I made the mistake of picking up the local paper left behind at a cafe table. Clearly, I knew too much French in this one case. There was a short article about a 54 year old guy doing a bike tour who died of a heart attack. It would have been better not to have known this.
In case you were wondering, chocolate does not keep in panniers in 80-90 degree weather. It won't stop me from eating them/it but it's not going to be pretty. Follow up: it's still the best even when damaged beyond recognition.
One disturbing thing happened in Montelimar while walking around. A kid screamed something from a window and when I looked up, I briefly saw him pointing a gun at me. Looked like an automatic, compact and short muzzle, think Uzi. When I looked up, he laughed and receded back into the room. What is it about teenage male children?
Riding through Carpenteras today, a motorcycle followed, then came alongside to talk. He wanted to conduct a conversation and the traffic building behind him (or an obvious absence of verbs or proper tense) was of no consequence. You gotta love these people. We then ended the conversation but he wanted me to follow him into a patisserie. I'd only just started riding so I really needed to keep going but it was amusing. My Tour de France moment.
A market in a very pretty town (L'Isle a LA Sorgue) which was selling very colorful local pottery.
Place where I'm staying tonight. Fantastic dinner and nice rosé
And the town of Rians where I am one of 5 tourists. The other four, a British family with 2 very well behaved pre-teen brothers. The parents took great pains to explain family history, family stories, connections and WWII. Complete with a funny story about grandpa (her father) who, when passing through border control from the DDR to the West after a scientific conference in the 70s, said go the East German guard, 'the body's in the boot.' I was not part of this discussion; eavesdropping, as it were and I had to contain my laugh. It wasn't my fault. I was sitting several tables away. They must have been loud or the room quiet.
Tomorrow Frejus and the coast. I don't know exactly how I'm going to do this. I may spend a few days there and then move up the coast. I need to even out this trucker's tan.
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