Meg and Dean in France

​ Sat-Tue, March 29-31, 2026 — Nice France After three full busy days, Sunday was a slow morning and, for me, time to start thinking about getting back home. First up was getting the bikes pulled apart and packed into their cardboard boxes. Fortunately, that was nothing four or five hours of work couldn’t take care of. Fiat 500 Another beautiful day: Nice and the Promenade des Anglais Packing up the bikes With a quarter of our group/band missing (Bob and Angie deserted us on Monday morning for a few days in grand Paris) we spent our last full day together in Monaco. We actually missed Pope Leo by a day. He was apparently in this wealthy enclave appealing to the “haves” for donations for the “have nots.” Spring has definitely “sprung,” as they say, so we mostly just walked around enjoying the beautiful weather — blue skies, flowers in bloom — took in the sites and, of course, had a nice lunch. Pope Leo! The two smallest countries: Monaco & Vatican City Monaco Main port in Monaco Bef...

​Mon-Sat, March 23-28, 2026 — Nice, France Yeah! Meg’s family has finally arrived! On Monday morning, after sprucing up the apartment again, we surprised Clare and Marco at the airport. By 11:00 that evening, Meg’s oldest sister, Anne, and her hubby, Rick had also arrived. Clare and Marco arrive  Despite being given strict orders by her youngest brother, Bob and his wife Angie “to not have any fun” until they arrived, we did do our best to show them around Nice, our home away from home. After three weeks in Nice, we’ve become pretty accustomed to getting around — the promenade along the waterfront, Hotel Negresco, the old town, Massena plaza, the Chateau lookout — have all become part of our standard tour.   Nice day in Nice Sisters Daily serving of gelato  We learned much of the information about Nice from  our initial walking tour and subsequent coastal boat tour. We did our best to recollect this for Clare and Marco after their arrival. We now expect them to trans...

​Mon-Sun, March 16-22, 2026 — Nice, France The forecast for this week was for mostly sun, so we were absolutely ready to capitalize on that. Flat ride to Antibes Morning dip First up was a nice flat, ten mile out-and-back ride to Antibes. What a day! Monday was a perfect day to be out by the sea. Plus, when I finally turned around to look back at Nice, I was totally blown away. Wow! We’d been told that the closest ski resorts are less than two hours away and that was completely clear.  French Alpes behind Nice Antibes Ironically, you can hardly see the snow capped Alpes from town, but go a few miles and wow! On Tuesday, we set our sights on a much more aggressive, three-hour, uphill slog to Sainte-Agnes, which is billed as the highest coastal town in Europe! I’m not sure what the exact criteria is, or how far inland you can go and still be considered “coastal,” but Sainte-Agnes is at 2600 ft. However, by the time we got to Peille, two hours in, we’d had enough (light weights!). Lun...