We had thought about being up and moving early, but we delayed leaving (both bed and Losheim) the next morning to struggle out from under the lack of sleep in Munich and also to help our gracious host Abli set up an ice stand at a local concert. Noon grew into afternoon, and we shoved thoughts of driving late into the night aside in favour of hanging out in the local lake throwing Frisbees and drinking beer in the sun. Ahhhh. Is this vacation? Oh!
Having slept, rested and feeling focused, we sprinted out of Losheim bright and early and straight into Peter's navigational Waterloo, the tiny town of Merzig. There is a left and right somewhere in that town that remains hidden to Peter, unfathomable. Northern France turned into southern France as we dashed towards Lyon. Hours passed, tolls racked up, and the kilometres passed. Two days before we had a try at German radio. Now we had our hands full of French radio. The consensus: the playlist is very unpredictable. Mixes of genres, styles, and some just plain bad music that was quickly dismissed with the seek button. Every once and a while, we would run into our favourite Tour song, the Chihuahua 2002. (Oooooooohh Chihuahua! Don't ask us, we just listen to it. It's not our fault, and you can't prove anything!) We stopped in Lyon to email our Vancouver friend Callum Morrison, a good Scotsman (well, of heritage, and drinking capacity) on his own bike tour of France and waiting for us in Luz-St.-Sauveur. A few of our days cycling in eastern France had been hot. A couple of days in Germany had been steamy. We found out during a long walk to a 'nearby' Internet cafe that Lyon was dry and extra-super-habanera-sauce hot! Lyon, if anything, is all about public squares. Vast tracks of land set aside for public gathering in a place where no public wants to gather because it's so hot!
We bought an hour of Internet time, used 15 minutes, found some lunch (donairs, again), and continued our autobahn experience. A little south of Lyon, we left the autobahn and tried the red (medium) roads. Hmmm, they may have looked shorter but they were far slower than the autobahn. The autobahn is a precision machine with very definite rules of right-of-way. Most of the rules involve 'Getting Out of My Way.' This is a big thing, especially when the closure rate between vehicles travelling in the same direction can be over 50 kph. Your rear-view mirrors are your friends. Scott finessed his way up and down the mountain passes, sawing as many minutes off as he could while stuck behind oddly slow traffic. One or two navigational blunders and we were back on autobahn, red-lining the Golf to infinity and beyond. A quick meal at a rest stop was our first encounter (well, in decade+ that Scott and I have hung out together, the second encounter, but that is another story) with food that was beyond edible. The fries were okay, but the sausage was truly a dog's breakfast. Amazing how tasty bread can be. Callum had managed to book a room for us (a difficult task in a tiny town hosting a Tour finish) and we gratefully showed up at 10pm. There were rumours of a party at the top of the mountain in the finish area, so we drove Callum, his travel buddy Misha and their groupie (long story) up (and we mean up!) the 14 kilometres to the top and tried not to get crushed by large trucks.
The party was real, and it was in Basque territory. The Basques are a Spanish/French mix and they can party! They introduced us to the novel idea of coke and red wine (half and half, cheaper the wine the better), how to take over a crowd ('Maaaayyyoooooo!' Basque rider and famed climber) and how to wear orange (Basque's favoured team colour). We hung for a while, then rallied the car back down the mountain and into bed.
Tour day! Tour stage 15: a hearty 159,5 km from Bagnères-de-Bigorre to Luz-Ardiden. Otherwise known as a nasty three-climb day finishing on the up! We started the day with a proper visit to a boulangerie and market for the mid-day snack (Scott and I had been in withdrawal in Germany),
and propelled ourselves up the hill properly inspired by stories of Callum and Misha's epic climbs (and occasional defeats). We went up and up through crowds of people; riders, walkers, RVs camped out with TVs and grills, and always the grunt of people riding the hill and the cheers of the people watching.
We had a lively debate guessing if all the Tour Caravan cars would make it up the hill and found out (after a tasty lunch on the roadside) that every car does indeed make it up the hill. Soon after, Sylvain Chavanel, the first of the climbers, showed.
It was amazing to hear the slow-motion roar as riders passed the crowds. In St.-Dizier, the riders went so fast that the roar was a quick wave; a shout and then they were gone. On this hill, the quick shouts became drawn out cries of admiration! Allez! Allez! Vite! Vite! The crowd would close around the rider, almost touching (a few riders got a push) despite warnings from police motorcycles preceding the rider, and then would melt away to let the rider through. A word about Lance. Lance Armstrong is, after all, just Lance Armstrong. Just another Texan on this overcrowded planet. But watching his face, his energy and his determination as he came powering by was inspirational.
We found a TV in time to see Lance motor past Sylvain with a pat on the back and then finish in the fog we had partied in the previous night, then headed downhill, right into the vehicle mayhem of a small mountain town trying to deal with hundreds of cars and multitudes of Tour and team buses on narrow streets.
