Ahh, the beach.

Riding to the Beach....

After L’Etape we headed for a little R & R down on the French Riveria.  As a young lad of eleven years, and then again when I was 13, I spent two summers lounging on the beaches of Cannes with my grandparents and I was anxious to see how my childhood memories held up against the “modernization” of the last 25 years.  We took a couple of days to traverse the winding mountain roads through Provence and arrived in Vallauris (just up the hill from Cannes) just in time for a torrential rainstorm.  I got thoroughly soaked as I assisted Hannah in backing the Starship Enterprise into our home for the next 4 or 5 days. 

Roadside Camping on the Way to the Beach

The first impressions of Valluaris were not so great—just another town with apartment buildings and, sadly, a McDonalds.  This used to be a sleepy little hamlet that was known for its artists, particularly its potters.  Picasso lived nearby, as at one point did Matise and Miro.  Fortunately, after we had gotten through the stress of docking the Enterprise in tight quarters, we realized that this modern town of apartment buildings had at least one oasis of the old world. 

Our home for a few days was the garden of a 200+ year old pottery belonging to long time family friends Monsieur Gilbert Portanier and his lovely wife Annette.  Gil and Annette are dear friends of my grandparents and I have very fond memories of the time spent with them as a lad.  Much to my delight, the pottery hardly changed a bit since my youth.  It was tucked now directly between two multistory apartment buildings and had a huge sunlight dappled garden of fruit trees, bamboo, flowers and one towering Cypress tree. 

The hospitality of Gil and Annette showed no boundaries.  We dined at their amazing home situated high on a hillside from which each of the THREE decks/terraces overlooked the Mediterranean and the bay between Cannes and Antibes.  Gil and Annette designed every aspect of the home to showcase Gil’s ceramics.  Everything from the sinks, to the deck railings to the spa and accompanying fountain are all works of amazing art.

We did take one nice bike ride through the hilltop villages of Provence.  They are as picturesque as everyone says and its pretty amazing that these places were built without modern machinery.  A lot of people carried a lot of large rocks to the tops of a lot of large hills.

Oh yeah, the beach....Gil and Annette showed us the best beaches and took us to an amazing fireworks display on Bastille day. (Ironically, the show was put on by the Spanish as part of an international competition.) Hanging out on the coast is like having a front row seat to the lifestyles of the rich and famous.  We gawked at innumerable cars worth far more than our house and when took a stroll thorough the Antibes harbor where we saw not one, not two, but three yachts with helicopters perched on deck. 

Well, I'm going to unceremoniously cut this entry short.  I'm actually writing from outside Bormio, Italy and Hannah and I are off to the spa (!)  after climbing the Stelvio Pass (the third highest in Europe) from both sides yesterday.  Folks, that was a total of 83 switchbacks and over 12,000 feet of climbing in apx. 80 miles.  Ouch.    More to come soon, including a report from the Tour de France.  Here's just one shot as a teaser...

There's Not Much I can Add...