Boog's Blog

The train ride from Paddington is almost due west. Farming county with very green fields and nicely cut hedges.

Our first cream tea with Cornish clotted cream opposite our hotel for the first two nights.

Dinner at the hotel pub.

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BSCC, boogs sack cornish coast, sub-titled death march in Cornwall.   We will walk part two of http://www.southwestcoastpath.com/

There will not be any emails sent to this or other general lists. 

As usual the pictures, hopefully daily, will be on Flickr,
http://www.flickr.com/photos/boogskbqb/

The daily blog will be on Google+ under Jeff Gray (boogkb@gmail.com)
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In general G+ will have a few selected photos. 

The daily blog will also be cross posted at,
http://blog.boogs.net/
This is the same posting as Google +.   Commenting here is not encouraged as we cannot monitor this site while on the road.  There is a sign up box on the site.  If you sign up you will get email copies of each post.  

I have set my location to where I live.  Restarted chrome.  Signed in and out.  Went to accounts and made sure it showed my home address correctly.

Any suggestions?

Took the longest possible route to Nice following closely the coastline. It is just so spectacular.

For swimming I recommend the beaches around Antibes and cap Antibes. Cleaner, better graded and well used by swimmers. Also a particularly nice view.

To get a scale of the tourist trade consider the ride today. Just over forty km with almost all of it beach. Some areas are packed as in Cannes, a few areas are just crowded and a very few places with a density more comfortable for Americans. Forty km of just those on the beach sunning or swimming. Some multiple of that population is not at the beach.

For lunch in Nice I had a salad nicoise. It had no potatoes or green beans. Red peppers and all the rest. Discussed this with the server. This is the true Nice version he explained. I then asked another patron, next table, who agreed with the server. Afterwards I mentioned this to the manager of the hotel I am staying at. Same story. Green beans and potatoes added for the tourists, not the way it is done here. Mor research required?

Dinner: the old port. Paella, fruit de mar, 40 minute wait, worth it. Have been looking forward to Paella here. Had it before and remembered it as special. Need a better naming palate as many of the readers have to explain what makes it so special here. Certainly it is the seafood in the sauce, the fine olive oil, citron,saffron and other spices I can't name. Once again I will remember this as my favorite paella.

So ends this adventure. Time to come home. Will do so Wednesday.

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A day of wandering in the city, mostly on the water side. Love the morning light especially on the water.

The area between the main streets and the train station might be the most interesting. Markets locals shopping and socializing,and a Monoprix which will host tonight's' dinner and tomorrow's breakfast- my room has a good balcony with a table adjacent to a garden. Ready access for jewel thieves.

Had an expensive pain aux raisins at Le Nôtre. Good, a lot of butter.

Checked out the real estate. The prices look similar to Palo Alto, with sea views but no whole foods where would we eat!

Many strollers such as I am. Most are younger tanner more expensively dressed with less clothing and thinner. Massive amounts of resort ware on offer, very few sale signs.

Unsurprisingly more Italian here than Spanish.

QB: look up Não shoes from Brazil. A good variation on espadrilles.

Nice walk up to the top is the old city and the castle there. Good views.

Heard on the street assuming my translation is correct: this year's color is Colman mustard yellow. Fashionistas (thinking of you Bobby) is this correct?

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Train to Cannes. Trip wraps up with a few days on the sea again with a short ride to Nice for packing and returning.

A sub title of this adventure might be: you can do it again, slower and better.

On the train meet an English cyclist, my age but Likes to ride 150km per day. Has a second house in Cannes. Made the train trip interesting.

Beautiful views of the Med. From the train. Beach after beach with wonderful rock outcrops.

Dinner with him, a restaurant he lives near my hotel.

The hotel is a classic for star, very high end. Had to upgrade me to a room with a balcony as they were out of the standard room I booked. Valet parked my bike. Wonderful room with all the amenities except the internet does not work, or barely works. IPad could not even find the network. Android found it as the weakest in the city. Goes in and out.

Naturally I went back and asked for a different room. They said they would check the wifi and then offered me another room. Even better. Well run hotel, no fussing just fixed.

Sitting on the croisette eating a gaufre and watching the people. Those staying in high end hotels have private beaches with umbrellas and mattresses to sit on. Ten of thousands of others are one the public portion. All are spending a fortune to lie around on a crowded beach with water so full of seaweed I did not want to go in. Really quite humorous. That and the very high end autos zooming and frooming in so and go traffic.

