It has been a while since I have written.  A combination of poor wifi for uploading photos and lots of long days in the saddle.  Since I last wrote we have crossed northern Italy including the coastal mountains, spent a day in Genova, ridden along the Italian and French Riviera

and a bit of Provence.  Today we are in Montpelier, France and back near the coast.

 

After leaving Lido (Venice) we rode across a couple of long islands with small ferry rides

in between.  It was very scenic but took a long time and made for a very long day of riding.  The weather has

been quite hot so riding in the early part of the day is nice but afternoons are much tougher.  My Garmin bike computer thermometer has often read high 90s to low 100s in the sun!  Jim seems to tolerate the heat without issues but I get quite exhausted by it.  It is really hard to drink enough fluids and I actually think fondly back to our days of rain (the grass is always greener!).

Our route took us along the Po River in Italy where we passed many, many poplar trees.  For those of you who don’t know, I worked with a group of researchers on poplar tree research back in my faculty days at the University of Washington.  Reini Stettler, a wonderful colleague of mine, is a forest tree geneticist originally from Switzerland who developed fast-growing poplar hybrids to be cultivated for fiber (pulp and paper) production.  Those of you who have driven the Columbia Gorge have probably noticed the poplar plantations along the way.  His work (and that of many others) has resulted in vast production of poplars

in this region of northern Italy.  It was so great to see the results of this research thoughout the  countryside.  We also saw old, elegant farms.  This photo is for our friend Tom, a farmer from Spokane.

 

We then crossed the coastal mountains,

a spectacular ride.

We had a amazing descent into Genova (Genoa).  Good road, swooping turns, minimal traffic…ahhh!   I  found Genova to be a bit disappointing.  Very crowded, dirty, with many businesses closed for holidays.  We did however visit a fabulous maritime museum, perhaps one of the best “theme” museums I have ever seen.  We thought of our friend Richard who loves all things maritime throughout our visit.  (The photo of the oar is just for you Richard.)

 

Leaving Genoa, we rode along the coast of the Italian Riviera.  The coastline is beautiful but it is very crowded, especially since it is August and high tourist season here.  It made for challenging riding with cars, pedestrians, narrow roads, and the rolling coastline with some steep climbs.

At the point of our entry into France, there was a discernable change:  more affluent, less crowded, cleaner.  The Cote d’Azur is so beautiful one can understand why it is the playground of the wealthy.  I kept imagining what rich Saudi or Russian oligarch owned the spectacular yachts we saw along the way.

We spent one day in Cannes.  It was very busy with many tourists posing on the red carpeted steps of the theatre for the Cannes film festival.  As we left however, the coastline was, in my opinion, the most spectacular of all.  Not crowded with an amazing blue sea, craggy red rock outcroppings, beautiful villas (I picked one out for myself…you can all visit when I win the lottery and can actually buy it!).  From there we turned inland and rode into part of Provence.  Ancient looking towns, less colorful than many places we have been but so beautiful.

Olive groves, vineyards, pine trees, scrub oaks.  Regrettably the riding has been very hot on some of the climbs but a fun place to see.  I would like to return someday and see more of Provence because I think we just touched the edge of this lovely region.  Clearly it is very popular for cycling as we often saw more cyclists than cars on the back roads.

As I mentioned before, we are now on a rest day in Montpelier.  We truly have spent most of our time here eating and resting.  Tomorrow it is back in the saddle and into the heat as we head down the coast, into Spain and on to Barcelona.  I am really looking forward to seeing Barcelona but will be sad to say goodbye to many of our riding friends:  Peter & Ruth, Rinda, Deb, Tone.  It will be a smaller group that heads on through the Spanish countryside and finally into Portugal.  We are missing our friends, family and doggies not to mention the other comforts of home.  But of course, that is part of what adventures are all about.

So au revoir, a bientot, see you soon.

Barb