Antibes is a fun town just to hang out in, or to swim or sun bathe. But there are so many other places to visit in and around the Riviera that it's hard to stay put. Our first big adventure was to San Remo Italy, which is about as far as you'd want to go via train on a single day. The trip requires one train transfer after crossing the border into Italy. On the second leg to San Remo, a friendly lady taught us a few helpful phrases in Italian - Bonjourno, Gratzi, and a couple others I'm forgetting. A couple basic phrases go a long ways. And, I have to say, I like the sound of Italian more than French or Spanish. The San Remo stazione was buried in the side of a hill/mountain and it was about a half a mile down a long corridor to get out.
The city center was a couple blocks from the train station and the beach was only a couple blocks further. The whole area was very walkable. There was lots of shopping and some picturesque buildings. The beaches and coastline were surprisingly nice as well. We enjoyed getting our feet wet, but didn't have suits or towels to get drenched. Lunch was a treat consisting of the best tasting pizza of our travels, except for the one Sam ordered. He ordered a veggie so as to have something different from me after I ordered pepperoni. Apparently, eggplant, zucchini, and corn don't make the best toppings. The other pies were very good though. Gelato topped off a pleasant visit for us. I think we all agreed that Italy would feature more prominently in any future European vacation.
The next adventure would just involve Sam and I. If you guessed it involved bicycles, you guessed correct. Our ride would start in Juan Les Pins, the neighboring town where the bike rental place was. I was expecting the shop to be more helpful in terms of having recommendations on where to ride, but the attendant lady and wrench guy acted like they hadn't ever been on a bike ride before. When I asked to take a spare tube and pump, they said sorry "they had a tube, but no tools". Oh well, I thought, we can't hold up our ride for that. They were nice enough to lend us a map. So, Sam and I headed east towards Nice. It was fairly hot, probably low-mid 80s and sunny. With a slight sea breeze as we pedaled along the coast, we enjoyed very pleasant ride out to Nice, thinking we might even make it as far as Monoco. Just before getting to Nice, we stopped at a cafe to chat with a couple from Norway who had stopped there on their bikes as well. Since they looked like seasoned cyclists, I thought they might have some recommendations for where to ride, which they did. They gave a us couple different routes, both heading inland along rivers towards some smaller towns. They also warned us not to go to Monoco since the cycle lane ended outside of Nice. We opted for the route that veared inland from the Nice airport, fortuitously, there was a paved bike trail along the river at this point. We enjoyed the nice smooth trail for the next couple miles at which point the paved part ended and the trail turned to dirt. I was a bit nervous taking road bikes on dirt, but we decided to continue on hoping we would turn off towards the small towns where we could stop for some lunch. We continued on for a couple miles. After seeing some broken glass, I crossed my fingers. I was just about to say to Sam that we had been lucky not to get a flat, when Sam said to me, "I think I've got a flat". Sure enough, his rear tire was flat. Ugh!! With no one around and no sign of stores or much of anything, what should we do I wondered. Should we continue on hoping to encounter a store, or should we head back. We decided heading back was the safer option since we could likely at least catch a train back from Nice. So, we started walking. Normally, I wouldn't recommend riding on a flat tire since it can ruin the tire and more easily damage the rim. However, the heat was bearing down on us and we had at least 3-4 more miles to go. So, we rode with Sam riding with flat. After a mile or two, we encountered a lady pushing her little boy on a push-trike (not sure what they were doing out in the middle of nowhere). She didn't speak much English, but tried to help us. She got a friend who did speak English on her phone. Her friend gave us directions to a shopping mall a couple miles back inland where there was a sporting goods store. Still, not wanting to risk the store being closed or not having a spare tube, we decided to continue towards Nice. Luckily the train station was close to the airport as we expected and we caught a train back to where we started. The bike rental place gave Sam a new bike but didn't give us any credit for our mishap :(. We had thought about taking the train back to Nice to continue, but it was getting late and I didn't want to push our luck again. We decided to ride back to our apartment. The next morning we had really nice ride around Cap D'Antibes, which led us back to the rental place where we returned the bikes. Next time, I'll try to find a better rental place or perhaps arrange to go on an organized ride. The weather and scenery are great for riding. From what I can tell, there are generally good cycle lanes or trails. And drivers are also generally very considerate to cyclists.
After dropping off the bikes, we walked over to the Antibes train station to meet the girls and head to Cannes for our ferry ride to Les Iles de Lerens. For more on our ferry ride and the Man in the Iron Mask, stay tuned for part 2 of our adventures in Antibes.
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