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Shorter ride today so a leisurely buffet breakfast at hotel in Arles. I certainly ate my share of smoked salmon, melon, cherries and fruit in general.

Just heard in the correct general direction on small paved roads. Very peaceful. A number of historic forms along the way, each with a chateau, historic center, lots of tourists. Basically following the Rhone upriver.

In Beaucaire a first for me. A man walked up to six friends at a table outside a bar. He shook hands while doing the kissing ritual except this time for kisses for each. That and a lot of bonjours.

Avignon. Ready ride, made it longer just because. So ends the bike portion ( except a small piece from Cannes to Nice). Tomorrow a train to Cannes.

Avignon a large city with a large wall around a significant area. Tree lined main street. Very busy tourist office.

The line was far too long to get into the palais du papes. An exhibit on, what else, the papacy. History buffs will remember the popes of Avignon. Roman ruins, the city has it all.

This is the most crowded city of this trip.

Dinner. Had to look this one up and then try it. Clafoutis is usually a dessert but was offered as an appetizer.

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Today's route is not direct as I designed it to go through the camargue, much of it only accessible on foot or by bike. The interior of the national park is off limits to all. All people that is.

Thunderstorm woke me up. Took down the hotel internet; no checking of email or news before I left.

Wild horses for sure. Many flying birds. Boat crossing. A very difficult road through; muddy rutted rocky high vibration. Lots of birds and beautiful water views.

Long stretch without food or services. Good buffet breakfast helped. One clearly does not your the camargue for its food.

Fun fact: 20% of the camargue is used to grow rice. Water from the Rhone helps desalinate the soil. Herons next in the rice fields.

Rain and wind storm coming into Arles. Hotel d'arltan very nice welcome for somewhat dripping boog. QB and I stayed here 35 or so years ago. Nice 12th century courtyard. Has not changed much. Except that they added a pool in the lovely old courtyard. It is on the site of the Roman baths of Constantine. Some excavations visible. Was a very large Roman basilica. No current hot tubs.

St. Croix: notice the Roman arches. No flying buttresses. Style called Roman Provencal.

Tapas place for dinner. Just tapas, many. They were out of gazpacho. lots of other good choices. I was apparently lucky to get in. Very popular and outstanding place. Mostly regulars.

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Trip to the remote beach in the dunes, remote and no services. Maybe 10000 got there today before me and paid 6 euro for parking. Nice path to get there and excellent dunes.
Plunge similar/same as les baracares.

Peaches, nectarines, flamingos, horses and landscapes. Hopefully some of the pictures will be good. Would have been better to have had a better camera.

La cure. They make very popular and good cookies judging by the crowds. Got a free sample, raspberry filled. Asked if they would ship a gift to the USA. Just use the website I was told.

Dinner. Came well recommended. Soupe de Poisson and Bouillabaisse. No complaints from the server this time. No complaints from me either.
Dessert, banofee,a cute for low blood sugar.

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For those unfamiliar with this medieval walled city a boost to Wikipedia might be worthwhile. Two days planned so as to have time for another side trip to the sea for another longer plunge.

Another almost perfect ride. Cycle path from sete is better than the road. Stopped for fruit and got perfect peaches after asking him which were the best for eating right now. He tested maybe ten and delivered well. Added fresh still hot croissants. No pain aux raisins available.

QB sent a nyt article about bread sales on decline in France. Sitting here having a morning coffee at a boulongerie and watching a lot of bread leaving the shop. Most people are take three loaves.

Several beach towns and lots of riding along the sea, La Grande Motte.

Aigues-mortes had greatly enlarged it's tourist business since I was last here. Somewhat reminiscent of new Zealand. Tours, shows, excursions on and on. 12th century church and town walls the same except now cleaned. Very crowded inside and outside the walled city.

The time QB and I were here we had loaded bikes and could not safely explore the inner city. With my bike at the hotel I wandered. The tourist office was out of maps. The shops are definitively higher end here, prices too.

My excellent three star hotel (would be a four star in they put in an elevator) is fully sold out. Lovely room, fine hospitality, services that work well. Even has a swimming pool.

Pitted for a more traditional French dinner. A one night break from seafood. Hungry after today's ride. The restaurant was recommended as traditional style.

Nems du thon. Tranches of tuna lightly wrapped in dough. Sweet and door sauce, carrot melange with Vietnamese spicing. Quite good, large amount of perfectly prepared rare tuna.

Pork in a tangy reddish curry sauce. Properly done. No room for dessert.

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