{"id":5915,"date":"2012-07-11T16:35:57","date_gmt":"2012-07-11T20:35:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tourdebocrie.com\/?p=5915"},"modified":"2015-07-02T15:13:27","modified_gmt":"2015-07-02T19:13:27","slug":"day-45-tuesday-july-10-marseille-to-toulon-france","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tourdebocrie.com\/?p=5915","title":{"rendered":"Day 45, Tuesday, July 10 – Marseille to Toulon, France"},"content":{"rendered":"

It was in the low 70’s when we left this morning, \"\"<\/a>shortly after eight. \u00a0Started off along the coast,\"\"<\/a> but within a half an hour\u00a0\"\"<\/a>we began climbing, as did the temperature. \u00a0It hit 85 before 9 am;<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>and with the sun directly in our face we were dripping. \"\"<\/a>This was to be our longest \"\"<\/a>and highest climb for the day;\"\"<\/a> thank goodness as it took us an hour and a half to bike up the ten miles\"\"<\/a>leaving the coast behind\"\"<\/a> and stopping to rest\/breath and take pictures along the way.\"\"<\/a>The view at the top was far reaching\"\"<\/a> and and the air cooler, but all the tall trees were gone and low shrub remained. \u00a0The fly down was fabulous, as there was a generous shoulder and we could see grape vines on the next mountain.\"\"<\/a> We spent little time at the bottom, as our second climb began almost immediately. \u00a0No shoulder, but shade….the trade off was worth it. \u00a0And the scenery spectacular\"\"<\/a> as we weaved our way up \"\"<\/a>and around the mountain\"\"<\/a>catching glimpses of pretty coves along the way.\"\"<\/a> At the top of the second climb, we lost our traffic to the interstate, so we had the downhill to ourselves along with other bikers out for a strenuous ride. \u00a0We had a long stretch of towns to go through before our last and lowest climb of the day\u00a0\"\"<\/a>and the scenery was just as fabulous.\"\"<\/a>Our last stretch was through small towns\"\"<\/a>and beautiful harbors,\"\"<\/a>our favorite was Sanary sur Mer, both harbor<\/p>\n

\"\"and beach were inviting.\"\"<\/a>But we had already made a reservation a few miles down the road, so we continued. \u00a0The city of Toulon is a cruise ship stop \"\"<\/a>and home to the French navy, this is the marine museum.\"\"<\/a> An interesting town with the required town square,\"\"<\/a>beautiful fountains\"\"<\/a>and statues\"\"<\/a> and a very active harbor \"\"<\/a>with a line of restaurants that makes you want to stay a week; somehow, we missed a picture, but got the dinner of salad with smoked salmon\"\"<\/a> and steak with Roquefort sauce. \u00a0Think we are actually taking the day off tomorrow, so we will fill you in on more pictures then.\n\t\t