We arrived in stunning Venosc (in the French Alps) after more than 24 hours of travel. Although our flights were uneventful, at best I got an hour of sleep -- Val not much more!

After landing in Lyon at 1 pm local time, we had a short walk to the airport hotel where we will be staying 7/29 so we could assembled our bikes (ok, I assembled both bikes) and store our bike travel cases to make room in the rental cars. We had almost 5 hours before Brendon, Shannon, Bryce, and Jill arrived but between bike assembly and 2 car rentals (a van and SUV) we had very little time before their flight landed  at 5:30 pm.

After meeting them we drove the 2 hours to our picturesque village not far from the base of Alpe d'Huez. Arriving at nearly 8 pm (25 hours after we left home!) we immediately sat down to a fantastic dinner with the other B&B guests who are from Holland and Belgium. Dinner started with a fresh watermelon and feta salad, which was fabulous. The main course was a wonderful chicken dish seasoned with cinnamon and paprika for a sweet and spicy flavor. And for desert we had a lemon tiramisu that was amazing!  And of course, our dinner was accompanied a Cote du Rhone (Vacquaras) that was wonderful. Welcome to France!

Not surprisingly dinner was 2 1/2 hours long, and at 10:30 we were the first to leave the dinner table due to the fact that we could barely keep our eyes open - and at this point Val was slightly manic, although quite entertaining.

The internet is too slow to post pictures but I will add them asap -- the setting is truly magical!

Au revoir for now.