Day one of week three started with fresh chocolate croissants and became another rest day. We got two loads of washing hung out in the sunshine, Rodney iced his ankle a bit more, and we got all the photos up to date. I plucked up the courage to relive and type up the blog about our expedition down the Ardeche Gorge; I’m hoping I can now forget the ‘excitement’ and focus on only remembering the beautiful scenery that we passed that day. Oh, and I made a blue glass bead bracelet and did a bit of reading after we had eaten our lunch sitting outside in the warm sunshine. Day 2 will be more active………
And it was. We drove through the ‘Côtes de Rhône’ region past lots of vineyards surrounding small villages and all the time we could see the Dentelles de Montmirail. We parked in Vaison la Romaine and wandered over to the Office de Tourisme to get a map of the town. It’s a town with a lot of Roman remains, but we opted to wander up to the picturesque mediaeval old town on the opposite bank of the Ouvèze River. The Roman bridge was built in the first century AD and is one of very few bridges from antiquity that is actually still in use today. Also as we are still fairly close to Montelimar and we won’t actually be going there, I bought some nougat in a lovely shop in La Grand Rue. I could have bought everything in that shop but I managed to only add a pot of chocolate orange pate; it will all be good medicine……..?
From Vaison la Romaine we drove down to Malaucène and took the road up to Mont Ventoux. It was quite a road, with some wonderful views over the surrounding countryside in various directions. We could see there was still snow on the peak and unfortunately this meant that the road to the top was blocked at the top of Mont Serein; only walkers could go higher and neither of us was up to hobbling that far, so we had our picnic near the top of Mont Serein and marvelled at the view. The climb by bike from Bèdoin to Mont Ventoux is one of the toughest in professional cycling and has become legendary as the scene of one of the most gruelling climbs in the Tour de France bicycle race, which has ascended the mountain fourteen times since 1951. Its fame as a scene of great Tour dramas has made it a magnet for cyclists around the world.
Back down at Malaucène we took the narrow, winding D90 up to the Dentelles de Montmirail through Suzette, Lafare and Beaumes de Venise. It is a very scenic route with wonderful views of the teeth-like Dentelles. By now we decided that it must be ‘over-sixties cycling day’ as we must have passed around fifty or sixty cyclists and we reckon just about every single one of them was older than us. Our bikes stayed firmly attached to the back of Eileen, there’s no way we have the equipment, or the thighs, to get up any of those roads. Mind you, the freewheeling back down looked great fun…….
Finally we drove to Camp Municipal Lou Comtadou in Carpentras and checked in for two nights. There is a big market in town on Fridays and there has been one held there since the year 1145, so we fancy having a mooch around it in the morning.
And we did. The free local bus that stopped outside the campsite gate took us down to the edge of the old town and from there we crossed the road and started roaming around the market stalls. We hadn’t been able to work out from the map where exactly the market was, but we soon realised that it is in just about every street and square throughout the old town; it’s huge! Unfortunately the rain didn’t make it quite the most relaxing stroll, so we stopped at a cafe for a really good hot chocolate mid-morning, when the rain got quite heavy. Wandering back around the stalls, I bought some Marseille soaps in various ‘flavours’ and we had a quick peek in the cathedral. I tasted some nougat, but as I already have some, I couldn’t buy any more; not just yet. We tasted some cheeses, but we only bought one, as we don’t have much room in the fridge. The white asparagus caught our eyes, so we’ll have that for dinner this evening with a creamy cheesy sauce. Today’s baguette was a big fat one, so we can toast the remainder for breakfast with mushrooms. A hot spit roasted yellow chicken was purchased for our lunch, apparently they’re yellow because they are corn fed; looks weird, but it tasted good with a big salad at lunchtime. We were told the Carpentras area is prime territory for truffles, but we declined them, not because of the big ticket price but because we already have the mushrooms…….!!!! It seems that again this year, it’s all about food……..
