Cabeza de carrera

After the Grand Départ, the first proper road racing stage of La Vuelta 2017 was to take the cyclists along a route very familiar to me. They were to ride more or less parallel to the railway line which took me for so many glorious summer holidays to Cap d'Agde.

The peloton came off the causeway at the upper right, separating the Étang de Thau from the ocean, and then skirted the Village Naturiste I knew so well in the twenty years from 1977. 

I was unable to make any screen capture of the Vuelta coverage on the Eurosport television channel, and so readers must take my word for it... it was on this stretch of highway that the cyclists proceeded, with the very recognizable silhouette of Mont Saint-Loup on the horizon, looming benevolently over the coastal resort.