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WEATHER: HEAVY RAIN, DELUGE!

We were not terribly surprised to wake up to heavy rain, which continued all through breakfast at the hotel. The jovial proprietor explained to the other guests that we were traveling by velo. They were from the Netherlands but still looked at us as though we were crazy! Since steady rain was forecast for the whole day, we decided to shorten the route by about ten kilometres and go more directly and rapidly to Montpellier. Had the weather been decent, our original plan would have taken us on a more scenic route, but today everything would probably look grey and wet.

We set off southwest across the now raging river Vidourle on the old bridge. The nearby passerelle (footbridge) was inundated and closed. We passed through several small villages before finding a sheltered spot for a break in a covered loading dock at Sussargues. There was a lot of broken glass in the loading dock and Eva was preoccupied with making sure neither of our bikes went over any of it. As we left, Eva noticed Al's glasses on the ground and directed him to pick them up. (We both wore MEC convertible glasses with changeable lenses for sun or cloud.) It was still raining heavily. After another several kilometres and a steep downhill the road turned into a very dubious mud covered track through a creek valley with signs warning of possible 'inondation', but the flood must have happened a day earlier because the road was now passable. After we climbed up onto the plateau, Eva suddenly noticed that she wasn't wearing her glasses. Apparently, they had somehow been left at the loading dock! Too bad, but we weren't going back for them.

Soon the rain started coming down even harder, and by the time we got to Teyran, we were ready to stop for lunch. We knew it would only be another ten kilometres into Montpellier, most of it on a bike path, so assumed the worst was over. Little did we know! Teyran offered slim pickings for eating places, but we were lucky to spot a restaurant-pizzeria just at the beginning of the bike path. We had to leave our loaded bikes out in the pouring rain, but at least we were warm and drying while we ate our large Thai salads and desserts. We waited as long as we reasonably could, watching other customers scurrying to their cars through the downpour, which was not letting up at all. Actually the clouds were getting darker and darker.

We started off on the tree-lined bike path. We didn't have to worry about car traffic, but soon found ourselves constantly swerving around downed branches and big puddles. Almost unbelievably the downpour increased to the point where there was standing water even on flat pavement and the sky became nearly as dark as night. At the point where the bike path ended and we had to ride on a busy road, the water was about three inches deep and flowing across its entire width. Suddenly we were confronted with a reasonably steep uphill section where the water depth increased to a good six inches with rapids in places. Cars were streaming by splashing us, and we were unable to get off the bikes because there was a concrete barrier all along the right-hand side channeling the water. All we could do was go as quickly as we could, trying to stay upright. At the top of the grade we could see that there was a large drainage diversion funneling water onto the road and momentarily there was less standing water. However as soon as we began descending the depth increased again. This was scary! Finally after several hundred metres we were able to pull across the street into a shopping area with a covered walkway, which offered a bit of shelter and allowed us to catch our breaths.

Now that we could stop and look around, we could see that recent construction along the road must have plugged up the drains because the road had become a river. After a bit of reconnaissance, we were able to walk our bikes for a few blocks along the narrow raised sidewalk on the upslope side of the street until we reached a point where the flood was diverted around a corner, leaving our street passable again. The rain had moderated somewhat to a normal downpour, which seemed quite reasonable to us now, and we made our way the last few kilometres to our hotel.

Fortunately the lobby floor of the hotel was tiled, and the puddles that we generated caused no permanent damage. The friendly receptionist looked only slightly surprised to see people who had actually cycled in this weather and very kindly brought a pot of hot tea to our room as we removed our soaked cycling gear. We couldn't remember being more pleased to have arrived at our destination.

That evening the downpour continued as we ventured forth on foot to look for dinner. As in Sommières, many restaurants seemed to be closed (on a Saturday night!) due to the inclement weather. We found ourselves at a bar-restaurant in a small square with empty tables set for dinner and a huge crowd with drinks milling around the bar. No one was sitting down or eating, so we had our choice of tables. As our dinner progressed, we watched people continually going in and out of the rain for smokes as the DJ played old vinyls from the 60s and the 70s on two turntables. Loudly. Dinner was good, service was excellent, but nobody else ever sat down to eat or even looked like they were thinking of it. By the time we left, it still didn't look like anyone was ever going to eat, but they seemed to be having a really good time and were very friendly. Bienvenue à Montpellier!

No photos today---waaaaaaaay too wet.