The wrong St Colombe!

Flan - or as we like to call it - 40km cake, on the basis that you can cycle at least 40km on one of these without running out of energy.

We decided over dinner last night to make today a virtual rest day and tackle Mont Ventoux tomorrow. Ideally we would have slept at a place called Chalet Reynard, which is a good way up the mountain, but we phoned the restaurant there and they told us the nearest hotels to the summit were at a place called St Colombe. A bit of googling later and we found a hotel at St Colombe on the slopes of Ventoux. We made a reservation and looked forward to a short and uncomplicated day. We were only a couple of km away from where we expected to stumble across St. Colombe and it had not appeared on the signs so you can imagine my relief when we rolled into the place, pretty much where our route sheet said it would be. Two hotels were evident but neither matched the name of the one we had booked. To cut a long story short (yes, this really is the short version 😞) - A number of phone calls and various conversions later and we had cancelled our reservation the other side of the mountain and some lovely people at the hotel we had gone into to make our enquiries had booked us a place a little way down the mountain. They offered to look after the bike for us and give us a lift to and from this place so that we can carry on our bike journey in the morning from where we stopped this afternoon. A good part of our problem was caused by some sort of bike race on the mountain, resulting in all available accommodation being booked up - what a palava.

Today we have cycled 93km and climbed 985m - in hindsight, and taking into account our mistake with the accommodation, I think we are both thinking it would have been simpler to have just done Ventoux this afternoon. Can't be helped.

On the menu in the hotel last night (Best Western) the people spoke pretty good English, so we expected to have better than usual confidence in what we were ordering. The plat de jour had fish for both the starter and the main course so we asked what kind of fish it would be - after all, a bit of oily fish would be good to lubricate our joints. After what seemed like an age out back in the kitchen, the waiter reappeared and stated confidently that it would be fish from the sea - we had chicken 😃.

Don't forget our Justgiving page - we still have a way to go to achieve our target - I'm not sure either of us will want to go around a second time. 😞.

 www.justgiving.com/fundraising/100-cols-for-cancer