve already pedaled through the French part of our world tour.  It was a quick two weeks filled with lots of calories, a 36-hour whirlwind walking tour of Paris, and stunning coastline along the French Riviera.  It was colder than we liked and more rain than we had anticipated for this time of year, but I fell in LOVE with France for many reasons.

Merci for:

• baguettes under a euro
• crosiants, pain au chocolat, almond crosiants, beignets, and crepes
• croque monsieurs, truffles, camembert cheese, and all other cheeses we consumed
• Paris, Paris, Paris…will ? ever be the same?
• the beautiful colors of all the shutters on your homes and buildings that are actually used and functional
• Electing a new President for the majority of the people and resisting fear and racism from the other candidate.

No Merci for:

• the unfortunate bad drivers (except Patrice) that we experienced throughout our two weeks in what we thought was a cyclist friendly country
• the rain and 10-15 degrees Celsius 
• not cleaning up your dog ?

We had an amazing visit in Vitrolles with Tim’s (now my) friends Yann & Patrice.  We were able to take five rest days and get the grand tour of some of their favorite areas of Cassis, Marseille, and Aix-en-Provence.  Yann’s crepes are the best and Patrice cooks a mean sausage….Oh La La.

After we left our friends we pedaled to the stunning and picturesque French Riviera-Cote d’ Azur through the famous cities of Toulon, Cannes (where they are preparing for the 70th annual film festival coming up), Antibes, and Nice.

Today we were in 3 countries as we left Nice in an unexpected cool rain that we didn’t see in the forecast.  We had lunch in Monaco and went to the tourism office to get our passport stamped for another country, and arrived in Italy.  It was a beautiful ride all along the coast and the last 2km before our campground on the beach was cyclimg through a tunnel that used to be a railway.  It had a dedicated two-lane bike path and pedestrian paths as well.  Also throughout the tunnel were posters overhead with the history of cycling in Italy.

Here are some of my favorite pictures from France.  Looking back through my photos I didn’t take very many and blame it on the cold and rainy weather.  ?

This was the cutest site we saw on a bike path and had to turn around and just gaze at them.  I told the Mama that she had beautiful piglets and that I’d never eat bacon again.  I don’t think she believed one of those.

Cassis

Antibes

It was an interesting day in France today. The tension of the elections was ever present, lingering over every interaction with French people. Many other tourists seemed oblivious to what was going on, carefree in their photo taking, but almost every French speaker we saw was in serious conversations with friends and family about Le Pen and Macron, the police were out in huge numbers heavily armed with alarmingly large guns, and the mood was somber. This was an area that voted heavily for Le Pen, who was predicted to lose (and she did).

We enjoyed the sights of Nice, but I don’t think we really experienced its character due to this distraction. And I’m kind of thankful we will be in Italy tomorrow because I’m not typically a political person, and it will be refreshing to get away from all of this. At precisely 8pm, we were walking in the street, and an impromptu group got on a megaphone to announce the results and lament about someone with less than 25% support in the initial elections becoming president of France. Shortly after, someone walked up to us and urgently demanded something of me in French. The only words I caught were “Le Pen”. He was obviously upset. I stammered, and he repeated his demand louder. I managed to sputter “je ne comprends pas!” and he walked off muttering in an exasperated tone, “tu ne comprends pas !”

We are living in an era of human history with less violence than almost every before. People like you, me, and Steve are free and very safe to travel and experience with an open mind many other cultures all over the world, thanks to our mutual respect and support. And yet there are some who are still fearful, and I don’t understand why. Steve and I are finding the world is full of many amazing, generous, and happy people, and all it takes to be one of these people is to open your mind for a minute, listen, and respect others for who they are and what they do.

Politics aside, we enjoyed our day. It was a super easy ride, flat, on bike lanes along the coast to Nice. We had a nice lunch in Nice, did some exploring and lounged at the beach.

It’s starting to feel more like a vacation now! We are taking our time here and enjoying life as tourists.

Whenever we stop somewhere for more than one night, we can’t help ourselves in the grocery stores. We end up buying way more than we need because our appetites are so big, and everything in the shops and markets looks so good, especially in France! We often end up carrying odd things on our bikes, like 500g of dried figs that I bought in Montpellier, France, or a bag of peanuts I’ve been carrying all the way from Portugal, or Camembert cheese we didn’t finish the night before (my bag smells kind of funky at the moment). The food never goes to waste; we usually eat it all, carry it on the bikes the next day, or donate it to the supplies in the AirBNB we’ve stayed at.

Antibes has been no exception; we’re making a salad tonight so will leave some honey mustard dressing with our AirBNB host, plus we’ve got enough French cheese to weigh us down well into Italy, too many croissants, eggs we’ll eat for breakfast, brownies we found at a farmer’s market this morning, and some savory puffed pastry delicacies we found at the local boulangerie that we ate for dinner. Oh la la! Still, even with all this copious eating, our belts are getting loose; we are feeling fit and trim! Loving this lifestyle.

Speaking of food, we took advantage of our kitchen in the AirBNB this morning to make some of my egg and cheese sandwiches, but with a French twist: fried eggs and Port Salut cheese on croissants.

Here’s the salad we made for dinner: fresh greens with cherry tomatoes, figs, oranges, chèvre, whole grain mustard, and honey.

