Then onwards to Toulouse. Lunch was at a charming motorway service station: a chance to buy a cafe au lait and a copy of L'Equipe newspaper to get the latest reports about the Tour de France, currently on stage 6, still with about two weeks to go.

For the Tour de France professionals, each day is a race within a race, as every top rider wants to win a stage, but they must also remember the big picture: the chance of overall victory of the Tour de France itself, and that means consistently high placings every day.

That puts our little Etape jaunt in perspective. It may be a daunting 190km over five major passes, but the Tour de France boys will ride the same distance as us, twice as fast, then do it again and again, for 21 days virtually back-to-back. The only small comfort we can claim is this: Foix and Loudenvielle is reckoned to be one of the hardest stages of this year's Tour, and quite possibly a decider. As the old hands say, "the toughest battles are always fought in the mountains".

We reached our hotel in Toulouse this evening, in time for dinner. Pasta, of course. It's a relief to get the coach travel over and done with. Tomorrow we can get the bikes out and start getting properly limbered up for Monday's jolly big ride. It'll be great to be cycling again. And in glorious weather too - according to the meteo. All we need to remember is the sun cream, and to ride on the right side of the road...

Lonely Planet author David Else is in France to take part in L'Etape du Tour - cycling through the Pyrenees on the trail of the Tour de France. This is the fourth of a series of blog posts.