Tuesday, November 14th 2023

We just arrived back from a day at the beach in Sète, France. It was around 20ºC and so sunny, and the Mediterranean Sea is a cool but quite nice 15ºC. We’re staying in this really amazing little place owned by the couple who live in the house on the same property. They typically have 2 bikes for guests to use but scrounged up another couple of bikes and we have been rolling along back and forth down the beach since we arrived shortly before sunset yesterday. More about this place the next post though, we have had quite an incredible time since last post biking with my brother in Beaune, France.

Side tracked on our way back home after the beach. Biking around. Our little Courtyard. Playing on the beach.

Beaune, France (and Paris)

Prior to coming to Europe, one of the only two “must do” agenda items was to visit my brother, Tom. He’s a guide with Butterfield and Robinson, a company that does biking and walking tours all over the world. Tom guides mainly in France and Germany. We had decided on approximate dates to meet up, but it wasn’t until we were already in Scotland that we decided that we would come to see him in Beaune. The Butterfield and Robinson office in France is in Beaune, and they have staff accommodations on site for guides in between trips. Since their season wrapped up near the end of October, we were catching a time when both the accommodations and bikes would be available for us, and with them our family member who is a guide - lucky us!

During the week we were visiting we spent 4 days biking. The first day went and picked out our bikes and biked 40km around the little towns south of Beaune. This was an introduction to all the incredible trails and roads winding through the vineyards. After a rainy walk around town day, we then took the train with our bikes to Dijon and biked back through many of the more well known vineyards, past castles, beautiful views and a tour of some of the stops the groups from B&R would typically make. The final two biking days were lots of uphill with incredible views from the top and amazing long downhills. We learned about the region, the wines, the landscape, the history and the food. I can’t say enough good things about our time there. Best of all was being able to spend the week with my brother. Meeting the team at the B&R office and atelier (bike shop) was so great as well to get a bit of a glimpse into my brother’s world and all the great people he works with. We will definitely be planning how we can make Beaune a trip again for us in the future. To wrap up the week, we celebrated Gavin’s 10th birthday by visiting a local fair that was setup in Beaune for two weeks. It was hillarious in so many ways.

In the Atelier returning our bikes and thanking the great bike mechanics (trying to convince them to come and let us work there!). Us in our new B&R jerseys. Biking all around Beaune. Celebrating Gavin’s birthday. A few final biking pics.

Paris, France

Before going to Beaune, we stopped for 3 nights in Paris on the way from Le Havre to Beaune so that we could check it out. We found a great little spot a 10 minute walk from the Louvre, and right in the middle of some great restaurant/shop/boulangerie action. My brother came to join us on Halloween and we got the chance to do some dressing up and the kids found a ridiculous candy shop where they filled bags more quicky than I could pay attention to. We rode around on the “BatoBus” too - a fleet of water taxis that go along the river with stops at many of the main “sights to see”.

Batobus, Louvre, Eiffel Tower, Halloween, gardens around town.

Toulouse, France

After being in Beaune, we booked a place for 3 nights in Toulouse, which is in southern France. The train ride to Toulouse was our longest delay so far. We have really enjoyed all the train rides we’ve taken (we’re up over 20 individual trains we’ve been on to date in Europe), we have realized though, that once there is one delay - things start to go awry quickly. We had someone have a medical emergency on a train we were on, which delayed the train by about 45 minutes. Obviously like most emergencies this was much worse for the person involved than for us who were slightly delayed so I am in no way complaining about being delayed, more an observation. Once the train was going again though, every stop we arrived required a bit of a wait to pull through the station since the whole system is so well timed that there isn’t much room for delays. A lot of people were trying to get to Toulouse, and to make a long story short, the last 3.5 hours of our journey were on one bus. Our bus was one of many buses that had been arranged to get a whole train full of people through the last stint of their journey to Toulouse. The same train ride would have been about 40 minutes. Needless to say, it is important to have flexibility built into your plans and mindset while riding on the trains. We happily made it to our airbnb around 9pm and hit a great little pizzeria for dinner.

We were in Toulouse to visit Cité de l’Espace - a place Robin had found while looking online. It turned out to be an incredible centre to visit and I would highly recommend it as a spot to visit, both for you or your kids. The city itself was also beautiful, clean and full of great shops and patio restaurants with a long walkway on either side of Garonne River.

The view out the window. Cité de l’Espace. Walking around Toulouse.

With the remainder of the weeks mostly filled in now at this stage we are trying to enjoy the days as they are happening. Very soon we’ll be back in Canada - and although it will be so great to be back, we have lots more to learn and observe here first!

Thanks so much for reading about our adventures.

Tom - what a week. Thank you - we love you!