Provence

Carces across the vineyards

A view from Cotignac

An olive vendor at Cotignac Market

Sophie's place across the vineyards and through the trees. As peaceful as it looks.

Well we made it in fine style after a slight delay in Seattle. British Airways, as always, treated us as royalty in first class, plying us with champagne, lobster, wine, prawns, dulce de leche mousse for dessert. They even gave us "sleeper suits" to change into while they made up our beds. And also as always, they lost a bag. Why can those Indian guys deliver a million lunches on bicycles and multiple train connections every day with something like a 99.9% accuracy rate, when a company like British Airways can't get three bags through Heathrow even once. With the absolute promise that it would be delivered by the following morning, we hesitantly left Nice with Sophie and Bob, who had flown in from a short visit with his son in Copenhagen.

Nice is nice, but Carces is better! We felt like we were coming home as we turned up the little road that leads to her place. Always rough, it was a bit worse for wear after the flooding they had while Sophie was visiting us in June. Pictures in the newspapers show true devastation, with cars stacked on top of each other and livestock and I think a few lives lost. It has been 130 years since a flood like this here.

The weather is great now though, in the 80s but cooling off at night which is better than last time. The bees are a bit more aggressive near the pool, but her outdoor shower is still a marvelous option for cooling off after a ride.

The missing bag, which this time contained not only a crucial part for Rick's bike, but a replacement chain for Bob's bike, finally arrived, after about 30 phone calls in both languages, near midnight. I have decided to cancel our trip rather than try British Air again. They also are the only airline so far to charge a "fuel surcharge" on points tickets. This can get pretty expensive...and it really adds to the tick off factor when they loose a bag!!

But, we are in Provence, the bag arrived and we all rode over to Cotignac (6 km) this morning. Then we went separate ways; Sophie returned home to work on some projects she has been neglecting with all her travels this year, me to wander through the Farmer's Market where tasted and bought a local rose (that's ros-ay, don't know how to do the accents on this computer!) I also picked up some olives, a sausage, and a new shirt for myself.

We brought my pedals and shoes and put them on one of Sophie's old bikes. It worked great for the ride and I love the triple ring!

Back at Chez Sophie, us girls considered options for Italy. Sophie has decided not to do the Miglia ride after all. She has some tendinitis in her knee and has just been gone from home too much this year. I can certainly understand that! It does present a challenge, though, as she was our ride to Italy. We now have the option of her driving us, but other obligations mean she would have to drive us there a couple of days early so we'd have a couple of extra days of hotels to cover. We might take the train, but there are a lot of connections which would be tricky with Bob's large bike box. Renting a car one way with pick up in Provence and drop off in Italy is prohibitive, as is flying... We'll talk over that pink wine tonight...!