It was a really, really good thing we had the 4-door Golf. We squeezed two road bikes, 4 sets of touring gear, 4 people and water into a tiny black car. We drove east over Col du Tourmalet, (a climb Callum and Misha had sweated over two days ago and the Tour riders spun over just the day previous) through the multitude of small Pyrenean ski areas scattered about the mountains and through bikers, cars and RVs vying for road way. Amazingly so, everybody respected the bikers and gave right of way and proper clearance when passing. Up through fields glistening with dewed iris, around corners with a foot-wide, 2-inch high mound of dirt the only hindrance between pavement and a several hundred foot drop,
and past bell-clanging sheep. Lots of sheep. The top of the col was peppered with bikers prepping for the blazing descent from cold to warm and hikers prepping for attempts on the local peaks. Partway down from the col, just above another ski village, a sheep herd halted traffic by applying a strategic French driving tactic: hog both lanes in tight traffic. Finally the lead sheep with the bell decided they had stymied enough traffic and led the group to the side of the road.
Somehow, we decided it was that sheep's Bell Day. For the rest of the trip, and even after we got home, the Bell Day rang on. Birthdays and other important (or not) days can be converted to Bell Days. Bell Days are all about being special, the one with the scenery and not a face-full of wet wool. We descended through a town celebrating a cultural festival that included putting up life-like puppets in all corners of the village with skis, a wine glass, or even a lover in hand. It was mildly disconcerting to be confronted by a village empty of real people, but well populated by homemade mannequins. We occasionally let Callum and Misha out (they were sharing the 60% section of the rear seat while their bikes enjoyed the other 40%) to regain feeling in their legs and arms. A stop outside Marseille let Misha check in with his French grandfather and we arrived in Nice in the black of night. We found a place relatively fast, especially thanks to Misha, our fluent French speaker. The nightlife was entertaining, both the eye-candy and the not so eye-candy that tried to dress like the eye-candy. Food. Drink. Bed. Snooze.
After breakfast, Misha and Peter zipped to Antibes with the thought of quickly grabbing a place to sleep that night and dropping gear so Callum and Misha could share a whole back seat. Scott and Callum hung out at an Internet cafe for about five minutes, then bee-lined for the beach, knowing that Misha and Peter would take way longer than 'quickly.' Back to Nice (far from 'quickly') with a comfortably empty car to pick up Scott and Callum (whose visit to the beaches was summarized by: "Sweet water! Hey, where's the sand?"), and we blazed, well, blazed as fast as traffic on the coast would allow, towards Monaco. We were slightly amazed by the yachts, or should we say the speedy-gonzalez floating mansions! Back to business at hand: driving the famous parts of the Monaco F1 course! We continued the spins around Monaco to get acquainted with all of the construction and detours. Now what, we asked? Another rough day on the Riviera, what to do, what to do? Let's go to Italy!
We saw some wicked tunnels and coastline, then hunted for parking in Italian (amazing how accents can help, and no wonder they have SMART cars in Europe). One beer later, we left the land of pasta and headed to Antibes via a traffic-jam on the autobahn. Dinner with our feet in the sand at a beach restaurant with tables spread before the water was tasty and befitting the continuation of our 'stressful' Riviera experience. A beachfront wander and beer on wicker lawn chairs under a bright moon finished the day.
Scott went for a morning swim to enjoy the sand before it became a scarce resource. At 8am, people were already staking out their section of beach for the day! Slathering sunscreen and looking like very professional beach bums, the locals wandered and yapped and strategized.
A football club coach worked 6 young boys into the sand and then sent them for a long swim. The day's goal for us: do less. Less than ever before! The biggest stress was which beach to do less on! We found a local beach near our hostel and did the swim thing. Scott floats in the Mediterranean. Peter doesn't! It takes the Dead Sea to make sure Peter doesn't have to tread water constantly! Scott and Peter asked each other: do we sprint for London via Paris? The answer: do you want another beer; I'm having one. We blew London/Glasgow off and allotted ourselves another stressful day instead. The first beach was getting crowded, so we drove the coast road looking for famous French Riviera scenery, finally finding a suitable beach. We basked and ate lunch on a pier surrounded by playful teenage gals and guys jumping, screaming, and plotting. Of course, we had to play some ocean Frisbee and bask on the beach. The wind didn't help with accurate throws, but it ensured some exercise and also gave an excellent excuse to look around!
Dinner called eventually and we wandered back to the hostel with an eye for the BBQ pit. We found out that some arcane rule prevented us from using the BBQ, but didn't prevent us from taking some of the wood and walking the 60 feet to the water and cooking shish kabobs there.
Dinner progressed inexorably into drinking (Scott had purchased the necessary items for the Basque wine-and-coke instant-party drink) and card games. Peter and Misha left Callum and Scott educating the locals in Canadian card games. At 3am, Callum and Scott came in for bed, well, came into the hostel room, Callum beating Scott with a shirt and blabbering something about winning. Finally in bed, we settled in for a good night, but then Callum started snoring. Scott had about 30 minutes of sleep that night, Peter a little more, and Callum a good 5 hours. The lesson: don't drink with Callum and then sleep in the same building!