Ever Closer to the Med

Two and a half weeks into our 10week (planned) odyssee around France, the Med looms ever closer, with two-days-and-a-bit to go before we should reach Montpellier, as we find ourselves seriously enjoying the unpredictability of Booking.com.

I (Mark) love camping, ever so slightly more than Jutta does. But I have to say that the quality and value of French B&B hosting is blowing us both away.

Half the price of the UK, and tonight for example we’re just outside Castres, at £45 for the bed and £4 each for breakfast in the morning, having just enjoyed a full evening meal complete with rich red wind and Armagnac to conclude, prepared by our lovely local hosts for almost nothing and at about an hour’s notice.

The weather gods largely continue to smile on us, reading from fellow cyclists on Facebook how disastrously wet it is in Southern Germany at the moment, and how rain-sodden Sheringham has been in our absence.

We did however have to cut short our ride yesterday in Montabaun, at just 70km for the day (we like to do 100km min), surprised by a deluge of cold and VERY wet rain – cyclists reading this will know the difference between sort-of-dry rain, through which one can keep pedalling, and WET rain that soaks you through in a flash.

As ever, a sprinkling of illustrations to show – alongside the map at the top – where we’ve been. (I’ve this morning re-uploaded the images in a column rather than as a block, as the latter didn’t seem to allow zooming out. Lost the captions in the process, but most speak for themselves.