Heaven

Todays schedule:
Wake up when we want to.
Breakfast, read paper.
Lounge in room.
Bike ride with picnic lunch.
Long bath.
Lounge in cabana by the pool.
Blog.
Dinner.
Basically we are in heaven right now. We LOVE Provence!!!

As you all know we are TOTALLY into trying new gastromonic adventures and have found that in France they don't serve their pancakes with syrup but with chocolate sauce. Disgusting right?? Nope, super delicious. This is one food the French are doing right. Raw meat, weird organs, meals that go on for 4 hours..not working for me but this breakfast chocolate philosophy works.

After breakfast (12:30pm) we embarked on a 26km cycle through the vineyards and villages of Provence. It felt like we were riding through a painting of one of the many famous French landscapes we have seen. It was rather surreal... oh, and F*ING HOT. Our route took us on some of the road that the "Tour de France" was on yesterday. There were notes of encouragement painted on the pavement everywhere like "Go Lance" or "Go someone I have never heard of." Our amazement ended when we realized we were lost. Our hotels directions of "look for the D214 in Bedoin and go down the hill and don't go to Flassan but take your first sharp right" were rather hard to read on a bike. When are they going to put GPS on these things, seriously? So with the heat hovering in the mid 30s with no shade and our 500ml of water gone, we tried to find our way back to the hotel. This was supposed to be the easy bike route but we still ended up walking our bikes up some of the monsterous hills and searching out any shade we could find for a rest. We were seriously lost and then we ended up cyling into an open pit mine (are you F*ing kidding me??). All I could think is that we have made a major wrong turn and are going to have to climb the hill that I so pleasantly glided down. We pushed on, literally, up the other side of the mine and eventually hit a real road and were able to find our way back to the hotel.

There are a ton of bikers here right now because of Tour de France and they are fully clad in gear from head to toe making their way towards Mount Ventoux, the finishing line for the most recent leg of the race. After getting totally annihilated by the 'rolling hills,' as they were described by our hotel, I can't imagine making our way up there. (Hi, Bev and Jim, tipping our hats to you!).

Jess took a little video of our bike trip and just about had a close call with death. Looking at it, it doesn't do justice AT ALL to what we were seeing but we thought we'd share it anyway to give you some idea:

Our hotel is perched atop the hill in the distance. We spent the first 10 minutes coasting down the hill to this spot. It was here that we realized Jess' gears didn't work. Awesome.

Here we are refilling our waterbottles at one of the public water stations that are scattered through the various towns. We are about 22 k.m. in at this point. Can you tell?

Upon return to the hotel we had a long bath in our duo bathtubs before heading to the pool to chill in a cabana:

The cabana was amazing and had amazing views... both of the vineyards of Provence as well as sexy French men lounging.
Dalyn, as you can see, I am still working on A Year in Provence but everytime I pick it up there is something to distract me, "Vanity Fair" magagine, "Wallpaper", "GQ" things with nice glossy pictures and ads (and a really tanned 25 year old named Seth). Two weeks into the vacation and on page 35... but enjoying it... thanks for the recommendation!