Some of you may know Tootlepedal from his many well-considered comments on this blog, as well as his own excellent blog of the same name. Well, as luck would have it, he and Mrs. TP decided to come to le Sud and cycle around for a week, and invited Shoko and I over to their village (Pepieux) for dinner. We gladly said yes and stayed the night at Le Vieux Relais with them, taking our dinner there, along with our gracious hosts, Val and Mike.

Here are the TPs in the sitting room before dinner. That’s Mrs. Tootlepedal’s face, for those, like me, who’ve been wondering what it looked like (she’s usually bending over in the garden, or riding away into the distance, in TP’s blog).

This morning they hopped on their train in Narbonne and headed to London, while we jumped on the motorcycle and rode back to Nîmes. Following are not cycling photos, which will make this post quite unique. However, I’ll call them “cycling related”, since they were taken at the Canal du Midi – by far the most popular cycling destination in Languedoc.

First, a very old sign with an unfortunate letter missing.

Across the bridge there was a very enticing little road winding off into the vineyards.

I’m not a huge fan of cycling the Canal du Midi. I don’t really get what all the fuss is about, to be honest. First of all, it is completely flat (curiously, this is probably one reason it’s so popular) and most of it is still unpaved (there’s a great 50km exception out of Toulouse), leaving road bikes unsuitable and even hybrids uncomfortable because of the many tree roots you bounce across on the towpath. But, I have to admit, this little stretch looked quite nice.

 

Before the heavens opened up on our heads I got one last shot, in honor of Tootlepedal, of the bridge crossing the Canal.

 

It’s a lot of fun meeting virtual friends for real, and I’m glad to report to TP’s readership that he exceeded my high expectations. We look forward to seeing them in sunny Scotland one day.