Provence Hilltop Towns: Today was spent cruising through the hilltop towns of Provence. This is the land of Peter Mayle and "A Year in Provence". His books were set in the towns we rode through today - Oppède; Menerbes, Bonnieux. The riding would have been easy if it weren't for every town being on top of a damn hill. But of course there are two paybacks for a ride up - spectacular views and a great downhill afterward. One negative note for today. I e...

Le Mistral - thats what the wind is called that blows down from the north across Provence. It's not supposed to happen at this time of year, so I guess we're just 'lucky'. The ride up to Les Baux included some of the hardest riding I've ever done. The grade or the wind alone would have been manageable, but together there were sections where it was everything I could do to stay upright. At the very top, the wind blew Anne and Frank off their bikes. Luckily neither...

Quick update from Arles: Yesterday was a typical day on a French bike tour... start late, bike an hour, stop for a 2 hour lunch, ride to a fabulous sight (in this case the Roman aquaduct called the Pont du Gard), make a mad end of day dash to the overnight town, show up to dinner a hour late, eat and drink too much, sleep, repeat... Life is tough!

Arrived in Nimes last night and had a few hours to sightsee before dinner. Nimes has amazing Roman ruins. The arena was built in 5 A.D. and is still used today for things like bull fights, concerts, motocross events... The Roman temple in the center of town is also quite amazing. Over the centuries it's been used for everything from a horse stable to city government offices. Today it houses a 3-D movie theater showing some sort of gladiator movie. We just enjoyed...

Ah, Paris! OK that's over used, but Paris is an amazing city! Arrived yesterday completely jet-lagged. Got the bike assembled (forgot to take pictures of that process), wandered a bit, almost fell asleep and did a face-plant in front of the Louvre, got something to eat and then slept for almost 11 hours. But now I'm on European time and ready to go. Played tourist today and went to the Eiffel Tower, Sainte-Chapelle and the Rodin Museum. A few pics uploaded in a...