Paris-Nice Revealed

THE DAYS ARE getting noticeable longer. This evening I took Julia to her flute lesson at 6:00pm and it was still light outside. A month ago that was not the case. Of course, longer days means spring is coming and in this part of the world spring means...cycling. For the fourth year in a row we will attend the Paris-Nice and Milan-San Remo races and despite the fact that it's the 'boys' who are usually most excited about this -- the girls get pretty excited as well.

And this year should be great because the second-to-last stage of Paris-Nice will roll through our village! The stage starts in Brignoles and finishes on a curcuit in Sophia-Antipolois (where I work). But just before arriving in Sophia the peleton will come down the Col de Gourdon and ride through Le Rouret/Opio/Valbonne/Biot/Sophia. I know what we'll be doing that day!

On the final day the route will be the familiar Nice curcuit that finishes with a mad dash down from Eze into Nice. For the past couple of years we have watched the start (on the Promenade des Anglais) then made our way up to Eze with a little lunch to watch from just outside the village. There's a good chance we'll be doing that again in a few weeks!

I really like this time of year.