Friends at the Beach...

In addition to taking family photos, this was a perfect opportunity to take some nice photos with dear friends. Having St Tropez in the background wasn’t bad either!

Going to Market in Port Grimaud...

Veronica joined Terri and I one morning to go to the farmer’s market in nearby Port Grimaud (although only 4 miles to St Tropez, we never made it there). This picturesque town looks like something out of Disney World, which isn’t as surprising when you discover that it was built over swamps in the 1960s to resemble Venice. We bought a few trinkets and some wonderful local veggies, then took a walk to enjoy the scenery.

Relaxing at Le Turquerie...

This trip was all about relaxation, and I enjoyed every minute of it with lots of time reading by the pool. We made simple, but delicious meals in the garden. The houses in this area have names rather than street numbers and this one’s called “Le Turquerie.” My favorite area of the yard was the Turkish corner with lots of comfy pillows and an amazing mountain view; unfortunately, I missed taking a photo of it. Terri’s husband Chris and 14-year-old son Max joined us for the weekend. The kids all got along amazingly well and I really enjoyed getting to know Terri better.

Enjoying the Cote d'Azur...

We were really excited when my good friend Terri (we’re co-editors of the magazine for the American Women’s Club of The Hague) invited us to spend 6 nights at her vacation home in southern France. Poor James had to work, so he couldn’t join us. We flew out of the quaint Rotterdam Airport to Nice with Terri and her 11-year-old daughter Lauren. It was almost a 2-hour drive to her house, with the final 30 minutes on an extremely curvy mountain road (poor little Ashlynn got car sick, but Terri managed to pull over just in time). Despite the cool water temps, there was no way the girls weren’t going to spend much of their time in this gorgeous infinity pool.

Surviving Our Cycling Tour...

Here we are with our celebratory necklaces. You can see we were all smiles after our last ride together.
We’re still all smiles after Marianne’s and my final ride, and our journey back on the ferry (we even managed to sit in the jacuzzi for awhile). We were happy that we finished the trip with our bodies, our bikes and our friendships in tact. Most importantly for me, I did it! I had my doubts, but I managed to cycle for 7 days straight for a total of 289 miles, which exceeded Camilla’s original goal of 400k (249 miles) for her 40th birthday. Can’t wait to see what she comes up with for her 50th!

Valuable Lessons Learned on Cycling Tour...

* Don’t believe a little old lady who offers a “shortcut.” It wasn’t fun pushing our bikes through the sand (sadly, we’re just pretending to ride here), just to turn around and go on the original path that we thought was correct.

* Just because an area prints a map of bike paths, doesn’t mean that they actually have bike paths. Case in point was this hilly 55mph highway with no shoulder.

* Always make sure to carry food and water as some country routes have no restaurants or shops.

* Don’t forget your camelbak unless you want to do an extra 3.75 miles alone.

Fine Dining in Sweden...

One of the advantages of cycling so long each day was that there was no guilt whatsoever about what we ate. And it was also very easy to justify that we deserved fine dining after all our efforts. My favorite meal was on the coast in Kivik where I ate a cold seafood buffet featuring varieties of herring, salmon and mackerel. That night we drank local hard apple cider that was fantastic. Mat made us a delicious seafood soup, and on our final evening at Camilla’s house, we had an amazing seafood smorgasbord. Only Marianne managed to lose weight on this trip. Camilla and I like to think it’s because muscle weighs more than fat, but it’s probably because ice cream weighs more than sorbet.