When I first picked up this book I didn't know what to expect.  I am not a cyclist by any stretch of the imagination; my experience with a bicycle is from childhood when I would ride a few miles each day to a friend's house during summer vacation and back home again, and as an adult when my husband and I would go on hour-long bike rides through our neighborhood.  Never in my wildest imagination would I have thought to attempt what author Nancy Brook did: to bike across a great swath of southwestern France.

But, I am a lover of French wine, so that part of the title certainly caught my attention.  The 'Men' part was soon to reveal itself.  By the way, the actual Tour de France was taking place elsewhere in the country while the author pedaled her way across the southwest, so she was often able to stop in a restaurant or café and watch the Tour's progress on television.

Her story begins by telling of her rather rotten luck with the men in her life, including her ex-husband; but it also shows another side of her...not the one that feels rejection but the person inside who is looking for a new beginning while fulfilling a dream of cycling in France.  Her plan is to combine the two: find her inner self and her self confidence through the rigors of cycling more than fifty kilometers each day ~ not a small feat! 

It all began at home in Montana where Nancy was encouraged by her former sister-in-law/friend to go for it.  She finds someone who will train her for the difficult cycling to come, and she spends endless hours biking near her home.  This is not a plan she ever took lightly.  You quickly come to admire her devotion and dedication to the task ahead.

Once in France, Nancy meets with those in her cycling group (she selected a tour that was neither too difficult nor too easy but something comfortably in between), most of whom are from Australia, New Zealand and the UK.  She wants to fit into French life as much as possible, practice her school French and mingle with the natives, so she tends to keep some distance from the group and go off on her own.  Somehow, she manages to forge ahead independently (with a few mishaps along the way) following the tour guide's map while remaining separate from the group for the most part until they meet in the evenings to pitch their tents.  My visits to France must include a comfortable bed and a hot shower in some lovely bed and breakfast, so I couldn't help but admire her courage and stamina ~ after grueling rides each day ~ to sleep on the ground!  However, she does compliment the campgrounds for their modern conveniences and comforts, so they seem far superior to any I've heard about.

Over the weeks of cycling, she encounters lovely French people who befriend her and, on one occasion, help her when she has a minor accident by taking her into their home to bandage up her wounds.  Rendevous-ing with the tour group means finding that night's campground and gathering somewhere for dinner.  I don't believe she ever got lost, which many who've traveled on the back roads of France will find incroyable!

Although, as a devout francophile, I would have liked the book to offer more detailed descriptions of the villages and landscapes that Nancy experienced along the cycling route each day, I realize she wasn't writing a travelogue as much as telling about a journey of a deeper kind.  To see more of the France that Nancy saw, click on this video to be tempted to ~ perhaps ~ try something like this yourself in this amazing country.

Cycling, Wine and Men ~ A Midlife Tour de France ~ was a very easy and enjoyable book to read, and I am sure anyone who picks it up will find it so.  It certainly paints a clear picture of what is needed to prepare for cycling so many miles each day and all that is required to survive it.  You realize that this is not simply getting a bicycle and the proper spandex outfit and heading off into the unknown.  It takes planning, perseverance and determination to succeed, and Nancy certainly did that.  From Bordeaux to Grenoble, Nancy Brook took control of her life, day by day, kilometer by kilometer, and she was a smashing success.  It is my opinion that she learned a lot about herself which will serve her well in years to come.  Bravo!

Château de Challain is a fairytale castle in the heart of the Pays de la Loire of northwestern France.  Luxurious rooms, grand gardens and a friendly welcome make it the perfect holiday destination. 

Imagine yourself at this incredible château this April for a Murder Mystery Dinner.  Five couples enjoy one night plus dinner at the château for € 200 per person.  There is also a four night offer for the price of three which might be what you are looking for.  Book today! 
 
 

                                                                        La Maison des Arts et Lettres, in the village of Saignon, is the home of 

Try Small Museums of Paris 

                                                                                                                               by Arthur Gillette 

Fans of Klimt, Schiele & Co., my partner, Madeleine, and I wanted recently to take a leisurely look at the Grande Palais blockbuster exhibition on Vienne 1900. We picked a weekday mid-afternoon, assuming we could whiz in and loiter through. Oops! We lined up before the entry (in freezing weather) for over an hour. And, when we got a sample of the over-populated jostling going on inside, threw in the towel. 

