After a week hugging the French coastline, our bodies were crying out for mountains.
The original plan was to keep following the sea, but it took me all of two days to convince Ilze that the coast was too boring — grinding through tourist towns in peak season with no shade and too much heat was nobody's idea of fun.
Our last Mediterranean stop was Marseille, where another travelling Pablo and his family took us in. From there we started heading north into Provence. We went looking for lavender fields but arrived too late — the harvest had been done a couple of weeks before.
No lavender, which disappointed Ilze, but we pedalled through gorgeous sunflower fields that more than made up for it. The back roads through that part of the country were a joy — little traffic, beautiful scenery, mountains on one side, rivers on the other.
Recharging in Digne
We rolled into Digne tired of the daily grind — just ready to stop. Our first Warmshowers host in summer France gave us exactly that. A couple of days with Éric and his son: shared meals, walks, conversation, time. The perks of travelling with no rush, no calendar, no fixed destination, no return date.
We'd been sleeping in the tent for over a week, wild camping every night — which you love until you're exhausted by it. The warmth and shelter of someone else's home, every now and then, is something to be genuinely grateful for.
Cycling the Alps
One of the best stretches of riding we've done so far took us from Digne to Cuneo in Italy. Back roads whenever the map allowed, quiet mountain roads the rest of the time.
We crossed rivers, pedalling upstream against the current. We climbed to 1,400 metres, dropped back down to enjoy a huge lake, then tackled the Maddalena pass and its 1,996 metres.
A road that, technically, is off-limits to cyclists. The reason: occasional rockfalls. They've installed cameras and traffic lights to monitor conditions and cut traffic if something comes down — and they don't want to be liable if a cyclist is mid-crossing when the lights turn red. That said, we passed nearly as many cyclists on the col as cars, so nobody was taking the sign too seriously.
We didn't think twice about it — except long enough to take the photo. The climb itself is excellent: a steady, manageable gradient with beautiful views the whole way up.
Total peace and quiet. Pedalling through places like this releases more stress than any yoga class your gym has ever advertised.
Wild Camping in the Alps
The landscape practically invited us to pitch the tent for another night, right in the middle of the mountains. A kilometre up the road there was one of those grim organised campgrounds — the kind that looks like a caravan park — while we had the whole mountainside to ourselves, for free.
We set up home, cooked dinner, went to sleep. Dinner under the stars, breakfast with nothing but green mountains around us.
We were absolutely ravenous that morning.
Crossing the Colle della Maddalena
The next morning we finished the climb — 1,996 metres, border crossing. We were in Italy. Just over the other side we found a paradise of a lake, then began the descent towards the North Italian plain.
Unlike the climb, the descent was significantly steeper, with about twenty tight hairpin bends in a row forcing us to brake constantly. It made it hard to enjoy the changing scenery properly.
After a few peaceful kilometres on Italian roads, the heavy traffic started showing up. Thankfully that coincided with hitting a valley where we found a quiet side road on the other side of the river — not a car in sight, a total pleasure to ride.
And then on to Cuneo, without looking back — though already mourning the Alps, already dreading the flat straight roads ahead, the return of car horns and noise, the end of wild nature.
Which is probably why we decided to head back north and cross into Slovenia via the Julian Alps, rather than take the easy, flat coastal route.
