For the benefit of anyone who has checked in since this blog was first created, I must say that my hopes of posting updates to it while the trip was in progress was based on the false assumption that I could easily (and regularly) find Internet cafés. This has not been the case! I’m afraid that “in process” updates will be rather scarcer than I’d anticipated. Hopefully I can post some sort of chronological summary of the trip (based on journals etc) when I’m safely home again…

In the meantime: this posting finds me in Toulouse, at an Internet café with English keyboards (if you think that the cafés themselves are scarce, rest assured that ones which have English keyboards — an important aid to poor typists such as me — are scarcer still).

I’m ahead of my anticipated schedule, and have updated the Schedule entry accordingly (for the benefit of those who have harboured good intentions of sending anything to me care of Poste Restante).

To briefly summarize my route to date: from Briançon in the French Alps I headed south over the Col d’Izoard, which features in many a Tour de France. There were some familiar names painted on the asphalt as I approached the col: Jan Ullrich being the most frequently seen. No exhortations to anyone named Michael, though…

It was a tough slog up to the top, over 2360 meters in altitude: I grew intimately familiar with the lower gears. By a rough estimate it took me 4 hours of pedalling to reach the top (the photograph above shows the approach to the col). And about an hour and a half to coast downhill. Riding up, the air was perfumed with the scent of overheated automobile brakes from cars descending, and the equally pungent aroma of incompletely combusted gasoline and diesel fuel. Amazing views, though, more than compensated.

In Guillestre I’d more or less decided that one grand col was sufficient. Until I overheard a pair of cyclists checking out of the hotel casually remarking to the desk clerk that they had a brief day planned: “Just the Col de Var”. So I got out my map, and decided over café au lait that, “If they can do it…” — and so I did it too: over the Col de Var to Barcelonnette. One way of looking at it is that, by tackling these two cols so early on, I’ve got the highest altitude sections out of the way right off the bat. The Col de Somfort (crossing through the Pyrenees to Spain) is just over 1600 meters: it should be a breeze! (in theory…)

I spent 2 nights in Barcelonnette — a lovely little town that I would happily go back to — and then from there to Digne les Bains, arriving via a gorgeous stretch of road, the D900A, through the Reserve Geologique. Absolutely spectacular setting, with the added bonus of a few Andy Goldsworthy scuptures found “in situ” (see his “Sentinel” above).

From Digne les Bains (and this is, unfortunately, only going to be a skeletal summary of the route, stripped of poetry and devoid of much nitty-gritty detail) I continued to Manosque (home of French writer Jean Giono, whose home I was able to visit). Gradually coming out of the mountains — the Alpes de Haute Provence — which I realized I would be sad to leave behind. And then to Aix en Provence, city of fountains and cafés, and a favorite of mine from a previous trip ten years ago with J.

The ride from Aix to Arles is doable in a single day; it is a long day’s ride, but the landscape is gentle, and Arles itself acts as a bit of a carrot, since it marks the formal start of this branch of the “Chemin de St. Jacques” (as the French refer to the Camino).

I’m getting a bit tired of typing here, and Toulouse is beckoning to me, so I will be even briefer for the latter stages. From Arles to Gallargues-le-Montueux I followed the route instructions in my guidebook. However I can think of no compelling reason to revisit Gallargues ever again. The entire town is stuck in between the autoroute, a national highway, and a busy train line, and as a result the campsite where I (and 2 other cyclists met by chance en route) were camping was beneficiary to the combined orchestral effects of all three of these throughout the night. Needless to say we were up early and on our (separate) roads the next day…

Thence to St Guillhem-le-Desert: a spectacular stop on the pilgrim trail, with a lovely gite to boot — the Gite de la Tour — that I would recommend to all. At this point we’re well into the Haut Languedoc hills, with more climbing and more descents. From St. Guilhem the next morning up over one good climb and descent to Lodeve, and then an even stiffer climb up and over to Lunas. From Lunas I took a 4 km detour to the small village of Joncels, because rumor had it that there was an excellent gite there. It was well worth the extra ride: peaceful setting, friendly people, excellent meal at dinner. It would have been a good place to spend a second night, I think, in hindsight…

From Joncels mostly downhill to La Salvetat sur Agout, where I stayed at the Gite Municipal (mentioned in the guide) — situated in the old presbytery, and key from the Office de Toutisme: 6 euros a night for very basic (but centrally located) accommodation. Then a fairly long day’s ride to Revel, since Castres felt (to me at that time) too hectic for an overnight stop. Revel is beautiful: a bastide town, with a wonderfully preserved covered market hall at the centre of the town.

The ride from Revel to Toulouse can be done in a single day as well, and although it is on the longish side, it will be entirely alongside water: following the winding Rigole (see photograph above) for 38K (a beautiful ride: highly recommended) to the point where it joins the Canal du Midi: the “partage des eaux”, the point were the Canal divides, and water goes either to the Atlantic or the Mediterranean. The Canal du Midi is probably the best way for a cyclist to arrive in Toulouse: just over 50 km of paved canal-side pathway, which you share with roller-bladers, walkers, and other cyclists; shaded the entire way by plane trees, and admiring the canal boats chugging slowly along.

Which brings me — at least in a sense — up to the present day. What I have not been able to share in this brief account is a sense of what it has been like to be back in the saddle, riding on an extended solo bicycle trip through Europe so many years after that first ride in 1980. Some of these thoughts have made their way into my (paper) journal, and may make their way in some form online when the time permits.

My odometer tells me that I’ve had 885 km of French roads roll beneath my bicycle tires since the journey began back in Briançon. My initial estimate guessed that the total would be somewhere between 2000 and 2200 km, so I’m not even halfway there yet, despite all that pedaling…

Tomorrow I will saddle up once more and head west: towards Auch, and then southwest towards the Pyrenees and the Col de Somport.

A bientot!