When I booked the flights for my most recent trip to France back in May I did so in hopes of encountering Indian Summer conditions in the southern part of that country. As it turned out, that was true for only maybe half of the two weeks that I spent overseas, and toward the end I suppose I was lucky not to get caught up in some severe flooding. But on the days that it was clear and sunny, nothing could compare to the glory of the countryside, be it on the Côte d'Azur or in the vineyards of Provence at the foot of Mont Ventoux.
Two days after my return from Lake Placid—with barely enough time to get a haircut and pack my luggage—I was once again back on the way to the Lubbock airport. By now, the gate agents know me by name and wonder where I am taking the bike this time around (or in those rare cases, why I don't schlepp the RITCHEY), and I joke around with some of the TSA crew. My outbound itinerary took me on AA metal to DFW and from there to Philadelphia for a direct onward connection to Nice. Nice! 😅
Upon arrival I eventually managed to navigate the somewhat strangely laid-out airport and found the rental car counter. I picked up a Renault that was large enough to give me fits parking but that also held my assembled Outback without needing to remove even the front wheel. It was an upgrade that I had not expected, and the large dimensions of the car meant that I left it parked upon arrival at the three different Airbnbs that I had booked. Just like most hotel rooms in Europe, parking spaces are tiny, and especially underground garages with their concrete pillars are frightening. To play spoiler: I managed to keep the car free of
most scratches (there was a plastic bollard that jumped out at me in a tight intersection and left a mark that the rental clerk didn't notice when I returned the vehicle).
I spent the first three days in a condo just west of Fréjus, in Saint-Aygulf. It was only about a 90-minute drive from the airport, and the gregarious owner of the place, JeanLou, was waiting for me (and parked the car in the catacombs for me—thanks, my friend!). The apartment, albeit being small, was ideal as it overlooked the Mediterranean just a few blocks away, had an elevator big enough to accommodate the bike, and was within a hundred meters or so of a supermarket, a bakery, and several restaurants. People always want to know how much it costs to rent such a place, and obviously there are numerous factors to consider. Since my trip took place in the shoulder season, I paid for the three nights $249, including all the taxes and fees; my other two rentals were either the same or, for the weeklong cottage in Provence, significantly cheaper at about $65 a night, inclusive of all fees.
Fréjus was an ideal spot for my three-night stay as it allowed me, on the first day, to assemble my bike and take it easy after the transatlantic hop. I had plenty of time to walk around town, check out the (rocky) beach, and enjoy a beer near the harbor before heading to a pizzeria. After a visit to the bakery in the morning I was ready for my first ride of the trip, a 52-miler west to St. Tropez. If that sounds pretty fabulous, well, my friends, it is! The coastline is dotted with impressive mansions, features romantic beaches in hidden coves, and is lined with small harbor towns that invite you to sit down in some café to gawk at all those sailboats and yachts.
The coastal road is narrow, with slow-moving traffic thanks to the ubiquitous in-town crosswalks and speed-bumps, traffic circles, and generally low speed limits. About halfway to St. Tropez the dedicated bike trail, physically separated from the road, started up, and even beforehand I had felt totally at ease with cars going by just 20 or 25 kmh faster than I was moving. On the entire trip, there was just one driver (in Provence) who was in a real hurry and used his angry claxon. Riding on the bike trail (which runs between the road and the shore) makes sightseeing incredibly enjoyable. My ride took place on a Saturday, and there were countless road riders out for fast group rides; most of them just stayed on the road (with nobody honking at them) and I had to deal with only the eBike-equipped tourists with their large panniers.
From a weather perspective this was one of three days of the entire trip that really stood out. The clarity of the atmosphere, the ochre colors of the homes, the green of the forests, the deep blue sky, and the glistening Mediterranean were almost too much. It was a spectacular day, and I enjoyed every minute of it. The number of sailboats in the bay where St. Tropez is located was staggering. There's so much money down here, rivaling only Cannes and Monaco.
