France by Bicycle | PART 24: ADVENTURES ALONG THE RHONE

Our ride along the Rhône River has been spectacular, not because it’s full of sites or famous cities, but because the route carries us through miles and miles of such serene landscapes, quiet villages we will never know the name of, and into such a blissful state of existence that it’s going to be hard to ever get back to normal life. Our breakfast at our BnB was beyond exceptional, our morning ride past Mirmande, with its quintessential hillside elegance was simply exquisite, and our ride along the river was like a dream. These are the days we live for, exploring the world at a slow and gentle pace. And after a very long day, we were lucky enough to enjoy a Cotes du Rhône that was perhaps the finest wine we’ve ever had. What a day!

Music:

Accordion and Glockenspiel Comedy – JK Productions
Pond Five
081716572-accordion-and-glockenspiel-com
a href=”https://www.pond5.com/royalty-free-music/item/81716572-accordion-and-glockenspiel-comedy-short-version”Stock Music/a provided by JK_Production, from a href=“https://www.pond5.com/”Pond5/a

The Reach – So Vea
Epidemic Sound

The Snow Flakes – Ruiqi Zhau
Epidemic Sound

Anten Before Dawn – Candelion
Epidemic Sound

Commute really stinks today boy totally ungrateful these Builders are the size of your head doesn’t seem to be any end to him either Oh so here’s the shed where we’ve been storing our bikes which is the lovely little place here just gorgeous check out this place there’s a sundial on the side of the building such a cool morning you know you gotta love these Autumn mornings they definitely have a chill in the air but

You know it’s going to be a really good day of riding what a gorgeous property this is and there’s our bags time to put them back together again for another day of riding kind of a Misty morning going on here what an absolutely Loveless I just love

It yeah it’s gorgeous such an unexpected amazing experience you know we we booked these places on booking and you never know what it’s going to be like because we just grab a room that makes sense sometimes it just blows your mind yeah his wife made all of that food yeah

Amazing better than any restaurant we’ve been in oh yes what a wonderful life they have yeah yeah I agree something to Aspire to so we’re on our way to a little uh Hilltop Village called Miramont which we’re not going to climb up to we’re just gonna get it get a good

View take a right here so yeah we’re just going to kind of take a peek at it it’s uh supposed to be one of the prettiest little towns in France and so we want to check it out and even though we don’t really want to spend the

Time to go climb up into the town we just want to kind of get a peek and also it’s really pretty country around here so just seems like it’d be a nice little trip so beautiful yeah the Orchards here are turning colors blues and leaves as we as

We make our way North we’re seeing that Autumn change mornings are so cool aren’t they yeah but they’re beautiful slight frogs laying on the land everything is so picturesque great sunrise this morning nice and it went quickly yes it doesn’t last just like everything else you gotta grab it while it’s there

It’s on loan only nothing you can own you just gotta be there at the moment you can make a little uphill start your day yeah We Begin our day with a side trip to the foot of the Hilltown of mirmond with its earth-colored houses clustered over Orchards and Vineyards all tinged with

Early Autumn hues Not wanting to climb up into the town we were content to view it from the road before descending towards the Rhone riding through a fairy tale of pastoral Beauty this is the kind of French landscape people love to experience yet on this early morning in October it

Was quiet and pristine and hours alone how lucky are we Thank you good morning honey how you doing great would you say this is our coolest morning so far it’s nice though we’re hitting the days where it’s gonna be cold in the mornings and then the afternoon but you definitely have kind of two seasons of clothing in one day yeah absolutely

Gotta layer it up for sure but we’re definitely also noticing sun rising later and setting a lot earlier yeah we turn left here oh look at that we’re back on some kind of trail I don’t think we’re on the euroville 17 yet we’re on some kind of Trail

So how you feeling this morning really good I slept very well it’s comfortable bed we got a good recommendation for a town uh on their own big wine tasting area there’s a chocolatier that does chocolate tasting I don’t know if we’ll get there in time for either of that it’s not too far

Really nice scenery around here kind of mountains or Hills in all directions lots to look at changing all the time yes it’s getting better the farther north we go yes and the more North you go Richard gets better the food gets the nicer the towns get

The more there is to see yeah that’s my observation anyways oh we’re definitely getting a nice overview we really have gotten a taste of France yep it’s a pretty darn good one yeah a lot of a lot of different regions yeah but boy it’d be a long trip to see

