Penguins Bike

1.5 pizzas consumed 4 July 2026

After we spent all day riding on a sandy berm out in the ocean, we rolled into our campsite Les Bois Flottés de Carmargue and we were hungry. When we checked in, they mentioned it was pizza night at the bar, so we wandered over there to eat.

Pizzas Ordered: Linda Rosa, Carmarguez

Absolute chaos here. A co-bachelor/bachelorette party, flies everywhere, bright pink drinks, somehow they had an IPA, a DJ, a server wandering around the whole night with a cold pizza yelling Hernando trying to deliver an order. Pizza night is obviously when you pull out all the stops. And it was July 4th, so we felt we really needed pizza and beer.

Regretfully I did not photograph the menu on a chalkboard. We ordered the Linda Rosa, which listed cheese, tomato, mushrooms, parmesan. And The Carmarguez which listed cheese, tomato, merguez, parmesan. The Dutch woman next to us also ordered the Linda Rosa before us and was surprised to learn it comes with ham. Apparently ham is so good you don't have to list it on the menu. So Sarah went up and made sure they left off the ham. That seemed to go well, but then to our surprise it came out with only ham. After a lot of back and forth, it is eventually revealed that the kitchen misinterpreted "no ham" to mean "just ham". I guess they wrote the menu. Eventually somehow we got just a plain cheese pizza and the Carmarguez. Thankfully service is not traditionally score-driving.

"Carmarguez" appears to be a portmanteau of "Carmargue", in the name of the town, and "merguez" the meat.

Executive Summary

Cheese

I have loved all cheese in Europe. It has an extra "fatty depth" and extra flavor that cheese in the US lacks. Like go out and buy a stick of Darigold and Kerrygold and lick each and tell me how you feel. So I was a little bummed when the cheese on this pizza tasted like the bog standard mozzarella you get on cheap American pizza but with just a hint of that extra fat. Also unclear if there was any parmesan?

3.0 / 5.0 Just above average.

Dough

Bread here has also been like the cheese, it has a slightly richer flavor. I got a bit of that from the crust going on here. Like it had hints of whole wheat but wasn't whole wheat; a sort of "whole wheat La Croix" of dough. That was overshadowed by a chewy interior, yet almost off-the-scales protractor test: zero flop.

2.0 / 5.0 I didn't like it but I wasn't repulsed.

Sauce

Merely there. Light, salty, maybe with truffle? It seemed to lack olive oil, which might have elevated this.

2.5 / 5.0 Unremarkable but not detracting.

Toppings

Stars of the show here. The merguez was incredible. Well into involuntary yum territory. Shone but did not dominate. I want to find this on pizza again.

A Linda Rosa without ham should still have had mushrooms on it, but did not. 🤷‍♂️ I will rate this as a cheese.

4.5 / 5.0 Yum.

Overall

I really wanted to like this pizza more than I did. It looked good, smelled good, we were hungry as all hell. But it was only ok. Maybe that tells you something when you force ham on people.

3.0 / 5.0

July 3, 2026 - biked 35 km (22 mi), train'd 97 km (60 mi) - biked 667 km (414 mi) total

After another night of being knocked in the head by my tent from the wind, we packed up, showered, charged our phones while eating two croissants and one chocolate one for around 4€.

To keep on our "schedule" we did another train skip morning. We immediately rushed off to the train station to make our 10:08am train from Narbonne to Montpellier. We arrived at our platform sans elevator at 9:59am. We know how to rush, but hate it.

After just a one hour train to escape the wind, we rode straight to a brunch spot to eat again. I ordered a salmon with pancakes, salad and lime cream cheese. David had spicy chicken burger with the best potato wedges I have ever eaten in recent memory.

Montpellier was nice. Lots more bikes, bike parking, people riding around. Riding in the city with all our bags is tough. We can’t just lock up our bikes without having to lug them around with us. Sometimes we take turns watching the bikes while the other uses the toilette or goes grocery shopping. Being in a bigger city keeps us more vigilant even though I felt safe.

Today was hot so we sat down for a red berry smoothie. This is where I witnessed a horror scene of pigeon rats devouring the leftovers of a previous patron. It started out with just one pecking at the bread and then another and another until more than ten pigeons gorging themselves. They knocked knives and forks off the table as they hacked into bread, salad, mushroom and whatever else was there. I had to look away. I lost my appetite for the rest of my smoothie and developed a disgust/fear of Montpellier pigeons. And possibly pigeons everywhere. Little devil bird rats.

Our last thing we did was check out this photograph exhibit where they showcased early photographs. Photography was invented in France and they had some actual daguerreotypes from the mid 1800s. One was even one of the first photos ever taken!

After the city, we had a short 22 km of biking and a grocery store run so we headed south east out of the city to make it to our campsite with ease.