I Want to See the Sea

Taking a break

The forecast promised rain, and rain arrived. Not much of it, but enough to justify a short stop in Bourg-lès-Valence and some work that needed doing anyway.

I also thought about the long haul down from Jouy-aux-Arches, and whether I wanted to repeat that effort the next day — ride straight through to Wonder House instead of turning off before the Spanish border.

Then I looked at the map and thought: no. I want to see the sea.

The plan

The rough shape of the route was by now the usual approach on this trip.

This time I booked the room in advance, in Argelès-sur-Mer. Address into the Beeline, bags repacked and strapped down, off towards the coast.

The route, mercifully straightforward

No real surprises. I’d swapped the overheating, battery-eating iPhone for my Google Pixel stand-in, kept looking for gas stations every 150 kilometers, and otherwise just enjoyed the landscape.

No motorways. National roads through fields, villages, mountain ranges and mountain villages.

I also took my first wrong turn of the trip. The Beeline isn’t the fastest to update when two turns come right after each other. Neither am I.

The first sight of the Mediterranean

Somewhere around Narbonne, there it was. Seeing the open sea again is a good feeling, and I say that as someone who a year ago wouldn’t have expected to arrive at it this way.

The accommodation is not that expensive

The hotel I’d booked before leaving Bourg-lès-Valence looked decent enough. Not expensive, and near the sea — which was the point. After months and months of missing them, I wanted a sunrise or a sunset. Burgas aside, it had been a while.

Two streets from the beach. Good enough. Keys, luggage upstairs, and out for an evening walk along the sea.