S H F bike tours 🚴🏼 🇫🇷 day 19

19 days and counting!  Love love love the biking here. Quiet roads and lots of scenery. Well, let's rethink that just a tad. The vast majority of our biking tour group successfully conquered a 4K hill ranging from 5-9% grade. It was a mountain if you ask me.  Sucking air like a little steam engine, managed to make it to the top.  The reward was fantastic.  Oh by the way, the scaling to the summit is one to mark your calendars .... Brenda most decidedly beat me to the top. Yup, she scooted right up that 4K climb leaving me and many others in the dust.  Oh, did I mention she kind of cheated... Outfitted with an electric bike, she had that thing turned up to the highest assist as possible.... 

The day started with a cruise through the 12th century narrow streets of Vallabreques then on to Saint Remy de Provence. The birth place of Nostradamus. Also notable, is Van Gogh resided here for a period of time during the days of his mental illness. Market was happening in the center square, so lots of shopping opportunity. Just ask Deb and Clay....

The challenge of the day was when we left Saint Remy to scale the bit of a mountainous incline (hidden falls would pale in comparison) to the overlook to Les-Baux-de-Provence. A village built in the 12-13th centruries. Did we find a castle and a number of churches .... Why absolutely!  After catching our breath and taking at least a 100 photos, off we went to this really cool village and, you betcha, more shopping opportunities. 

Then a liesurely, 23 miles into Arles and our boat. Yea! clean up and a cold beverage.  Whew...  Seems I have been remiss in not mentioning the food on this cruise. Quite outstanding.  The dinners are fabulous. We have our own chef. He has really outdone himself. Yum.  All dinners are plated so only one option. They are quite flexible if you give them some advence notice to change what to be served to you. ( just ask Brenda and her penchant for curry and fish...) The breakfasts are ok, nothing out of the ordinary.  We make our own lunches and eat them sometime during the day at some stop or another.  The bar! Self serve and write down what you take. What is not to like!!  Kinda liking that Leffe beer! Yum!

Tomorrow, day 5 of 6 for biking. We explore Arles. ( pronounced R Ls- silly French) .  Do check back ! You might find something interesting ....

S H F bike tour 🚴🏼 🇫🇷 day 18

Provence!! Teeming with medeval walled villages and they are all made of limestone and similarly hued structures. Must have been a requirement to have a castle AND at least one church .... Usually more.  Apparently, the more the holier... Interesting 12th century city structure ...  

Today's biking wound through all of the above and more. Moored at the pretty Provençal village of Vallabregues. we hopped on our lovely orange step through bikes and off we rode up lovely and quiet roads along the Rhone River. Climbed up the little incline, of sorts, to the Abbey of St Michel de Frigulet for lunch. What a cool place to eat! Then coast down to the village of Boulbon. So fun! About 2/3rd of the group opted to ride over to the walled city of Tarascon. What did we find? Of course! A castle AND the church of St Martha. By the way, Martha is still there...in her tomb, but still there. History of this church dates back to 500 a.d. .... Too much to go into with this blog... Your homework assignment.  :D

50k day and back to our boat. Whew. 

A few of the visual pics for the day.  Do enjoy

Tomorrow, based on the website info, a bit longer day... 60k.   Piece of cake.  Check back to see if we make it!   The winds are blowing.......

Oh, PS.  I was unanimously selected to be the sweep today. It was sweet! Affectionately dubbed the "Hoover".  The best spot to be in for a 20+ group!  Gave me the opportunity to hone skills to climb a 1+ K hill at 4.2 K per hour. Easy peasy.  We have all speeded riders....

S H F bike tours 🚴 🇫🇷 day 17

Now today was more like a bike ride!! We wheeled our way through numerous vinyards, villages and so much more. The highlight of the day was the UNESCO world heritage site of Pont du Garde -- Roman aqueduct built 40-60 AD and still stands today. Absolutely jaw dropping site to see. The Romans built it to carry water to Nimes over the Gardon River.  It's original length was 1180'. Today is 902'. The height is 160'. Original number of spans of the upper level was 47, today is 35, middle are 11, lower 6.  Made if Shelly limestone. There is only 56' of change in elevation of the entire aqueduct from the source of the water to its destination in Nimes. A gradient of only 1 in 3000, an example of the great precision of those Roman engineers. Quite amazing!

