With Phil still off sick with a doctor's note and Nick D knackered from yesterday, we picked up another local expatriate rider, Cliff Harrison, to show him some new roads .

A nice flat start out to the south west gave way to a long climb up followed by a lovely hairpinned descent into Clarensac for a pre-lunch coffee, much to Cliff's surprise and delight. We take this holidaying lark rather seriously! Next stop, the city of Nimes, to where the water from Sunday's ride was travelling. We did see Nick D and Phil in the car, but they were unable to park, so didn't stop at Nimes.

Some very interesting urban / city riding spewed us into the relatively traffic-free area where the best preserved Roman arena (where they started the prologue of the 2017 Vuelta) sits, so we found a lovely cafe in the shade and watched the world go by over a leisurely lunch. A few riders took the opportunity to view the arena from the roof garden of the museum - spectacular.

The return journey took us through the less touristy bit of Nimes, past the railways yards and the aerodrome, and up to Cabrieres, which we'd passed through on Sunday going the other direction. From here the descent down to Collias was utterly superb. The heat proved to be overpowering enough for an ice-cream stop... before the last few kms back to Uzes for a further refreshment stop to end the ride. Bon