Day 34 (4/7) - Tour watching and surprise resort towns.

We set up the camper vans 16 kms from the finish of stage 6, just after a round about. With a few hours to spare we braved the 35 degree heat and rode into the nearby town to enjoy a yummy lunch and a beer at a sports bar that was showing the race. We arrived back 2 hrs before the cyclists were due to return and tackled children for the usual free giveaways. Being a fast flat stage the whole pelaton passed us in about 20 seconds making the 4 hour wait seem a little excessive. After the race we headed off to find somewhere to stay, pulling into a depressing looking car park/caravan park in Palavos-les-Flots and began to prepare for what looked like a very average evening. Luckily we started chatting to some Aussies that informed us that only 10 mins walk down the road was a good beach with lots of restaurants. We were very surprised, we found hundreds of tanned french people playing beach volley ball, loads of restaurants and shops. Anne-Marie enjoyed a 1kg bucket of mussels with blue cheese sauce for dinner, Reuben tasted sea snails for the first time, we had ice-cream from a shop with over 30 flavours and ended the night with a roller coaster ride at an amusement park. Some days on holiday seem like three days in one.

Reuben enjoying his lunch

Reuben, Matt and Erica cheering the boys on

Reuben with snails and more

Enjoying the roller coaster

Day 33 (3/7) - An evening at Domaine Massillon

We left Nice and drove to Tehran where we spent the evening parked at a Domaine Massillon. The winery is part of a camper van system called France Passion where you can buy a book and then stay at wineries and french food producers for free all over France. We enjoyed a tour of the winery including tasting wine from the fiberglass and stainless steel vats and more impressively from the french oak barrels. The wines ranged from 4-10 euro, so we stocked up of course.

The head wine maker pipettes us a cab sav sample straight from the barrel.

Wine and cheese for dinner for the night, very french.

Enjoying a glass of wine before bed

Day 32 (2/7) - Tour Team Time Trial (TTTT) in Nice

We caught the train into Nice to watch our first Tour de France stage (stage 4), the team time trial. We enjoyed croissants, coffee and a french lesson from the waiter for morning tea and baguettes for lunch. It was exciting to see a race start, all the team mechanics preparing the bikes, the team vans and all the paraphernalia. We had our first glimpse of the "caravan", the brigade of sponsors vans that drive along the tour route about an hour or two before the cyclists come through, throwing out hats, lollies, chips, magnets, key-rings and head-socks just to name a few. It was fun to watch Reuben and Matt as they jumped around trying to be the ones to collect the most, tackling the occasional child and grandma in the process. It was a hot sunny day but enjoyable to watch the Aussie team, Orica-Greenedge win the race and push Simon Gerrans into the yellow jersey position. We were happy to see how many Aussie bogans had made the trip.

Cadels TTT bike, if a bike can be sexy....

Flic and Anne-Marie saying hi to the french fireman while they enjoyed a tasty icecream (the firemen not the girls).

Anne-Marie (not) watching the race (but holding my beer much to the policeman's merriment :-)

Reuben looking ridiculous with a silver hat to reflect the 35 degree sun.

Day 31 (1/7) - Getting the band together

We arrived in Nice, found a bike shop to tighten up Reuben's rear hub and caught up with our camper van buddies, newly wed's Matt and Flic and soon to be, Lachie and Erica who have there own camper van and together the six of us will be following the Tour de France for the next 3 weeks. We navigated the twisty one way streets of Nice, only breaking one cars side mirror in the process and found a caravan park on the edge of the city. We were keen to get on our bikes so while the others were jet lagged after their 30 hour flights went to sleep early we took advantage of the 9:30pm sunset and went for a ride. We got lost a few times but managed to visit a Carrefour, a super huge french supermarket that has almost everything, Reuben was very impressed to see some female staff on roller blades.

Matt & Co's camper van we will be following in the whale.

Day 30 - 4 countries in one day

Today we both aged about twenty years. Reuben did all the driving as we navigated our way through Switzerland, Germany, Italy and into France. The van so wide, trucks, cars, tolls, mountains, tunnels (including a 17 km monster), hills, speed, all very terrifying for Anne-Marie and nerve wracking for Reuben. We did stop at a lovely, picturesque town in Switzerland for lunch, like something off a crazy postcard, not to mention the best cappuccino we have had on the trip so far. Once we hit Italy the freeways got wider, faster and more confusing, we made a wrong turn and ended up in the sea side city of Genoa. Doing as the Italian's do (when in Rome) we illegally parked the van on a quay and had strange seafood pasta for dinner. Trying to make our way back onto the freeway was an adventure; tiny, skinny, cobbled roads with bare millimeters to spare, trucks and motor bikes coming the other way and some of the busiest peak hour traffic we had ever seen. We made our way to the French/Italian border and slept at a truck stop for the night, 700 km under our belt and 50 euros spent on tollways.

Reuben at the helm of the "whale"

Picturesque Switzerland (excuse the bug on the lens)

The whale parked illegally by the waters edge

Day 29 - Collecting the "whale"

We woke to a rainy morning, left our bags at the hotel and rode the 20 kms to collect the camper van in Germany. Anne-Marie was keen to follow the river Rhine along the German/Swiss border but soon we were soaked and covered in mud, so the romantic interlude Anne-Marie was hoping for turned into more of a cold mud bath. We arrived to collect the van surprised to see how big and daunting it looked. Once again the language barrier hindered us when we were shown how to use the car, lots of pointing and nodding. We crossed our fingers and hoped together we would understand enough to get us through. Anne-Marie was too terrified to drive the "whale" so Reuben jerkily crawled our way back to collect our bags. We managed to find an abandoned factory to hide the van behind for the night. Reuben slept like a baby but Anne-Marie's guilty conscious kept her awake, worried the French police were going to burst in at any time.

Day 28 - To Switzerland/France/Germany

Awoke to our first rainy day in two weeks, the alleys of Venice are damp and slick. We saddled our trusty steads and made for the mainland by the one perilous bridge. An awesome local lady from Mestre, Daniella with her two lovely children very kindly escorted us almost all the way to the airport on their bicycles as they where "going that way". Daniella is a bicycle advocate and activist in Mestre and proved a wonderful guide taking us via the picturesque rural back roads, avoiding the crazy Italian traffic.

After the regular bike deconstruction and reconstruction we arrived in the Euro airport that services all three countries, after few minutes on the French roads we realised how glad we where to be out of Italy, signposts, bike paths, and traffic lights (even baby ones for cyclists). Reuben's bike may be a little borked from the baggage chuckers :-( and Anne-Marie may have finally passed on her cold. We will find out tomorrow.

Discovered how much of a language barrier France is going to be when Reuben ordered a second pizza by accident when saying he enjoyed the first. Have to try and forget all those Italian greetings, numbers and pleasantries we picked up over the last three weeks.