Cycle Tour 2022 – Day 10: Riding the Vélodyssée

Today we woke up to overcast skies and deliciously cool temperatures. But, as predicted by the forecast, the cloud burned off in the late morning, and most of the rest of the day was lovely and sunny and a little cooler than the previous days. Perfect cycling weather, actually. 

We rode out of Biscarosse Plage at about 9:30 and were rudely treated to a fairly tough climb over several kilometres as we headed inland. But this totally doable route through a lovely pine forest was much preferable to the easier and shorter route along the busy highway; we will take that tradeoff most days. The glorious descent down the other side of what was, essentially, a big forest-covered dune, took us down to the Lac de Cazeaux et de Sanguinet (this is one lake, folks) then down through Biscarosse "ville" and south to a second lake with another weird doublet name, Lac de Biscarrosse et de Parentis. All of this was quite gorgeous. We stopped for a quick second breakfast along a canal between the two lakes and then continued on to Gastes, on the south shore of the southern lake, for our lunch and a tea ceremony. And of course Sonia could not resist getting in the water, which was significantly warmer than the Atlantic.

After a solid hour break, we pushed on. Though the whole day was on bike paths, much of this middle part of route was alongside roads, but most were not particularly busy. Just before the town of Mimizan, the Véodyssée hangs a sharp right and heads back up over the same glorified dune we crossed in the morning, though it is much lower at this latitude. The reason for this jog inland is that most of the coastline between Biscarosse Plage and Mimizan Plage (our destination for the day) is occupied by a military base. Tomorrow, there is no such obstruction, and we'll be heading straight down the coast. 

Mimizan Plage is also a surf town, but also much more touristy than Biscarosse Plage. One particularity of these towns is most of the Airbnbs don't offer bed linen and towels, which strikes them off the list for us. So we booked what turned out to be a cute little hotel within sound of the surf (which is quite high today) and treated ourselves to dinner at a restaurant in the town—only the second time Sonia and I have eaten out together since the pandemic started. What a treat!