After breakfast we went for a walk around town. I found a shop that sold all sorts of sewing supplies, and they had country flag patches, so I picked up all the ones I’m missing. Now to sew these onto my bag somewhere. I decided that patches would work better than the stickers, which are falling off already.

We stumbled on a farmer’s market with lots of amazing looking fresh produce and everything else. We couldn’t resist picking up two decadent brownies and stopping for a drink and people watching.

The rain that was forecast came on strong, starting with strong winds and hail and then continuing on and off all day with bouts of thunder and minor flooding in the streets. For lunch, we had a flower-themed restaurant recommendation from our AirBNB host, so we checked it out, and it was amazing (all the flowers served are edible).

Avoiding the rain, we visited the Picasso museum, which highlights a selection of his works made while he lived here in Antibes, one of the happier periods of his life. Afterwards, we went to the post card museum, which is really interested and underrated in my opinion. You must visit if you are in Antibes. The collection of thousands of post cards from the owner’s personal collection includes historic cards from the late 1800s and early 1900s, funny ones, really fancy ones, ones with gimmicks like built-in record players, and everything in between. We were the only visitors, so he happily gave us an amazing personal tour of the collection.

While preparing dinner, we were planning tomorrow’s ride when we realized a sad mistake we’d made. The Monaco tourist office (where we will get our passport stamped) is only open 11am-1pm on Sunday. That wouldn’t give us enough time to see Nice. We had planned to see Nice, Eze, Monaco, get our passport stamped, cross into Italy, and camp tomorrow. There’s no camping or affordable lodging near Monaco, and we don’t want to rush to Monaco or to backtrack that far, so we made the decision to have a very short 20km day tomorrow and stay in Nice, where we will have more time to explore before heading to Italy on Monday.

Our campground had a convenience store next door, and at 7:30am, they got a delivery of still-warm croissants and pain au chocolat. As often as possible, this is how we start our mornings in France. I’m going to miss the croissants…

It was another beautiful day riding along the Cote d’Azur, though today we had fewer bike lanes, but not bad traffic overall, especially light in the very scenic coastal sections, but really busy after Cannes.

Thanks to our friend Darin, we had the right accessory to go with this selfie…

Steve wanted a croque monsieur for lunch at some place with a view, so we hunted around and found a cute restaurant at a quiet marina, where we shared lunch with what seemed to be a mixture of the local elite plus crewmen from the billionaire yachts anchored there. It was perfect!

We have an AirBNB in Antibes for two nights due to a 100% rain forecast for tomorrow. We are taking a rest day and visiting museums until the rain lets up, which should be Sunday.

All of France is abuzz about the elections Sunday. Half of the conversations I overheard on the street or in restaurants include Le Pen, Macron, Hollande, etc. I don’t understand enough French to get a feeling for how people are leaning, but there’s definitely a feeling of anxious anticipation right now…

After a light dinner in our AirBNB, we checked out the buzzing nightlife in town, including a few absinthe drinks at Absinthe Bar, quite tasty, and with an energetic pianist playing fun hits.

If you are ever interested in trying out bicycle touring, then we’ve found the perfect place to do it: the French Riviera is a bicycle tourist’s dream. Dedicated and well-signed bike lanes, friendly locals, English speakers everywhere, great food, amazing scenery, and campgrounds every few miles that don’t require reservations and are under 20€ per night. We could complain about the weird weather, which alternated from hot and sunny to chilly and drizzly, but I don’t think we’re allowed.

We are going to be so spoiled after a few more days like this. I hope we can force ourselves to keep moving because I want to see the rest of the world too!

We basically just cycled and did some sightseeing until we were ready to camp, which was near St. Maxime, and then we picked up stuff for dinner at a grocery store and found the next campground along the route that looked pretty good, a small beach-side place with all the expected amenities for €17. We had to take advantage of the beach, so a picnic on the beach watching the sunset was planned.

We were sad to leave our friends this morning but very happy to be back on the bikes and headed towards out on our next ride.

The next few weeks we will be Cote d’Azur, thé French Riviera, followed by the Italian Riviera. We rode mostly inland today towards the coast, avoiding Marseille.

At the top of our final hill, we found a dirt trail on the side of the road and followed it down about 500m to find a stunning view of the coast. We sat in the brush and made lunch from tuna and cheese we bought a few days ago and a baguette that Steve carried in his backpack from the previous town. Not a single car or person disturbed us while we enjoyed this amazing picnic, just a few ants, bees, and one helicopter zooming by far overhead.

We stopped in the port town of Toulon to enjoy a drink on the ocean front and write a few post cards. We are both thrilled to be back on the coast and looking forward to the mostly-coastal riding we have planned coming up.

Originally we were going to camp a few km east of Toulon, but we’d made good time, so we decided to go another 20km to the Giens Peninsula, where we found a perfect campground with an ocean view, secluded beaches, and a back packer special rate. The bike path from Toulon was spectacular! We rode most of the way completely separate from traffic, and the rest of the way along the beach with beautiful views of the ocean and many kite surfers.

We are glad that we’ve cut back on our daily distance, and today was very relaxed. We are happy to keep the focus on our exploration instead of the riding from now on.

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!