when I last wrote something we were in Cannes. From there (Saturday 9/7) we cycled to a camping ground just out of Nice. The road between Cannes and Nice was really good. It followed the coastline a lot of the way and there were nice wide cycle paths which made a change from narrow little roads without any shoulder to cycle along.

When we arrived at the camping (Val de Fleuris) we were taken to a site the women called 'le pétit jardin' (the little garden). Which was really just a corner of the camping ground not suitable for regular campers, with its sloping terrain and tent peg buckling ground, so they put cyclists there and charged them a lower tariff. But that was ok because there were 2 other couples there who were on cycle holidays as well.

One of the couples were from Canada and the other from England. We sat around talking about our journeys and taking in tips and tricks that they had learned. It was good to know we were not the only crazy people cycling around in the heat with heavily loaded bikes. We did seem to be carrying more than the others though. They said that will change after a few days cycling in the mountains.

Yesterday we made it to Nice Where our hotel was waiting for us. It was only 10km from the camping ground so we dropped off our bags and headed off to the beach for my first ever swim in the Mediterranean sea. The water was surprisingly warm, around 25 degrees I think.

The plan was to have a rest day so we wondered around the old town of Nice and then did some washing in a laundromat across from our hotel. Then we decided to see on our gps how far it would be to cycle to Monico. At around 20 km without any luggage that didn't seem to far so at around 4 o'clock we set off.

Only problem was our garmin calculated that the shortest route would be to head up into the hills instead of following the coast. This resulting in a strenuous 2 hours cycling to cover a distance of barely 20km. Luckily on the way back the battery on our gps was flat, and we just followed the road signs back to Nice. This saved us an hour and was much more pleasant to cycle.

While in Nice we were trying to figure out the best way on Italy to tackle. We want to spend a few days with Sira's sister who will be camping on the west coast at the end of July. And we think we have found the best way on this to.

While I'm writing this we are on a ferry heading to Corsica (an french island in the Mediterranean closer to Italy than it is to mainland France. We are going to stay 3 nights there and then take a further ferry to Livorno in Italy.

From there the plan is to head to Pisa and then florance, and from there over the mountains and into Bologna. then further north to Vienna before heading back down to Ravenna and then following the west coast down to the camping ground where Sira's sister will be. Anyway thats the plan but we will wait and see how it all pans out.