The Tour de France 2019 started in Brussels this year and the route to the south passed by a village at about 20km from where I live. So, I took my bike on that super sunny day to watch the circus passing by, including the publicity caravan 3 hours in advance of the cyclists.

It all feels like a big summer feast, with all folks – of all ages, gender, race, poor and rich – coming out of their alcoves to enjoy this popular almost festivalesque party. It inspired me to write these couple of lines of somewhat nostalgic reflection:

Lovely girls with red-red lips and short-short shorts waving and smiling at the crowds.

A flashback to the Côte d’Azur, the French Riviera, Saint-Tropez, Claude François, Serge Gainsbourg, and dub reggae. A throwback to the seafood restaurant along the promenade in Nice during a Gartner conference.

Being a flaneur, voyeur, a little bit tipsy, just enough to feel happy with a cold glass of white-white wine and some delicious white-white fish-au-citron, freshly steamed potatoes, and a drip of fine-fine olive oil on a terrace on the beach.

The taste of summer. The taste of vacation.