From 6/13 to 6/27/2016 Odette and Jerry travelled to Montpellier and Paris, France
We flew Iceland Air to Paris, stopping in Iceland for less than an hour. We caught a domestic Air France flight to Montpellier and walked around the city that afternoon. We explored some more there the next day and in the afternoon assembled the tandem. We took a short ride the next morning to confirm that everything worked and then walked around until the shuttle came to take us the St. Guilhem Le Desert. We took a long hike to the hermitage that afternoon. We rode out of St. Guilhem the next day combining two loops. We did a hilly loop the following day and visited the Clamouse cavern. The next day we rode from St. Guilhem to St. Mathieu de Treviers. We stayed in a place out in the fields and didn’t get any dinner. The next day we rode a loop back through St. Martin de Londres and then on to Sommieres. An out-and-back to Nimes followed, mostly on bike trail. The last day of the tour was the short ride from Sommiers to Montpellier. In total we rode the tandem for about 250 miles and the only mechanical difficulty was a blown sidewall that took three flats to identify.
We dissembled the tandem the afternoon we returned to Montpellier and the next day we visited the Fabre museum and then flew to Paris. We spent three more days in Paris, visiting museums and monuments, eating and drinking, and introducing Odette to a city she’d never visited. Then we flew back to Seattle.
Here are maps of our rides:
6/22 – France Day 7 – Sommiers to Montpellier. Here’s the map. 23 miles on the tandem with Odette
6/21 – France Day 6 – Sommiers to Nimes Out & Back. Here’s the map. 19 miles on the tandem with Odette
6/20 – France Day 5 – St. Mathieu de Treviers to St. Martin de Londres to Sommiers. Here’s the map. 58 miles on the tandem with Odette
6/19 – France Day 4 – St. Guilhem Le Desert to St. Mathieu de Treviers, Here’s the map. 49 miles on the tandem with Odette
6/18 – France Day 3 – St. Guilhem Le Desert Vineyard Loop. Here’s the map. 50 miles on the tandem with Odette
6/17 – France Day 2 – St. Guilhem Le Desert Gorge Loops. Here’s the map. 47 miles on the tandem with Odette
6/16 – France Day 1 – Montpellier Out & Back. Here’s the map. 11 miles on the tandem with Odette
Here’s our itinerary
Here’s a Bicycle Quarterly article about riding out of St. Guillaume Le Desert
Here’s a gallery of photos.
here are Odette’s photos