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April 12 Wednesday Bicycle touring France from Les Arcs France to Draguignan France We continued our France bicycle tour after a lunch of cous-cous with our new friends, Helene and Paul. Beef, chicken, and mutton with veggies and seminole, which is a grain product similar to porridge. Visited an American War cemetery. Eight hundred and sixty-one soldiers are buried there. But that is small compared to the 14,000 buried at the American War cemetery in Manila. Flaming purple Judea trees bloom for one month a year. There is a big beautiful one in an area of the cemetery. We were lucky enough to visit while it is in full bloom. We climbed on our fully loaded touring bicycles to Draguignan -- a mother of a steep hill. We're on a quest to find Madeleine, the woman we met at the train station when we were in this area at Christmas. We've tried phoning her several times, but there's never been any answer. We have a postcard for her. We'll either make a personal delivery of we'll leave it in her mailbox. We rolled up on our heavily loaded bicycles (and I do mean up -- she lives at the top of an extremely steep one lane road). and knocked on Madeleine's door. She was home. Coming to the door, she took one look at us, and exclaimed with a radiant smile, "How long do you want to stay? A month?" Oh, my goodness. How's that for a rude French welcome? She invited us in and we spent a delightful hour looking at family photos with her. She took us out for pizza. I had a great dessert at Madeleine's urging -- whipped cream over a sliced pear, with melted chocolate and ice cream. Ah, I'm in heaven. More fuel for my cycling belly. |
