To Vaison-la-Romaine

July 9, 2003 to July 10, 2003

Another two day entry, though I can hardly remember anything about the second day. Leaving Sault, we skirted the north side of Mont Ventoux and ended in Vaison-La-Romaine where we stayed for two nights. We continued to pass lavender fields until we finally left the plateau, and then I remember admiring the church at Pierrelongue, perched atop a rocky plug that reminds me now of the remarkable church at Le Puy-en-Velay that we visited a decade earlier. Disappointingly I find no photos of it, but we’ll steal one to remind us.

Downloaded from the web: Notre Dame de Consolation Chapel, at Pierrelongue.

What I do find are several photos from Montbrun-Les-Bains, which are a complete surprise because I don’t remember us having visited it on this tour at all. We obviously were taken with it though, from the number of photos we came back with. When we visited it twelve years later on a day ride from Sault I thought we were seeing it for the first time. Montbrun is a charming village, and if we’re ever in the vicinity I’d like to stay there for a night or two.

Montbrun-Les-Bains. I’d forgotten we passed through this town, which we would revisit in 2015 on a day ride from Sault thinking we were seeing it for the first time.

We really liked Vaison, and we’re especially charmed by the narrow lanes on the west side of the river that splits the town. I remember us eating dinner one evening at a restaurant overlooking the river, and walking down to the river to see from below its remarkable bridge built by the Romans in the first century AD. We liked it well enough that we revisited it last year on our way north to England.

And the layover day? We biked to Orang and back. It was too hot, the roads too busy, and Orange itself too difficult to visit by bicycle for us to enjoy it. And it deserved no photos, apparently. If it hadn’t been so blasted hot we should have taken a hike.

In In Vaison-La-Romaine. This is another of those photos we later had enlarged and framed to hang in the entrance wallway of our condo.

There’s a lot to see in this familiar pose. A watch! That tan! And there’s just enough of the book’s cover showing that maybe I’ll be able to get back what we were reading back then if I sleep on it.

The Roman bridge across the Ouvèze, Vaison-la-Romaine.

Heart

Comment

Link

Today's ride: 66 miles (106 km)
Total: 787 miles (1,267 km)

Rate this entry's writing	Heart	3
Comment on this entry	Comment	1

Janice BranhamWe blasted through Vaison-la-Romaine on a lunch stop and saw just a sliver of what's there. I hope to get another shot at it. I'm enjoying your memories of this trip.
Reply to this comment
1 year ago