If  body-contact sport isn't your ideal for expo-visiting in Paris (or elsewhere), try small museums.  Here's a sampling of Parisian fare in this vein, where, despite the displays’ intrinsic interest and English documentation generally available, you're not likely to have your feet trampled or be elbowed in the ribs. Some are so tiny they aren't mentioned in Bordas’ authoritative Guide des Musées de France. 

Let's begin by wandering down rue Antoine Bourdelle, 15e arrondissement near the Gare Montparnasse. At N° 18 you can't not notice, through a grillwork fence, a garden hosting a bronze horse almost two stories high. This is the Musée Bourdelle, former home and studio of the sculptor (1861-1929) for whom the street is named, and whose work – fittingly for a small museum? – was grandiose in intent and result. The style is somewhere between rough-hewn Rodin (with whom he collaborated for awhile) and Art Déco's wind-swept streamlining. On view are samples of his inclination for antiquity and exoticism that range from statues of Sappho and Archer Heracles to a monumental portrayal of Polish national poet Mickiewicz and bas reliefs of music, drama, etc. for the Théâtre des Champs Elysées, which opened in 1913. It was inaugurated with a scandalous premiere of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, danced by a rather lightly clad Nijinsky. That year Bourdelle exhibited work at New York's landmark Armory Show. [Open except Mondays and holidays 10 AM to 6 PM.  Full entry €4.50;  youth: €2.20; under 14 free.  Métros: Montparnasse, Falguière.]

Just around the corner, at 21 avenue du Maine, is the diminutive Musée du Montparnasse recalling such Roaring ‘20s Montparno denizens as Hemingway, Picasso and Modigliani. 
 
 

Still closer to the Gare Montparnasse is the Musée de la Poste, an offshoot of the postal administration – and a good place to take the prettiest mail-woman in your neighborhood.  Opened in 1973, it's a museographical surprise: you take an elevator to floor five then spiral down, room-to-room, to the ground floor. Goodies along the way include an articulated-arm Chappe semaphore (ca. 1800), part of a France-wide network enabling messages to come 10 km. station-to-station in clear weather from, say, Calais to Paris in just over an hour until France imported Samuel Morse's system in 1856; a lovely 1900 ceramic post office counter; and an explanation of  Paris’ pneumatic system that, 1866-1984, air-propelled correspondence via underground tubes at a speed of up to 700 meters a minute. [34, boulevard Vaugirard, Paris 15e.  Open except Mondays and holidays 10 AM to 6 PM.  Full entry: €5; reduced: €3.50; under 18 and mailmen/women free. Métro: Montparnasse.]

And now, for gruesomely comic (?) relief, Paris’ Crime Museum a.k.a. Musée des Collections Historiques de la Préfecture de Police. Can you imagine what early handcuffs looked – and felt - like ? Ouch ! They're there. As are a genuine guillotine blade, perhaps used on the murderer of a nearby victim, and some stark temporary exhibits. A recent one of these documented oh-so-graphically the trials and tribulations of bagnards – forced-labor convicts transported to hellish camps in e.g. New Caledonia and Guyana as late as 1953. Among them was the escapee-author of 1970s U.S. best-seller Papillon. [4, rue de la Montagne Sainte Geneviève, Paris 5e. Open Monday through Friday 9 AM to 5 PM.  Free entry (except for executed criminals!)  Métro: Maubert-Mutualité] 
 

Hmm... Where to invite your father-in-law? I can think of no place better than the Musée du Vin (Wine Museum), hunkering in 13th century quarries reconverted in the 16th-17th centuries by monks to store their wine (grapes grew abundantly on the Passy slopes, now facing the Eiffel Tower) and opened in 1984. Ranging through time from Roman domination, and sign posted by mini-Bacchus figures, displays include viticulturists’ tools, the workshop of a cooper (barrel maker), and  vessels for testing, tasting,  storing, transporting and consuming the beverage.  The visit ends with... wine-tasting. (You can also lunch here.) [Open Tuesday through Sunday 10 AM to 6 PM.  Entry: €8 - includes that glass.  Métro: Passy.] What? I forgot the address?  Well, not really. It's my parting shot. Thermal springs once flowed here, so the Wine Museum is on . . . rue des Eaux: Water Street!