Time for a bit of mountain biking again. And what better place for that, than the wonderful Massif d'Esterel. Of course, I'd already seen the most beautiful place in the Massif (if not the world?) a couple of weeks ago when we visited the unique Mal Infenet. But, today, the plan was to visit another famous place, the Malpasset dam. Or rather, what remains of it.
The Malpasset Dam is, or was, rather, an arch dam, which contains (or rather used to) the Reyran river. Unfortunately, the dam tragically burst on the 2nd of December 1959 (according to our guide, Philippe, due to an incorrectly done geological survey), killing 423 people in the resulting flood (the Roman amphitheatre at Frejus was also partially flooded as a result of the disaster).
Enough history lessons - what about the bike ride ? It all started off well, with me, Gilbert, Philippe and D.B. setting off early in the morning, enjoying the morning sun, ignoring the wintery chill. Unfortunately, Philippe had a puncture early on, which delayed us a little bit. Undeterred, we pushed on, and quite soon reached the ill-famed site ("l
a où ca s'est mal passé " as the locals would say I suppose?) of the burst dam, the remains which can be still seen from a viewpoint.
Philippe's bad luck continued, as he suffered from 2 further punctures. And we took a wrong turn at one point. But such details did not deter us for one minute, after all, each puncture allowed me to spend that little bit longer in the beautiful Massif d'Esterel ?
So, to summarize, another great bike outing in this beautiful part of the Riviera!
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