In St. Tropez I slowly rode in the fairly crowded pedestrian zone that Old Town has been declared. Quite frankly, I wouldn't want to come down here in the high season. It was rather busy thanks to being a Saturday, but in the summer this must be a veritable zoo. Being on the bike has the advantage that you don't have to worry about finding a parking spot, and it allows you to bypass some areas quicker than an automobilist could ever hope to.
Overnight, the weather changed significantly, and I didn't see the sun for the entire ride that, on day two, took me east along the coast, toward Cannes. This part of the coastline is rougher, with significant hills rising up almost immediately from the shore. Thankfully, the French are good road engineers, and most of the grades were easy and pleasant to ride, despite some strong winds. There's no comparison to the mountains that I had encountered in Albania, that's for sure.
I rode as far as Théoule, another one of the many quaint fishing towns that have become so attractive to tourists. In the far distance, on the other side of the bay, I could see Cannes. I think it'd be really cool to start riding from France's border with Spain all the way to Monaco, just with a credit card and a spare kit. Judy and I rode some of that back in 1990 on the tandem, fully loaded, and we had a wonderful time. Maybe sometime in the future....
After three nights in Fréjus it was time for JeanLou to unpark the Renault and me to drive to Le Lavandou, maybe two hours west and still on the coast. The weather was fall-like but mostly dry, and after establishing myself in a tiny, non-descript apartment I went for a short 21-miler in the general area of this sleepy port. I had hoped to visit a microbrewery, but this
brasserie artesanal turned out to simply be a production facility without a tasting- or tap-room. Another spoiler: On this trip I didn't add a single new brewery to my list.
I have been trying to find out why the water in various fountains in Le Lavandou was running red, but despite the all-knowing Mr. Google and numerous questions posed to locals I could not find an answer. Knowing the French, it most likely is some form of protest, similar to the upside-down city limit signs. But it
did look cool!
For dinner I had a very tasty octopus fricassee in one of the few restaurants that were open. After having traveled in Albania just weeks before where one can buy an outstanding meal that includes a bottle of better-than-decent wine for no more than €12 to €15, the prices for going out in France were real shockers. Expect to pay a minimum of twice as much, but more likely three times, when eating in even very simple local eateries; it didn't take much to pay €45 to €55 for tapas for two in the afternoon. A children's mid-day menu often goes for north of €15. Grocery store prices were equally high and I simply closed my eyes and handed over my German debit card and pretended it was all just Monopoly money.
Overnight, the wind kept increasing and we got pelted with a hard rain. My condo had a partial view of the Mediterranean, and in the morning big rollers, the type that one would expect in the Atlantic, came ashore. I thought that was going to be it for my planned ride, but around 2 p.m. things started to clear up and I was able to ride east along the coast toward Cavalaire-sur-Mer and a little beyond. I had a chance to watch folks come out to play
pétangue in the local
boulodrome, and people once again started to walk the shore promenade. Further into the afternoon it became positively sunny and pleasant so that I could conclude my riding on the Côte d'Azur with the best of memories. What better way to celebrate than to spring for an excellent pizza in a cozy restaurant, next to six friends who were celebrating life themselves and exuded lots of French conviviality and joie de vivre.
On Wednesday morning I packed up my stuff and started the four-hour drive to Carpentras, in the heart of Provence, where I had rented a cottage on the outskirts of town for a seven-night stay. It was a beautiful drive on a blustery day that mixed threatening clouds with brilliant sunshine while the Mistral was blowing hard out of the Rhône valley. I arrived shortly after 2 p.m. and was greeted by Vincent, the friendly owner of the place. I was totally happy with my choice as the small house was located at the end of an inviting driveway, with a recently harvested field of tomatoes next to it, a covered patio, a cute table with chairs next to a faux water fountain, and—this was the kicker!—a direct view of Mont Ventoux in the distance!
Back in July, while in Germany, I had told Sabine about my plans to travel to France. Her interest had been piqued because of the good memories from our previous stay in 2016 in Lagnes, just a few clicks away from Carpentras, and so I had invited her to join me and she had accepted. Since it is a long way to drive from Freising, she had decided to first spend a few days in the Vercors region to do some hiking (unfortunately, she had to contend with less-than-ideal weather as well). After moving into the Airbnb I made a grocery run on the bike, and when she arrived late in the afternoon we did what we do so well: have a picnic dinner.
