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Showing posts from June, 2019

Hot, hot hot! Provence and the Mediterranean - by car.

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The next week in Provence There's something about 40C degrees that doesn't inspire long cycle rides with a loaded bike!! So we have a car now!! The forecast for Provence for the next week is in the high 30s and low 40s. That, together with the tricky logistics of transporting the bikes on trains to get to our final airport destination - led us to the decision  to rent a car in Avignon and keep it till our departure from Lyon. So now the bikes are in the back of the car and we are enjoying air-conditioned travel. And believe it or not, we are really missing the bikes! A lot has happened in the last week, and I am quite behind with my updates. Sometimes it's a lack of WiFi, sometimes a lack of battery power as we generally don't have electricity at our campsites, and have to leave our devices plugged in at the bathrooms. (I didn't bring my solar panels on this trip). But sometimes I just don't feel like writing at the end of the day! I'm going to ...

Heading south to Ardeche and a rendez-vous with old friends

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For the last five days, we have been enjoying a pampered life with friends Angela and Jacques at their  beautiful home near the little town of Barjac in the Ardeche region of southern France. This is about an hour and a half's drive northwest of Avignon, on the west side of the Rhone. The bikes are resting now, as are we! More about this area in the next post! Frank hadn't met Jacques and Angela before, and I had last seen them twenty one years ago when they left Calgary to move to France. They had both worked at the Cancer Clinic in Calgary.  So it was wonderful to be reunited on Tuesday in the picturesque medieval town of St Montain where we'd arranged to meet. The medieval village of St Montain To get there, Frank and I fast-forwarded the Rhone ride by taking a train from Lyon to Valence, then riding the remaining 90 km or so to our rendez-vous point. Riding through the historical town of Chateneuf du Rhone, Not far from the city of Valence La Voul...

More Rain along the Rhone

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(Due to lack of WiFi for a couple of days, the following report was written on June 15th and not posted till Jun 17th) It was all my fault. Yesterday I threw out a challenge to Fate that she couldn't resist!! On Instagram, I stated that there was more rain the in the forecast,  but that our tent hadn't leaked yet. I should have known better!! Last night the heavens opened and our grassy camp spot became a shallow pond, and we had to abandon ship at 2.30am. Luckily there was a great big unused event tent with a nice wooden floor on site, so we laid out our sleeping pads there, and in our still-dry sleeping bags, had a comfortable rest of the night. By morning, the sun was shining and we got everything more or less dried out. This is where we ended up sleeping, sans tent Two days ago, we had another interesting experience on the Via Rhona (EV 17). There are a few sections of this cycle route that are still being developed, so in certain places you do have to ride on ...

Angels in the rain

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The sun returned today after three days of almost constant rain. Mt. Blanc never did manage to shake off its shroud of cloud before we left the Lake Geneva area this morning, which was a little disappointing. Nothing to see here today at Lake Geneva! Because of the rain, we spent two nights in a little hotel in the city of Lausanne, and toured the city. This is the location of the IOC headquarters, and also the Olympic Museuem. So that seemed like a great rainy day activity. The displays about the history of the Olympics, equipment used by many well-known competitors, all the torches from the various Olympics, etc were pretty interesting. The Olympic Museum, Lausanne The actual torch used to light the Olympic cauldron in Calgary 1988, On display in the museum with all the other Olympic torches  Yesterday, in spite of more rain in the forecast, we decided to press on with our ride towards Geneva. Our friends Jacques and Angela, who live in southern France, and ...

Switzerland's Rhone Valley and Euro Velo 17

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This little map shows Andermatt, Oberwald and the Furka Pass It was Mother Nature who made the decision for us as to whether or not we would cycle the high pass between Andermatt and the head of the Rhone valley or Valais which we planned to follow down to Lake Geneva and beyond. The Furkapass 2429m was still snow-covered and wouldn't open for another two weeks! Part of me was relieved! So plan B was to take another short train ride with the bikes to the little town of Oberwald, 1377m, just 14km down from the source of the Rhone, on the far side of the pass. To get there, the train goes through a 15km long tunnel through the mountain. We left soggy Andermatt on Thursday afternoon, and emerged in sunny Oberwald where we started our journey along EuroVelo 17, know as Route 1 in Switzerland. On the train from Andermatt to Oberwald Behind me is the infant Rhone in Oberwald, 14km down from  its source in a glacier west of Furka Pass Carved-out troughs are common...