Pootling

The wedding at the hotel meant that breakfast was delivered to the room instead of a buffet in the restaurant. It was rather fabulous and was enough for snacks and lunch too.

I decided I was too knackered to head to the mountains today and wanted to pootle around the Camargue,  so I let the Garmin come up with a 55 mile flat route. 

This apparently also included a tour of the Roman city of Arles and quite a few crossings of the River Rhône.

My favourite part was happily peddling around the Camargue, a beautiful, protected wetland that is utterly peaceful and rather magical.

The swallows have arrived here and various other tweety things that I can’t name! I’m sure the heat and the mozzies are awful later in the year but I loved the tranquility today.

Meanwhile back at the hotel, the support crew had a challenging morning, witnessing one of the wedding guests getting run over very slowly by the flower arranger. Fortunately no bones were broken and after a trip to hospital in an ambulance, she returned to the hotel for the continuing celebrations (apparently it’s a 3 day extravaganza).

We decided to do the tourist thing this afternoon and did the short drive to Les Baux-de-Provence, a fortified village on top of a ridge, all very spectacular but full of tourists. It’s the May Day weekend in France (and again next weekend obviously!)

That was quite enough of the tourist stuff so back to the hotel for a nice cold beer and a sit down.

Maussane-les-Alpilles

The weather was as yuk as expected when we landed with a few scary, wobbly moments in the very strong wind. However Bob managed to make the journey with us and the airport at Nimes is small therefore very efficient so we were very quickly into the hire car, with the usual faffing and fussing trying to work all the buttons.

The next issue was trying to find somewhere open to eat on a Sunday lunchtime, but we eventually found a great brasserie in Fontvieille with a very yummy prawn risotto and lemon tart, starting as I mean to go on!

The hotel has a wedding today so we have been upgraded to the posher bit with a tree in the bathroom, obviously.

Given the revolting weather, it’s just as well the room is so snazzy and there is plenty of room for me to put Bob together ready for our ride tomorrow. Fortunately the weather forecast from now on is much more optimistic. 

Another cunning plan

The last couple of months haven’t been easy, but hopefully the wonderfulness of a cycling trip in France will work its usual magic. The tree trunks, Bob and the support crew are off to Provence for 2 weeks hoping to be well fed and watered.
It’s been fun creating the cunning plan and finding interesting places to stay, I’m particularly excited about the donkey sanctuary! In a radical departure, I haven’t planned the entire trip so there are two days at the end to attempt a bit of spontaneity.

After a pretty grim week, today is going to be a frenzy of finding bike stuff, packing and the fun challenge of getting a bike bag and two suitcases into a TT.

The weather forecast for our landing at Nimes is delightful, hopefully it can only improve.