Nice time in Nice

Ah, yes. Our first day “on our own” -- a lovely Sunday morning in Vence, France. Yesterday afternoon we went down the hill to Nice and, as planned, dipped our toes in the Mediterranean. The beaches are rocky -- rocks the size of baseballs and golf balls, no sand in sight -- but the water is beautiful and warm.

The “farewell” dinner last night was nice, but everyone was clearly exhausted and ready to go to bed. Brad computed that he has cycled well over a thousand kilometers on this trip (almost 700 miles) -- and over 10,000 k as a total for all of his European tours (over 6,000 miles! He will be 69 next month and I don’t know very many people who are in as good shape! He’s packing his bike away now -- it’s quite a process -- and it will be shipped by UPS back to Geneva tomorrow (so we don’t have to lug it around with us for the next 10 days.)

Before leaving the tour completely, I should mention the “dark side” of the trip. I didn’t want to write about this at the beginning anymore than we wanted to think about it, probably because we didn’t want a bad “omen.” On the first day, the wife of one of the tandem couples (from Minnesota) fell after misjudging a curb, and injured her head. She had to be taken to the hospital by ambulance. Later that day, while her husband was returning from the hospital to the hotel, he fell, breaking his hip! We had to leave them in Geneva, of course, where they spent the past two weeks in hospital! We heard they went home a few days ago, accompanied by two nurses! (One hopes they had trip insurance.) Everybody felt terrible about it, of course.

Almost as bad, a young couple on their honeymoon (nothing like going on your honeymoon with 20 other people) found when they landed in Geneva that their home had been broken into during the brief time they had been gone and the burglars had virtually cleaned them out -- including one of his cars, a Porsche. To their credit, they managed to put it aside for the entire trip and always presented a happy face. I’m not sure I could have pulled that off myself -- but maybe bicycling all day helps you forget your worries. :-) This sad tale makes us especially grateful for our dear friends and neighbors, Hellen and Geoff, who probably have not taken their eyes off our house since we left town. Thank you both, sincerely!

So, as you can see, it isn’t all croissants and foie gras on these trips -- although for us it certainly has been!