{"id":1732,"date":"2013-04-26T16:28:06","date_gmt":"2013-04-26T15:28:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/?p=1732"},"modified":"2026-05-26T04:43:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-26T03:43:13","slug":"vaucluse-the-one-in-france","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/2013\/04\/26\/vaucluse-the-one-in-france\/","title":{"rendered":"Vaucluse , The One In France"},"content":{"rendered":"

Day one of week three started with fresh chocolate croissants and became another rest day.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 I plucked up the courage to relive and type up the blog about our expedition down the Ardeche Gorge; I\u2019m hoping I can now forget the \u2018excitement\u2019 and focus on only remembering the beautiful scenery that we passed that day.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Day 2 will be more active………<\/p>\n

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\"Under
Under the wisteria in Vaison la Romaine<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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And it was.\u00a0 We drove through the \u2018C\u00f4tes de Rh\u00f4ne\u2019 region past lots of vineyards surrounding small villages and all the time we could see the Dentelles de Montmirail.\u00a0 We parked in Vaison la Romaine and wandered over to the Office de Tourisme to get a map of the town.\u00a0 It\u2019s 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 Ouv\u00e8ze River.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Also as we are still fairly close to Montelimar and we won\u2019t actually be going there, I bought some nougat in a lovely shop in La Grand Rue.\u00a0 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\u2026\u2026..?<\/p>\n

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\"The
The Roman bridge in Vaison la Romaine<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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\"Rodney
Rodney in the Haute Village Vaison la Romaine<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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From Vaison la Romaine we drove down to Malauc\u00e8ne and took the road up to Mont Ventoux.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 The climb by bike from B\u00e8doin 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. \u00a0Its fame as a scene of great Tour dramas has made it a magnet for cyclists around the world.<\/p>\n

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\"Mont
Mont Ventoux in the snow<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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Back down at Malauc\u00e8ne we took the narrow, winding D90 up to the Dentelles de Montmirail through Suzette, Lafare and Beaumes de Venise.\u00a0 It is a very scenic route with wonderful views of the teeth-like Dentelles. By now we decided that it must be \u2018over-sixties cycling day\u2019 as we must have passed around fifty or sixty cyclists and we reckon just about every single one of them was older than us.\u00a0 Our bikes stayed firmly attached to the back of Eileen, there\u2019s no way we have the equipment, or the thighs, to get up any of those roads.\u00a0 Mind you, the freewheeling back down looked great fun\u2026\u2026.<\/p>\n

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\"A
A view of the Dentelles de Montmirail<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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Finally we drove to Camp Municipal Lou Comtadou in Carpentras and checked in for two nights.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 We hadn\u2019t 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\u2019s huge!\u00a0 Unfortunately the rain didn\u2019t 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.\u00a0 Wandering back around the stalls, I bought some Marseille soaps in various \u2018flavours\u2019 and we had a quick peek in the cathedral.\u00a0 I tasted some nougat, but as I already have some, I couldn\u2019t buy any more; not just yet.\u00a0 We tasted some cheeses, but we only bought one, as we don\u2019t have much room in the fridge. The white asparagus caught our eyes, so we\u2019ll have that for dinner this evening with a creamy cheesy sauce.\u00a0 Today\u2019s baguette was a big fat one, so we can toast the remainder for breakfast with mushrooms.\u00a0 A hot spit roasted yellow chicken was purchased for our lunch, apparently they\u2019re yellow because they are corn fed; looks weird, but it tasted good with a big salad at lunchtime.\u00a0 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\u2026\u2026.!!!!\u00a0 It seems that again this year, it\u2019s all about food\u2026\u2026..<\/p>\n

\"A
Another view of the Dentelles de Montmirail<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Day one of week three started with fresh chocolate croissants and became another rest day.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 I plucked up the courage to relive and type up the blog about […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1742,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1732","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-europe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1732","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1732"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1732\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8413,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1732\/revisions\/8413"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1742"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1732"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1732"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1732"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}