Every region wouldn’t it as a big country So commutes put us onto a nice little Trail right along the road here what a great cycling path just solid smooth Scenic flat flat love it appreciate that Foreign Such a great path and just such beautiful scenery all right oh wow no kidding looks like we do go over the bridge Hold on truck up [Applause] car back not sure how we’re going to do this we’ll have to just do it it’s our route so what we’re doing here we go Pretty wow I love all this medieval architecture and structures and their own now on so far the road has proven to be just spectacular the trail led us up One bank and then over to the other providing us with a variety of views and Flora and it

Was not lost upon us that the Autumn here was advancing and as the season wore on and as we traveled further north The Greenery was losing ground to the Reds and oranges and yellows we love being part of this transition to be outside day after day for so many

Hours tracking the changes in color and the length of the day so much of Modern Life moves us away from Nature’s rhythms with its walls and its windows and its temperature controls how refreshing to break free of that if only for a few weeks or months out of the year Of old citrons here for sure So Roland and I as we’ve been riding I’ve been seeing all these little kittens coming out from bushes that are wild and so tiny and they’re so skinny and they just look so hungry so you know me you gotta feed everything so I stopped and got some cat food and

Yesterday I found this kitten and she and her mother just devoured it so just stopped at the market and got some more cat food it’s crazy now I’m carrying cat food I’m eating the wild kittens but it’s what I do feeds my soul anyways and I’m sure the kittens are happy to be

Giving it Who’s that man doing the excited probably looking for mushrooms Not that hard No it’s learnable You’re all just like little garden plots thank you Foreign Really yeah he was loved throughout the land all right what a cool cat gorgeous what a great place wow love it yeah that’s where I live yeah it’s my house Foreign We lost the trail and after a bit of backtracking found ourselves on a dirt track that gradually deteriorated one of the rough abortions we’ve seen on this Trail well it sure is pretty all the way through really been nice today thank you tough stuff tough stuff for a Touring bike

Boy this Trail is really rough and it’s lasted for a long time it’s just really really Rocky I don’t know it might be able to ride this but it’s all the bags on it they’ll all just shake off so we’re just hoping it’s a it’s just some kind of a shortcut but

But it’s tough it’s been like I don’t know a quarter of a mile or so maybe something like that got their own right there you can hear the cranes because it really stinks today boy totally ungrateful these Builders are the size does it seem to be any end to them

Either doesn’t seem to be any letting up I guess they’re trying to keep us off that busy highway up there putting this on this and I guess they succeeded but boy this is some nasty stuff to ride over it is pretty I wonder how long this is going to go on

Not much longer I hope there’s always that feeling in a situation like this where you wonder whether it’s time to cut bait in your treat she did it all right which way no idea kamut insisted we were on the right Trail and eventually conditions did improve and we went briskly on our way

And we certainly couldn’t argue that it was a scenic route look at these birds up here Or yeah I think they’re swans but they could be those other Egret thingies not swans oh Thank you the rest of our day’s ride was uneventful and very pretty until we saw another of the Rome’s beautiful bridges spanning the river here’s our town for the evening Is another Village well known for its Vineyards so we enjoyed a bottle over an excellent dinner on the Terrace overlooking their own so we are here at Lake restaurant in and we were just remarking how nice it was way back when somewhere by Bordeaux I think we had a wine tasting where he

Taught us how to really taste wine how you swish it around in your mouth Julianna would you like to show the audience what the whole process is you have your wine and put your nose in it and smell it You breathe in the aroma of the wine and then when you taste it you put it in your mouth you roll it around your tongue you swish it from side to side up and down you kind of chew it a little bit and then at the very end you go

And you kind of suck in a little bit of air and that opens up the wine in your mouth and then you wait a second and then you swallow it and also this is how it opens up the sinuses because sinuses so much of taste has to do with smell

It does something to your tongue you can feel you can feel the wine the flavor kind of explains the flavor it does and you feel it in your sinuses it just permeates your head yeah there’s a certain way to take a sip of wine and that’s your first sip

And that’s how you do it the rest of the Bible seems to taste so much better it does it does proper introduction yeah and we bring this up because we just got this and this entertained Hermitage town it’s very famous for wine we’re on the Rhone river so this would

Be I guess it would be a code to Rome but my God this is probably it’s the best wine I’d say it’s the best wine we’ve either of us I think have ever had kind of keeps getting better every day [Laughter] part of our whole tour of not just

Seeing the Landscapes but tasting the food and enjoying the wine and that’s a big part of it so all right uh Bon Appetit Bon Appetit looks like a walk home in the rain and after dinner we walked on wet streets to the town back to our Airbnb tired but so content Foreign