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Published: September 11th 2009
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9/1/09 - Provence - Cote d'Azure
A long driving day today to get from the Italian Coast to Provence, France. We took the high road which overlooks all of the ocean towns. Great views without having to deal with the traffic. We went by Portofino, Genova, and San Remo before entering the French Riviera. Each town trumped the other one in beauty. In France we overlooked Monte Carlo, Monaco, Nice and Cannes. We have both been to these places so we just wanted to get to Provence.
We entered a region called Verdon which was called the Grand Canyon of France. We went from beach to huge rocky mountains in hours. We virtually had the roads to ourselves. It looked like Colorado, not France.
The roads started to narrow and we got onto a smaller road that would take us deep into the gorges. We rounded a corner and a huge truck came at us taking up most of the tiny road. Andrew swerved off the road and his front tire a rock coming out of the wall next to us. I saw the hub cap rolling down the road and knew we had trouble. Thankfully it was just
a flat tire and bend wheel rim. The tiny road was starting to get busy and we were blocking part of the road so we had to get this tire changed fast. We couldn’t find the jack or figure out how to get the tire down from it’s hiding place of underneath the van. We decided to back up on the road, turn around to a campground we saw about 1 mile down. I learned a few French curse words trying to direct this traffic mess.
We pulled into the campground with our tire smoking and shredding as we drove. All eyes where on us like a meteor had just dropped in their backyards. The owner of camp spoke some English and was very helpful but we couldn’t get a service truck there till the next day and a new tire for 2 days. We needed to figure out how to change this one. We called the camper service who spoke German and figured out where the jack was. I also found a book (in German) that had a picture of a flat tire so we where getting close.
After about an hour of Andrew and I fidgeting
under the van trying to get the spare tire off an older man from Holland came over to lend a hand. He could understand German but the book didn’t help in giving instructions. About 15 min. later he and Andrew unlocked the code that released the tire. We were relieved! The actual tire changing was easy. The man from Holland’s wife documented with her video camera.
We needed a break so we rode our bikes into the town of Castellane which we were by default spending the night. A quaint little town with a giant cliff in the middle of town. A church perched high on top of the cliff. I don’t know if the church was reachable even by hiking. Not a bad town to get stranded in and the French have proven to be nice so far.
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