Have a look see at some of today's adventure. 

The Minnesota 5 plus 1

Assessing the demographics of this tour --- 1 Canadian, 1 Kansan, 5 Minnesotans, and ... 15 Australians.....  Getting lots of good Intel on possible future trips to Australia.  Yeah!

4 more days of biking, so stay tuned to this blog!

S H F bike tours 🚴 🇫🇷 day 16

What a day, what a day!  As the saying goes, sometime the rain must fall,.. Well even though there is over 300 days of sunshine here in Provence, today was the exception. It did not dampen our spirits or shorten our ride. Off we go with 22 bikers, not I unlike a Minnetonka bike club ride -- a leader, a sweep,  most of us taking turns to corner. The only difference, we are not in the twin cities. We are in France. The scenery was fabulous. No way like Hennepin county. Not by a long shot. Not able to take many pics, we were in and out of rain showers all day. The pace was quite liesurely,... Like easy rider leisurely. ... Silly me brought my clips and shoes.  The bikes are step throughs very much like the Easy Ride bike in the twin cities only a "lovely shade of orange".  Quite the fishion statement.... 

All structure of some shade of limestone. All houses and buildings are made of stone and some shade of limestone. Every where an old castle AND at least one or more churches. Provence is quite quaint and really fascinating.  Very little here built much after the 12th-19th centuries. 

Have a look see---

Deb and Clay. 

The Minnesota 5 plus 1 Missourian .. Each photo is minus one...

Back to the boat and on the Rhone River. 

More biking to come!  5 more days of this, so hang on and check back !!  

S H F bike tours 🚴🏼 🇫🇷 day 15

Provence! Our exploration continues!!  Today's tour took us to 4-12th century little villages, Gordes perched on Monts de Vaucluse, colorful Roussilon built on ochre cliffs, the mysterious Lacoste, and Bonnieaux. All constructed with limestone and sandstone walls, a castle, and of course, a church. We explored it all. 

Every where we stopped, there was a bicycle tour group....at the top of every hill. There are by no means short or flat routes to the village centers. And you all thought Ramsey Hill in St Paul was daunting....

Here in Provence they have over 300 days of sunshine. Today, not so much. Keeping fingers crossed today's weather will wring all the moisture out if the clouds just in time for us to begin biking tomorrow.  Notice the rain drops on the photo below.  The village in the background is Gordes. Thankfully our guide drove us up much closer. We did walk around but failed to make it back to the van before any part of us not protected by an umbrella was soaked. No worries, we were all dried out by lunch. 

The red cliffs of Roussilon. There is an interesting legend....

Lunch! What is not to like about this view!!  In the distance is Bonnieaux.

Ruins of the castle and former home of the Marquis de Sade in the village of Lacoste.  He had quite the life. Something about he was the author along with an insatiable appetite for sexual activity. Did you know sadism, came from his name? Spent nearly 30 years of his life in jail...for good reason. Interesting story too.....

Village of Lacoste street scenes. 

Looking through branches of cedar trees from the top in Bonnieaux village. These trees are not native to this area. Soldiers were ordered to go bring back pine trees to replace trees lost in a forest fire....so close....

Back to Avignon by 6:00 and onto our boat ... Home for the next 7 days. There are homes with walk in closets bigger than our state room.... 7'x 8' plus a bathroom. Cozy...  

There are 22 total bikers in this tour. 80% of them Ausies (Australians) This should be interesting... It is already raucous and we just got on the boat ....

Tomorrow we begin our 280 kilometer ride over the next 6 days. Hoping your curiosity is piqued and keep reading.  With any luck, will be able to post the blogs as they are written....the wifi network is slow at best ...

S H F bike tours 🚴 🇫🇷 day 14

What a day yesterday!!!  9 hour private tour of Provence. So much history over so many decades! So much information ... Mostly out of my head... Guess that happens when one sleeps. It's a theory...

We toured Marseille ( pronounced mah say), Cassis ( pronounced cah cease) and Aix of Provence ( pronounced X of pro vounce - ya, you had that one.... : D)  Then transferred to our barge port of Avignon.  A walled city of very old buildings.  

Here is a look see :

Tomorrow, actually today at this writing, we tour more of Provence and embarke our barge. Stay tuned....