After returning from Scotland and the Lakes we have a month prior to Xmas to occupy ourselves. We were fairly open about what to do with this and would have been content heading across to Wales to hit the mountain bike trails over there. Whilst we have been regular visitors to Coed Y Brenin recently we haven’t managed to get to the likes of Nant Y Arian, Penmancho, Betwys Y Coed,  Afan and Cwm Carn for a couple of years . However we decided that the weather didn’t look good and decided another plan was required.

We thought about heading down to Granada in Spain, where we had had good reports re mountain biking, however we considered it a bit too far and also hope to do Spain properly sometime next year.

After a bit of research we decided on the Var region of Southern France – there appeared to be some good mountain biking and supposedly it is the sunniest region of France with the most days of sun per year? (not sure who verifies this data!).

So after a week at home we headed off to Dover and hacked down through France.  I don’t think either of us expected brilliant sunshine, however we certainly hadn’t reckoned on torrential rain, snow and swollen white water rivers and flood alerts.

The Drome in flood

We came for sun not snow!

We eventually arrived in Aups our chosen starting point and by Thursday morning the rain had cleared. The big event of the day in Aups was the first truffle market of the season so we strolled down to take a look. It seemed to be quite a big event (for Aups anyway). The Mairie opened the market and spent 15 minutes or so on his opening speech and the local TV station had sent a cameraman and sound man.

The deal is done

Expensive fungi

Truffles don’t come cheap at 600 euro a kilo! So we passed on impulse purchases. At those sort of prices it almost seems worth buying a pig and heading out into the woods, how hard can it be!

Aups is in the foothills of the Alps at 500 m above sea level so we shouldn’t have been surprised that with clear skies the night time temperature dropped well zero both outside and inside the van, necessitating the need to deploy both sleeping bags and duvet to fend off the cold.
The walking and bike riding round Aups whilst not particularly demanding is good  and the trails drain well, which given the excessive rain earlier in the week is good. It great to come back from a ride not covered in mud with an hours worth of cleaning to be done, instead it’s just chuck the bike in the back of the van and enjoy a cup of tea in the sun!

Tea in the sun

Tomorrow we are going to head down to the South Coast and spend a couple of weeks there before returning home for Chrimbo.