It seems that every time I take the car out in France there is some near “incident”, and last week was of course no different.

 

This past Mother’s Day we were at a family gathering and our host served a crisp wine that Janny quite liked. It was from a small vineyard, Domaine Saint Mitre, which on a few seconds of googling, I realized was only about an hour from Marseille just off the Marseille/Nice highway  near Saint-Maximin-la-Saint-Baume. As always, it was a simple plan; put bike in car, visit vineyard and then go for a bike ride from there.

 

And off I went. There was traffic as usual getting out of Marseille. At one point, I thought I had been transported to a Keystone Cop movie as seven racing police cars passed me going in one direction only minutes later to be passing me in the other direction. This is Marseille. I continued uneventfully to Saint Maximin and then set my map feature to the Domaine. And this is where the fun began. The mapping sent me down a small road roundabout exit which kept getting smaller and smaller. It took me over what seemed to be a disused and crumpling overpass to the other side of the highway I had just exited and then continued for a good two kilometers down a “chemin” or small (tiny) paved one lane (or less) path. This chemin was  built on a berm running between sets of fields. My immediate concern was what to do in the event of an oncoming car or flock of sheep as there was no place to pull over at all. As luck would have it, no cars or sheep were coming my way and two hikers were finally convinced to move aside to let me squeeze through.

 

I made it to the winery and had a very nice little visit and bought a case of each of their white and rose. I asked if I could leave my car there while I went for a ride and was politely told that notwithstanding their posted hours, they were going to close for the afternoon and the gates would be locked. Good plan to move my car. I was  told to continue down the cow path and I would find parking, which I really did not of course. I finally came to the intersection of path and larger road where I was able find a patch of grass under a tree to park the car.

 

And off I went on a ride and it was a wonderful “Thataway Ride”. I had never been cycling in this area and I really had the road to myself. Over 40km or so, I saw a handful of cars at most, and no people! I went through one tiny village and it was absolutely deserted with not even a shutter open that I could see. But I did see some cows which I much prefer. There was not even one boulangerie that I found, and it is really not a ride without a boulangerie!

 

I made my way back to the car after passing some  fruit orchards with the pungent smell of rotting fruit and made my back to Marseille after finally finding a boulangerie for a bite to eat. It was an uneventful trip back to Marseille, which was needed.

 

It is always great to try and see new things for sure. The beauty of this area is there is indeed so much to explore. And now with a bit more time available to me, that is what I plan to do, no doubt with further adventures. Stay tuned, dear reader.