Oh... my sore bum :o(

Here we are in Puligny Montrachet mes cheries, where I am sitting on a s.o.f.t chair recovering from Day 1 of our bike ride of the Cote d'Or. It is harvest at the moment so the vineyards are full of itinerant workers picking, picking, picking. See these grapes? You may be drinking them in about five years...! The first challenge of the day was to get onto the bike & not fall off. That done with, the next was trying to get out of Beaune without getting lost within the first 1/2 hr of our 5 day ride! Okay, so no further discussion required regarding THAT topic other than to say the shrubbery growing over signs should be trimmed regularly! The first little village we came to was Pommard which has an 18th century church with a square bell, which was ringing when we got there at 12, bringing everyone in from the fields for lunch. France shuts down for lunch - a practice that we should seriously consider for Australia! You would not believe the village folks. It was absolutely gorgeous, with ancient stone cottages, window boxes bursting with colourful flowers & tiny winding cobblestone streets (great when riding!). I wanted to photograph everything!!

Do I look like a tourist? Are you sure? Even with my scarf, which is all the rage amongst the French? And look at my helmet hair. Mon dieu! This photo is taken in the village square in Puligny Montrachet & that place behind is the restaurant where are going tonight but I am getting nervous & will be sure to wear something with an elastic waistband. We're apparently having a degustation ...

Just a snapshot of our day. One little village after another, interspersed with fields of vines being harvested. The sun was shining and hot but when the wind blew(ie when we were ripping downhill on our bikes) it was freezing and apparently last night in Beaune it was four degrees! Unfortunately, we are too late for the sunflowers which are everywhere also. We found a wonderful spot just outside the village of St Romain en Haut where there is a 12th century castle ruin & fantastic views over the valley and this where we had our picnic lunch of baguette (of course), terrine, jambon persille (ham in herb jelly) and St Agur fromage washed down with a little .... WATER! There is no way we could do this if we were drinking along the way! We'd end up in a ditch! We bought a funky looking tomato too but unfortunately, it didn't taste too good but we felt we needed some Vegetation in our diet.

This is your correspondent worshipping at the chapel in Volnay after we realised we'd made another little wrong turn. Oh well! C'est la vie! The good thng is that even if you end up in the wrong place, it doesn't take long to get back to the right place. The first part of our ride today was spent riding up hill so it has been a bit of a shock to us. It will be interesting to see how we feel when we wake up tomorrow. Despite padded pants (horrid things) and a padded seat, I have an extremely sore rear end & wonder if I have given birth to a fully grown rugby player at some point during the day. How on earth I am going to get through the 45kms we are riding tomorrow, one can only wonder. I wonder if I can strap a cushion onto the bike seat?