Today we are sticking around town and decided to rent bikes for the day. Packed up a picnic and we are off. You rent from stands that are set up around town, you sign up online for 1Euro and then I think it is .50 Euro for each half hour after that. First step is to find where 2 bikes are available. The app shows where they are, unfortunately it doesn't say that all the spots aren't functioning. Our first try is about 1KM away from our apartment, no luck, lots of bikes but when you try to take one out it says they are waiting for bikes to be returned. About another km walk and lots of bikes here as well, luckily this machine knows there are lots of bikes so we are set.
We passed a Church on the way out to find bikes and they were handing out Olive branches for Palm Sunday instead of Palms.
There is a running race going on in town today, lots of streets have markings on them, and lots of support volunteers out waiting for the runners to go by to direct them. The runners will need some help, we saw that the route had 58 turns on little streets. They are actually running in front of our apartment, we had a quick stop here on our bikes once we picked them up for one last bathroom break before our bike ride.
The bike ride was gorgeous, that is if you like blossoming orchards, small country roads, very little others out, and following along the Rhone river for part of it. We did get a little mixed up at one point, but that is sure to always happen with us, ended up doing a complete circle on a old dirt road that wasn't fun it was so bumpy. We never did do the exact route we planned, but it was lots of fun. At the end we found this beautiful trail on the side of the road that was just completed last summer, it must have cost a fortune, it was all paved and great for walking or biking only. We planned on going across the ferry again back to Avignon but they were on lunch break so decided to bike across the bridge. They have dedicated bike lane on the bridge as well with a bit of an uphill to get started, the only bad part is that our fancy bikes had only 3 gears, and switching from 2nd to 1st you had to plan ahead, sometimes it took about 30 seconds for the change to actually happen. Anyway we finished up and were able to return the bikes back where we rented from the other day, the great thing about this rental system is you can return them to any stand that you like.
Back to the apartment for a rest, the bike ride was 25 km and legs are a little wobbly. After a rest we decide to go for a walk. It is another beautiful day, but much colder than it has been, I wore my puffy jacket all day. Andre is on the hunt for coffee on sale at a supermarket, so that is our mission and it was accomplished. I was on the hunt for a raisin escargot pastry which I haven't had for a long time, but the one bakery we found open only had sandwiches left, something to look forward to tomorrow. So many things closed on Sundays, Andre tried 3 bakeries this morning before he found one open to purchase bread for our picnic today.
Back home, it will be a quiet night, will pick some Netflix recommendations from Joey and Jill to watch.
Total steps today 13,000 or 8KM plus some of those may just be from bouncing around on the gravel road, we biked 25KM
A small race today but lots of people.
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