August 22, 2019
Draguignan
We leave the glitz and glamour of the Cote d’Azure
We have settled into a routine. It is still very hot, by about 11am it reaches 30degrees then just gets hotter. This means that we are leaving soon after seven, riding a short day and are finishing around 11 or a little later. With usual check in times for hotels being much later than this it posses something of a problem. Sometimes they will let us check in but if they wont we have always been able to leave both our baggage and our bikes. We wander the town a little then find a restaurant for lunch which turns out to be the main meal of the day. By this time we can usually check in Ken heads off to the supermarket and finds us something light for a meal. We have only been booking in hotels with air cond so have not been having to face up to the worst of the heat
We started today by heading around the coast a little before we connected with a cycleway beside a reasonably busy road that would take us inland. Our coffee stop was at a very busy Boulangerie at Roquerun-sur-Argens. A bit of a navigational error and we were on the DN7, we rode as fast as we could for the around 10 km and were put back on track at Le Muy. It is really amazing how the countryside has changed from the frenetic activity of the coast to the gentle pace of the rural France we love so much. We were now on tiny roads with almost no traffic , we were looking at the vineyards that produce the Rose the area is so famous for. It was all up and down as we gradually gained height but the gradients were modest. We were near the amazing Verdun Gorges and saw the road going up to them and lots of cyclists coming down but we plowed on
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4 years ago
It was such a lovely surprise when we got to Trans en Provence because a perfect dedicated appeared It was a rail trail and would take us with great ease for the last 6 or so km The only problem being that if we had been smart enough we could have got on to it about 10km earlier - never mind we had a great ride.
We found the hotel which was locked up like a fortress so just sat on the steps and waited. A girl came along and we persuaded her we could drop everything off. Then to find a restaurant, Ken’s meal in particular was very memorable - he had a Moules Salade - it was packed with moules and apparently extremely tasty
Back to our hotel for the usual chores, I had a bit of a sleep and Ken was off to find the American War Cemetery. There were over 800 crosses and another 200 missing, there was a parachute landing here but there were also landings on the Med coast with the ensuing skirmishes. This happened just a short time after the Normandy landings.
Today's ride: 44 km (27 miles)
Total: 1,302 km (809 miles)
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