For the next week we established a beautiful routine of her walking to the nearby bakery for
pain au chocolat and a fresh
baguette while I was making coffee and getting breakfast going; our discussing what kind of ride we might want to do, depending on the weather; riding between 26 to 46 miles on a daily basis, covering a wide swath of the area; stopping by a supermarket on the way home for fresh food and wine supplies; and enjoying home-cooked dinners while either sitting on our patio or inside, depending once again on the weather. All of our rides were loops that, together, formed almost a butterfly pattern. Perfect.
Obviously, our most memorable rides were those that we took on sunny days, of which we had four out of six. On the first two days we lucked out in that there was no haziness and the skies were a deep blue. The clouds lifted away from Mont Ventoux, and the vineyards of the entire region were glowing in untold shades of gold, green, and red. Even though the yards had been harvested we'd run across a few leftover clusters of sweet grapes that were better than energy bars.
Provence must be one of the best places where I have ever ridden a bike, one of the reasons why I had wanted to come back here. There are so many tiny roads and paths that one could easily hit the same towns on five consecutive days but take different routes leading from one to the next. The terrain is mostly flat (on our 41-mile ride to Orange we had all of 715 feet of elevation gain), but one can also climb without venturing onto the slopes of Mont Ventoux (Day One saw us climb 2,427 feet in 42 miles). This mighty mountain with an elevation gain of about 5,200 feet, depending from which direction one tackles it, rises from the surrounding plains, and its imposing presence is visible from many miles away. On our last ride—a sunny albeit somewhat hazy day thanks to much atmospheric moisture—we rode in between the much lower
Dentelles range and the
Géant de Provence, with amazing views of both.
In 2016, I had ridden to the top of the Ventoux, not too long after my aFib adventures and beta blockers still coursing though my system. I called the ascent the "Bataan Death March" in my blog, describing how the mountain humiliated me but how I
did make it to the top (6,266 feet). Sabine had wisely decided to drive to the summit, and neither of us has had any designs of a first or second ascent ever since, so we left the giant alone. Been there, done it, no need to suffer any more.
The roads of Provence are a mixed bag when it comes to their state of maintenance. Some roads are quite smooth, yet many others are simply a patchwork of holes and bumps. The same goes for the narrow paths that barely have the width of a tractor, so one has to be on constant alert to avoid nasty surprises. A welcome exception to this comes in the form of several "rails-to-trails" cycling paths on retired railroad beds. They are in pristine condition, with baby-butt-smooth asphalt and safe crossings of intersecting automotive infrastructure. Needless to say, they also feature very gentle grades.
Some of our rides took us on routes that we thought we had covered in 2016 (that trip preceded our being Strava users), but this time we did not ride in the Luberon or visit Les Alpilles. We left both cars parked and started all of our rides from the Airbnb. In five days of riding (not counting my supermarket- day excursion when I arrived in Carpentras, which presented day six of being on the bike) we covered 196 miles, a number that would have been higher had the weather been benign the entire time. (On the Côte d'Azur I had accumulated 144 miles in four days.) Our average speed was slow, very slow (on some days less than 10 mph), but with all the photo stops and forgetting to turn off Strava while having a leisurely lunch one can't expect much more.
On the day when the forecast called for a 90% chance of rain we decided to leave the bikes parked and drive to Avignon, which is just about half an hour by car from Carpentras. The city seemed almost deserted, with few tourists milling around and more than half of the shops closed. We were surprised by the inordinate number of theaters that call Avignon home, all of them taking their seasonal break. It did indeed start to sprinkle, but we stayed mostly dry by visiting the
Palais des Papes, the huge Gothic palace where the anti-popes of the 14th and 15th centuries kept their residence. A very interesting place.
The world-famous
Pont d'Avignon is located just a a few minutes away from the palace. Its official name is
Pont Saint-Bénézet, and part of the visit provides a good historical overview of how bridges were built almost 1,000 year ago and why this one has only four arches remaining and now stops halfway across the Rhône. To get the full view of the bridge it makes sense to go to an adjacent modern (and complete!) bridge and look at it from afar.
