On Sunday morning we had lots of time for a bike ride before the final stage of the Tour started – they have it a little later now so that the presentations can be done near sunset at the Arc de Triomphe..
Our ride took us past the nearby village of Monpaple, which was having an art exhibition.
We rode by and on to Aunac where we stopped for another of the very strong coffees.
On our return to Mansle we did stop in Monpaple and had a look around.
There was an abundance of clown paintings – including clown’s painting – but lots of other subjects as well.
The final TdF stage was the usual boring bunk for the first couple of hours – the winner and his team riding side-by-side drinking champagne, etc. I always hope someone’s going to go for it but it never happens.
The only exciting part is when they hit the Champs-Élysées and do the eight circuits to the finish. I was, of course, loudly cheering on Cavendish, but he was pinned in and couldn’t get past Wout van Aert, who won yet another stage. That’s now a very difficult mountain stage, the individual time trial, and the final sprint that he’s won – seems like the young Belgian can do it all. Still, even though he didn’t break Merckx’s record the Cav did tie it, and what a comeback Tour it was for him!
On Tuesday morning we heard sirens rushing along the highway and when we drove up to Ruffec to do some shopping we saw why. A semi-truck had flipped into the ditch and looked like it had caught on fire.
There were several fire trucks and other emergency vehicles and it looked like they were trying to decide how to get the trailers uprighted.
On our ride on Wednesday we went to Tusson for coffee.
Along the way we saw a couple more of the ‘mannequins’ lounging around.
The coffee shop we ended up going to was awesome – it looked quite small from the outside but had a lovely fairly large terrace area at the back.
Most of the folks that came in for coffee and cake were brits, and we enjoyed the best cappuccino we’ve had since we left Italy.
For the first time I ventured into the church that’s on one side of the main square in Mansle.
It actually has some nice stained glass windows, and was wonderfully cool and quiet.
On Thursday we went to the Hope Charity shop in Sauze-Vaussais and picked up a few jigsaw puzzles and some books. On the way out Colin pointed to the hat section and I scored a great black sun hat – I could have used it last weekend and avoided the raccoon eyes.
A few days ago we were heading home from our morning cappuccino in the bar when we stopped to look into the garden at the end of the post office building. The fellow had been clearing the place up and we peered over the stone wall to see what progress had been made.
Suddenly we saw a movement, albeit a slow one- it was a tortoise! A couple of days later we stopped again, and saw that there were two of them. Then the next day the owner of the garden was there and Colin started chatting with him. The slightly larger tortoise is female, and is 50 years old (!) and the other one is the male and is 30.
There are also a bunch of little ones of various ages – he rounded up three of them to show us, each a year apart in age. He’s got a nice little fence to protect his tomato plants – apparently they are a favourite snack
Another day we were walking down to the bar and when we were descending the 78 steps under the arch we saw that a few of the local fellows were doing some more work, both outside and inside.
We chatted for a bit, then one of them took me inside to show me the little chapel that’s right above the arch.
I also got a better view of the painting under the arch – he indicated that it was six hundred years old!
I went for a very nice ride one morning before it got too hot – the sunflowers are out and many of the fields have been cut, bailed and re-ploughed for a second planting.
We went out one night to try to catch sight, and maybe some photos of the comet, but even though we knew where to look for it we didn’t get a glimpse.
However the hundreds of fireflies flitting around in the bushes along the walk back home made up for it.
We left our free parking spot fairly early and took a somewhat faster route south to Reggio Calabria and decided to look for a campground for a day or two rather than try to get a ferry to Sicily right away.
Arriving back at Villa San Giovanni – that we’d passed by hours earlier – we found the ticket office for the car ferry. Having purchased the ticket we then drove through part of the town to get to the actual port – kind of weird system.
The crossing to Messina took only about 25 minutes – I finally made it to Sicily!! The Shark of Messina doesn’t live here anymore so we didn’t bother to stop in Messina and were quickly on our way south.
We stopped several miles south of Taormina at a campground about 300 meters from the sea – Mt. Etna looms over all, but is quiet at the moment.
The beach at the end of the road has the usual ‘private’ areas where you can rent lounge chairs and umbrellas – for the bargain price of only 13 euros a day – not sure if parking is included.
We had a lovely lunch one day at the restaurant right on the sea – there are beautiful flowers everywhere and fantastic views up and down the beach.
Sunday morning Mo and I were up at 6:30 and took a walk to the beach – even at that early hour there were a few folks there, but only 3 hours later the place was packed.
Mo quite likes my tent, and Henry pops in for a visit from time to time.
We really liked our stay at Almoetia campground – it’s actually quite large and at this time of year there should probably be about 100 campervans or more – sadly there were only four of us. Hopefully if all continues to go well here their summer business will improve.
Sally McKenzie's European Adventures 