spain, the sea & the sun (spring break)

spring is finally here. the sun has shown her face from behind endless clouds. it/s no longer so ridiculously freezing that leaving the house without a giant north face coat is suicide. there are flowers & birds & sunshine. ahh yes. spring is here.

or more importantly, spring break is here.

actually in france they call this vacation "easter break", just like they call winter break "christmas break" and the break at the end of october "all saints/ day break". so much for being pc, i guess. whatever. regardless of what they call it here, i don/t work for two weeks and i am FINALLY getting a break where i can do whatever i want. friends & family visiting, sickness, moving. i realized i/ve been here for almost 7 months and i haven/t even left the country yet. crazy.

but all that is about to change.

(care for more?...)

there is an epic adventure to come a bit later, but for now i am about to go on a mini-epic adventure. we/ve been preparing for our big big one for a while now, and this is going to be kindof a test run. why? because these adventures are on bicycle, and we need to try out all our gear. we/ve been slowly been adding to the accessories & fixing them up, and they are now quite quite beautiful. in fact at this very moment rémy/s is all packed & ready to go. mine is half-way packed, which is normal. for some reason i can never be 100% packed until like 30 minutes before go time. but everything is ziplocked & listed & has its proper place in my panniers. ready to be ready, i suppose.

trying out our new tent in the living room.
don/t worry, mom & dad, we did our research.
it/s a beautiful 3person tent, which turns out to
basically be a palace. it/s huge...

and, new cookware. "stove" and dishes. ahhh camping.

so where are we going this time? well, let me tell you.

first leg, we leave tomorrow (sunday, april 13) at 12:52 from clermont-ferrand on the train to nîmes, on the mediterranean coast.


we get to nîmes at 17:40. then it/s a short 16km ride to the neighboring town of clarinsac, where rémy/s aunt lives. we/re spending sunday night at her house. very nice of her & her husband.


on monday morning we take off for the beautiful city of montpellier about 50km away.


we/re going to see montpellier a bit on monday, probably stay the night there, and take off early tuesday morning, heading south and following the coast. the closer to spain we can get, the better. our next rest point (and probably where we will sleep if we don/t find nice camping territory on the side of the road somewhere) is narbonnes, france. a good 105km away from montpellier, tuesday is our first big day. with all our gear, we/ll see how far we actually get.


narbonnes is our last official night in france, or at least that/s what we have planned. from narbonnes on wednesday we will (once again) follow the coast along windy roads all the way into portbou, spain. once again, a bit over 100km, so we/ll be on our way to legs of steel. :)


portbou is the start of a 550km hike that follows the eastern coast of spain, the GR92. (gr stands for "grand randonnée", or "big hike".) we will only be covering the first 350km or so to barcelona, and then maybe a bit afterwards, but we won/t have enough time to travel all the way to the end at ulldecona.


then we/ll be riding back up the coast to perpignan, where we/ll take the train home in two weeks (sunday, april 27)!! in total it should be about 1000km. which we have 14days to do. not so bad, actually. i/ve got my odometer, so i/ll tell y/all the specifics when we get back.


i cannot even begin to describe how excited i am. yesterday i could hardly make it through my classes. whenever i went to the bathroom i did a little dance in the stall, giggling furiously like a little girl. this will be fabulous.

anyway. it means i/ll be incommunicado for a few weeks. but it also means i will return home with stories galore. and you better believe i will be sharing them with you all.


sending my love from france... xoxo