Apparently Jay-Z sings about St. Tropez, though I couldn't recall. In fact, we've mostly been singing "Don't Turn Around" for the last several days. I have no idea why. But seriously, don't turn around... the commissar's in town, or so I hear.
So today was a real bitch of a day. Again, I don't have the mileage handy and will have to engage in some revisionist history when I add in the pix and video in the next week or so. But it was like 50+ miles with lots of crazy hillage, especially near the end. It was totally nuts, and my legs were jelly going up that last hill. But we made it to the bay of St. Tropez and found a tourist info center to help us book a room in town.
Highlights of the day started early... breakfast was included in the hotel... I don't think I've been focusing on breakfast much in this blog but it's been a big focus of us on this trip. Most of the breakfasts have either sucked, or cost 10 euro extra per person, or both. This morning's was extra, though it was the most comprehensive French breakfast we had on the trip! Standard croissants and other pastries, as well as coffee, but we also got some awesome yogurt and some delicious multivitaminsaft!! That stuff we normally can only get in Germany.... but we were stoked to find it here.
Next major highlight happened 2 minutes into the biking, and one of our big regrets on the trip is that we didn't document it in any way. We saw a seagull carrying a dead pigeon around in its beak. Seriously. Now, I also haven't been going on about the seagulls... but theyve been pretty annoying. They basically shriek and sound exactly like little kids being tortured. Not that I know what that actually sounds like, mind you, but I'm sure you got an image of it as soon as I said it and that's exactly what those damned birds sounds like. They've even dive-bombed us a few times on the bikes, which is a little disconcerting. But we figured we were safe from them, cause what do they eat? Fish? Garbage? Bugs? Well, turns out they don't mind the occasional pigeon. And that makes me think they wouldn't shy away from ganging up on a couple of hapless bikers. Anyways, it was mesmerizing to watch the gull toss the dead pigeon around as it tried to tear off bite-sized bits, which is I think why we didn't record it, because we were too shocked and enthralled to do the right thing.
The rest of the day was decent... biking, hills, etc. Very very long. We stopped for food in Cavalaire-sur-Mer, and I was played out. But we had to bike up and over the crazy hill to get to the ST bay, along a shoulderless highway with lots of turns and crazy agressive drivers. Not pleasant, but as I mentioned before we made it, so I shall bitch of it no more. I was an animal going into St. Tropez from the tourism office, though, which was another 5+ miles through more nutso (tho flat) traffic. The traffic leaving ST was backed up the entire way. So note to all you ST-lovers out there: don't drive in for a day trip. In fact, there's no train there either (train, yes, it's coming very soon!) so you'll have to take your yacht.
Which is the perfect segue into what St. Tropez is famous for, which is the very fact that it's famous. Doesn't make much sense, right, except that you know it does. There's not much there of any value except a harbor for $10-million yachts, which tends to attract such yachts, as well as all of the attendant fancy-pants shops and art galleries and restaurants that are required to support the fabulously wealthy when they drop into port. So once we checked into our hotel room and chained our bikes to the tree out back by the naked Germans, we headed down to port to peruse the yachts.
I won't waste time expounding on the lovelitudes of the yachts themselves.... we actually all decided we'd much rather have fancy houses than fancy yachts, since fancy yachts tend to be attacked by pirates on the open seas. And not the fun, drunk, sexually-ambiguous pirates like Jack Sparrow, but the scary, RPG-firing, knife-raping, murderous sorts that actually still plague the high seas. Good times. We noted our favorite yacht called The Ability, which seemed to be American, though we couldn't be sure. I wanted us to talk our way onto one of the yachts and get carted all around the Med by our wealthy new friends and benefactors, but none of us were the sorts to pull that off. I openly lamented Tiffany not being here, since she could have definitely talked us onto one of those things.
We got dinner at a crepe place facing the yachts. I swear to god I have never been served so fast in all my life, and I doubt I ever will again. We were literally measuring the time in seconds between when we would set down our menu and they'd ask us if we were ready to order. Dan and I finished first, and I decided to count how long between the time when Ben set down his fork from his last bite and when the waiter took the plates away. It was 10 seconds. I swear to you. The same for dessert and coffee. I have never felt so rushed in my life, including time at packed fast food places. It was truly a wondrous experience, and oh-so-Euro. Not.
From there it was a downhill drunk-fest. Dan and I drank on the wall outside our hotel as Ben called his gf, and people walked underneath our feet. We ended up all 3 drinking out on the main square where all these locals were playing late-night drunken bocce ball. Ben climbed up a tree and completely blended into his surroundings... so we dubbed him a tree ninja. People would walk by and he'd shout at them and scare the bejesus out of them... it was hilarious.
Have I discussed our porto power-ups at all? Dan and I started drinking port in Marseilles, and looped Ben into the tradition pretty much immediately. Before we'd left Marseilles we all had our own port flasks and would take nips here and there throughout the riding day. Between port and ham, we were continously powered-up. Have I even mentioned how much ham I've been eating? Sooooo much ham. It's inescapable.
Omg... and the facial hair. I forgot about the facial hair. We all decided to wear weird facial hair for the rest of the trip. Dan's doing a flavor-saver, Ben's doing a creepy moustache, and I'm doing a combo stache and goatee thing. Man... St. Tropez was a real epicenter of activity this week. Good times!!
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