We found one of the few open restaurants and sat under one of those huge European umbrellas while it rained, enjoying late-afternoon tapas. The rain was only a precursor of what would hit southern France two days later, when Sabine was already on the way back home to Freising and I was navigating the by-roads to the airport in Nice. Météo-France issued orange- and red-level flood warnings, and I started to get a bit worried about land- and rock-slides while driving through the Verdun and the Pre-Alpes. The river Var was wallowing along in an angry, black mass, and I was glad when I had dropped off the car and was safely in my airport hotel, the Crown Plaza (which featured a generous Happy Hour in the executive lounge while outside it continued to be extremely unpleasant). That day, several people were killed in France due to flooded rivers, something that we seem to hear about more and more often.
Wrapping things up, this was an enjoyable trip to one of my favorite cycling destinations in the world. The fact that Sabine could join me was an extra bonus since the lack of restaurants near the Airbnb in Carpentras and the need to prepare meals in the cottage would have meant unnecessarily solitary evenings.
Two of my flights back (from Nice to London's Heathrow and then onward to DFW) were operated by British Airways, and as much as I bitch and moan about American Airlines, BA's business class is an inferior product with truly crappy seats—something that was doubly irksome because I had actually bought a biz ticket and was not relying on upgrades. The service was good, the food excellent, but the comfort and privacy of the "lie-flat" seats were appalling, with the divider to the neighboring seat being broken in addition to the seat woes (and I had one of the few seats where I didn't have to climb over someone—or someone had to climb over me—to get to the loo!). This was a double-decker A380, and BA manages to cram seven passengers across the plane where AA gives everyone full aisle access with only four pax abreast. On top of that, BA managed to delay my bike bag for 24 hours in Heathrow, without any bag scan data provided, adding stress and inconvenience to an already long trip (from door to door, it was a 28-hour day).
The iffy weather followed me all the way to Lubbock, giving me an excuse to stay off the bike for a few days and try to get my life back onto its normal tracks before the next excursion in less than two weeks, a car trip to South Texas. A bientôt!
Jürgen
On Sunday, my friend Sandy from Lubbock arrived in the late afternoon. She had lived in the area for many years, and her son and his family live in nearby San Marcos. We had them over on two different evenings for nice dinners in the spacious condo. Did I say it was all very relaxed?
The resort has a nice pool area with a clean hot tub, and after my rides ending the day with a good soak and a cold beer was just what the doctor ordered. Sandy spent the days visiting friends and former colleagues, and twice we met up at breweries in the area; I'd go for a 35-mile one-way ride, we'd communicate about my ETA, and then I'd put the bike into her Mini and we'd enjoy Happy Hour before driving back to the condo. New Braunfels has several craft breweries, but I have to say that they fell short of San Angelo's offerings.
New Braunfels—as the name implies—was founded by German settlers, and many of their traditions have been kept alive. While Oktoberfest in Munich runs from late September into early October, Wurstfest in New Braunfels is celebrated in the first ten days of November, as to not interfere with Halloween or Thanksgiving. While the tradition is obviously rooted in the German celebrations, the first Wurstfest wasn't held until 1961 but has become an institution since then, attracting hundreds of thousands of visitor each year. Since both of us had participated in Wurstfest in the past, we decided not to watch people perform the Chicken Dance, sing German drinking songs, and get drunk on authentic German and German-style beers.
The week in the condo went by rather quickly, and the check-out time of 10:00 a.m. was rather cruel. Sandy decided to spend another couple of days with relatives before heading back to life in Lubbock while I headed toward Austin to extend my own vacation by a few days. For two nights, I stayed with my good friends Micki and Kent, who live on the west side of the sprawling city. We hadn't seen each other in almost two years, and occasional phone calls are no substitute for sitting on the porch with a hot cup of morning coffee.
The next day I drove back home in sunny, calm, and fairly cool conditions. The first freeze is now forecast for November 20, three weeks late and a day after I will have left for my next adventure. So, maybe I can extend summer by just a tiny bit more....
