How to spot good gelato, and flamingos

After having a very Nice (the pun never gets old!) city-filled week on the French Riviera, we continued along the coast leaving the urban sprawl behind. Offices were replaced with never ending wetland and the abundance of people was swapped for an abundance of birds. We had read online that this area was home to flamingos that migrate here over the summer because it is too hot to stay in their hometowns. We were both pretty surprised that flamingos naturally inhabit France and assumed it would be a rare and distant sighting if we were even lucky enough to see any. Within our first hour of cycling in the wetland area, I spotted a cool looking tower and we took a detour to go and investigate. I noticed a tall bird about 30m away from us and it took me a second to realise it was a flamingo! I excitedly told Jack to stop and we stood for at least 15 minutes just watching the elegant movement of the bird. We even saw a family of swans following the flamingo as it walked. I associate swans with Britain so much that this seemed surreal to me, and remembering that this all occurs completely naturally still amazes me. We watched and it was like a really bad game of Where’s Wally, as we saw more and more flamingos in the distance and soon realised there were flocks of them all around us in the distance. We didn’t know it, but the sightings would continue for the next few days as we cycled. Towards the end of the wetland we even stopped pointing them out to one another when we saw them, as they became such a regular sight. 

We cycled close enough to Montpellier that we decided to take a train one afternoon to visit the city briefly. We sat in the gorgeous sunshine, enjoyed Coke (the drink) in the park and found some outstanding homemade gelato. I think I have devised the ultimate test of how good a gelato shop is: look at the mint ice cream. I have never been to a good gelato shop where the mint ice cream is green. Why would mint ice cream ever be green? Yes, mint leaves are green but no one is expecting huge piles of them to be blended into the actual cream. If the mint ice cream looks like a pale coloured sorbet then, in my experience, it will taste like an actual mint leaf has been in contact with it and the gelato shop can be considered good. Anyway, sorry for the ice cream related rant. In short, Montpellier is a beautiful, serene city and it does some great gelato (if you go to the right place). 

It looked like it was due to rain so we headed back to our campsite on the train. It was drizzling when we arrived and we got a bit soggy on the walk back. The roads were insanely wet and we knew we had missed some bigger downpour. We swooped into the very damp campsite avoiding all the puddles and found our tent with a tiny river running underneath it, coming off the road. We couldn’t see any drier patches on the site (and were quite tired) so decided not to move the tent because it seemed pretty dry inside. Somehow, my bag and shoes were very wet, despite being inside the tent’s ‘porch’. We shrugged it off and assumed it was to do with some strange wind direction and went to sleep. We woke up and realised quite how soggy everything was when I tried to put on my trainers and was greeted by a big grim squelching sound. Our ground sheet was completely sodden and covered with dirt and some drops of water had even made their way through our tent floor below our sleeping mats. Luckily it was a sunny morning and so we hosed the tent down to clean off the muck, span her on her head and waited for all the material to (more or less) dry. With a good book, a pastry in hand and some chairs at the campsite, this wasn’t exactly a hardship. The only real problem was my cold, soaking wet trainers which I had to wear all day. 

We continued along the coastal wetland for a few more days until we had a rest day in Perpignan. The cycling was flat and we could see for miles over the land. Despite the lack of shade in relenting sun and the never-changing scenery, this was a great chance to chat to flamingos and practice our no handlebars tandem cycling (which is much harder than it sounds). We followed a canal tow path for a section and we were glad for the excitement of smiling and waving at each passing boat. Near Bézier, we even sat and watched a few boats entering the 9 locks in a row needed to travel along a particular steep hill. Maybe it’s just my inner engineer but it’s pretty amazing to me that people built all these water management systems years ago using beautifully simple engineering techniques and principles. 

Our route left the canal briefly to a nearby town, Agde. As we arrived we were hit by a wall of laughter and music as we discovered to town had its annual society fair that day. From jazz bands and line dancing through to yoga and military groups, everyone was gathered together sharing and showing off their hobbies and encouraging others to join them. We quickly realised it would be hard to walk round with the bike but luckily some nice (and slightly drunk) people from a military stand noticed our predicament and offered to watch the tandem for us while we explored. We popped to grab a drink and watched the line dancers who were now busting moves to music played live by a local band from another stall. It was a real celebration of happiness and togetherness and we felt honoured to have stumbled upon the fair as we passed through. 

Having followed the Mediterranean coast since Italy, we finally waved goodbye when we headed inland for a day in Perpignan. As always, we found pretty places to sit and drink while we explored the city’s ancient walls and architecture. We have been struggling to find French restaurants that have good vegetarian options in every town we’ve visited. So we felt lucky to discover to a delicious Lebanese spot for lunch and a had a great Japanese feast for dinner. All perfect food for restoring the cycling muscles ready for us to start climbing some hills again as we follow the foothills of the Pyrenees on our next leg of the tour. 

Speak soon,

Jack and Baz