Hot, hot hot! Provence and the Mediterranean - by car.

The next week in Provence


There's something about 40C degrees that doesn't inspire long cycle rides with a loaded bike!! So we have a car now!!

The forecast for Provence for the next week is in the high 30s and low 40s. That, together with the tricky logistics of transporting the bikes on trains to get to our final airport destination - led us to the decision  to rent a car in Avignon and keep it till our departure from Lyon. So now the bikes are in the back of the car and we are enjoying air-conditioned travel. And believe it or not, we are really missing the bikes!

A lot has happened in the last week, and I am quite behind with my updates. Sometimes it's a lack of WiFi, sometimes a lack of battery power as we generally don't have electricity at our campsites, and have to leave our devices plugged in at the bathrooms. (I didn't bring my solar panels on this trip). But sometimes I just don't feel like writing at the end of the day!

I'm going to jump right to yesterday and today, although our lovely time in Ardeche with our friends Jacques and Angela deserves a post all by itself...hopefully later. Thank you J and A!

Here are some photos from the last few days.

Our last ride, approaching Avignon

Le Pont du Gard near Avignon. A UNESCO site

Our best camp dinner so far -
 green Thai chicken curry with rice and barley

Camping near Pont du Gard.
One of the few times we were able to find some chairs.
French campgrounds generally don't provide picnic tables
 like we are used to back home
At the market in St. Remy de Provence
Crowds at the St Remy market. Very popular in Provence,
with all kinds of local vegetables, soaps, olive oil, lavender products, etc.
The queue waiting to visit Carriere Des Lumieres at Baux-de-Provence.
We enjoyed this place. It's a limestone quarry which is used now
 to project various 3D films onto the white stone walls. We saw a beautiful film
 of Van Goh's work. Temp in the quarry 15C, outside 36C!
Baux-de-Provence with its cliff- top chateau
Cassis, our current location, on the coast
Martigues, west of Marseilles, surprised us with its pretty
 inner harbour and historical centre
Joined the beach crowd yesterday at pretty Cassis
Out of sequence, but yesterday's visit to the city of Arles to see the
 Roman amphitheatre and arena
Working on filling in the white parts of my bikers tan!
Blue arrow at Cassis, our current location
We drove through Marseille yesterday, but we didn't stop. From our current location on the coast, we might head inland again towards the Gorge du Verdon. But you never know - that plan could change. By the way, it's 8.30 am here and the temperature in Cassis is 31C!! Time to get out of the tent and go find a beach!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Big Plans Ahead! Another European Bike Tour

Image
 The count-down is on for our next cycle tour! On Sat Aug 24th (that is tomorrow!) we leave for yet another cycle tour in Europe. This one will see us flying to Frankfurt and riding from there south towards the Alps via Bavaria, a little part of the west of Austria (Tyrol) and on into Italy, eventually ending up in Venice. Lots of similarities to our last tour two years ago, but quite a different route. We have set aside six weeks for this journey. The main goal of this tour is to cycle a route called the Via Claudia Augusta . This route starts in Donauworth, Germany (located on the River Danube) and ends either in Venice or at the Po River south of Verona (depending which fork of the road you take). The attraction here is that it follows an old Roman road that once connected the northern part of the Empire via the River Danube, with the Adriatic Sea via the River Po or the Venetian lagoon. So there's lots of history attached to it, and it takes you through a lot of beautiful scene...
Read more

We reached the Danube!

Image
  Yesterday's ride on the last day of August will be memorable because of the village we reached halfway through the day, called Harburg. Here an impressive castle sits atop the hill, this one dating from the 11-12 th century, and said to be one of Germany's oldest castle fortifications. Hamburg and its hilltop castle We didn't climb up to the castle (these hilltop establishments are oft best viewed from afar in our opinion, especially when you're on a heavily loaded bike). Instead we stumbled on a delightful little café on the old stone bridge over the slow-moving Wornitz River where we had coffee and the most delicious pieces of homemade cake. We had quite the chat with the owners who seemed quite surprised to have Canadians on bikes in their place. Our large pieces of apple cake and plum cake Chilling in the heat of the day   Anyway the eating was followed by a good hour just relaxing in the shade under the trees along the river, resting up before hitting the ...
Read more

Complications at Reschen Pass: Italy here we come!

Image
 Monday morning Sep 9th Pfunds, at the foot of Reschen Pass, the route to Italy Before leaving home, I had read about a road closure here at Pfunds that would affect the main road, causing the diversion for traffic to use the minor road up the pass that is the official Via Claudia route for bikes. So it sounded like our bike route would not be affected, although it might have a lot of traffic. However, at breakfast this morning we learned that it's actually the cycling road that is completely closed for the building of a rockfall shed, effective Sep 1st. There is apparently an alternative signed diversion for bikes that follows a really rough gravel path. Not the best for heavily loaded bikes, although we did it over Fern Pass in good weather. Fortunately, there is a Via Claudia bike shuttle service, and we've just secured ourselves 3 spots at 12.00. This will save us a ton of hard, unpleasant riding in damp weather up the pass, and get us to the town of Nauders, several km bel...
Read more