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Chapter 2: The Three Musketeers.

""
I went towards the border and, a few kilometers before crossing it, I saw a man on his bicycle, stopped at the side road, fully geared and dressed in cyclist's clothes. I stopped to ask if everything was alright, if he needed help with something, and we talked for a while. He was coming from Barcelona and going towards Rome, on his bicycle... 
- Oh, Barcelona... Un señor español y su bicicleta. - I said. 
- Español no, catalán. - He replied with a mischievous smile. 

""
A quiet start with plenty of bike paths along the way, we didn't even cycle much and soon stopped at a tiny village for a coffee. Afterwards, we continued on and as we entered Montpellier, chaos was taking over, I would have loved to go through the city more calmly and having had the time to get to know it better, but I realized that with Josep there, it would be hard to do so, I noticed that he wasn't in the mood for tourism and watching the places he passed, he was more concerned with reaching the Vatican in the stipulated time. 

""
A very uncomfortable situation. I'll admit that I was afraid, both for Josep and me, the paura (fear) was clear on our faces at that moment. Said paura increased even further when I realized that Josep had stopped pushing his bicycle, lowered his head and started breathing in short gasps. I stopped as well and asked him if everything was okay, he replied positively by waving his right hand and we resumed pushing on. 

""
... and we continued on to Saint-Maximin-la-Sainte-Baume (whata fucking weird name), which was where I had found a camping ground on my cellphone's offline GPS. And this was the only con of crossing the country instead of following along the coast, there were very few camping grounds open in that post-summer period, while along the seaside there were plenty of camping grounds still functioning and plenty of human activity, if you know what I mean... But everything went well, the weather was great and the landscapes were beautiful, with many vineyards along the way and a wonderful mountain to feast the eyes on! And so it was another day, around 18h and almost 100 kms later, we arrived at the camping ground. 

""
The place where we camped was already almost in Cannes, something like 10 kms cycling to the center, and so we quickly reached the city that's home to the famous film festival and stopped for coffee, a quick espresso to energize our legs and speed up our heart rate and pulses! I admit that Cannes didn't impress me very much, it's small and charming, yes, but in my view, nothing that would live up to so much talk about this city, maybe all the glamour is because of the film festival that takes place there every year, anyway, with a lot of money things could be very different and maybe my impression of the city would change, anyway, not my type... 

""
And Nice was by far the most beautiful of the cities that I went through in the south of France, unfortunately I didn't go through them all, nor the entire coast, but Nice made my jaw drop! 

""
There were lots of toys, teddy bears and messages around the bandstand in the square, and then I remembered that it was right there on that avenue, the Promenade des Anglais, that two months earlier there had been a terrorist act in which a madman killed several people with a truck, with many children among the victims, it had been awful! It was a sad moment, seeing all those messages and photos of the victims. I stood there wondering how a human, that generous animal, so special and sharing by nature, can also be so aggressive, greedy, short-sighted and stupid... 

""
But we had to go on, so I put on my helmet and we continued up the mountain. Towards Monaco this time. 

""
Ci vediamo a dopo Italia... 

Wanna know what is like to cycle and venture across Europe? Find out all the details of this adventure with the book "Into the Corners of Europa", now on sale in major bookstores and digital platforms!

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