April 29, 2025
Rochemaure to Vaison-la-Romaine
As Dave said later, “We didn’t have a very auspicious start to the day.”
Early signs suggested otherwise: we slept well, woke to beautiful sunny weather, enjoyed a modest but sufficient breakfast and got on the road around 10:15 am. We stopped at a nearby bakery to pick up a sandwich that looked to be an improvement on our previous lunch fare (notwithstanding Dave’s “cooking skills” at the breakfast buffet).
We then walked our bikes over the Himalayan bridge - a suspension bridge that is a tourist attraction in its own right.
After riding about 2K things went south in a hurry. The previous night I looked at the route and decided to spice things up a bit. Our destination was Vaison-la-Romaine and Komoot suggested a route continuing south along the Via Rhona until km point 20 and then heading west to reach Vaison. I had noticed a modest pass to the southwest of Montélimar called the Col de Colombier (although NOT the Grand Colombier of Tour de France fame) and thought it looked like a good challenge for us. So I rejiggered the route to ride west through Montélimar in order to reach this climb. If all went as planned it would be a 61 km day, somewhat long for us this early in the tour, but acceptable .
Things did not go as planned.
The simple story was that we could not find a way to safely cross over the Rhone via the bridges in the area. We arrived at the first crossing to discover Komoot suggested that we get on a congested and fast-moving road, the D11, to cross. We quickly determined it was not feasible so we shot across the D11 and continued further down to another bridge. There the bike trail went right up to a bridge crossing but there was no way to reach the bridge itself short of hauling our bikes up a very large and densely vegetated bank. We then stopped and studied the route more comprehensively and decided to turn around and backtrack a couple of km to a connection to a road that looked like it would connect up with the crossing. This worked and we crossed safely but then had to reevaluate the route through Montélimar given we were no longer on the originally planned route. We wound up having to head back north up the river on the other side to stay on a cycleway. Our final challenge was crossing a small tributary in Montélimar. Even though it was marked as a bike route with a crossing there were these killer steps up to the bridge. Sigh. We decided to ride further north alongside the canal we needed to cross hoping to find a suitable crossing point in order to reach our planned route. Fortunately , we did find an accessible bridge across, dodged some construction obstruction and finally hooked up with our planned route — an hour and a half later. So….. if the map of our route looks like spaghetti, that is why!
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Afterwards it was lovely; a long easy cycleway along the river, and some pleasant goats to commune with until we reached the start of the Col de Colombier climb.
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If yesterday’s impromptu climb and descent into Saint-Bauzile was an h’ordeuve this was a real climb although the incline never reached over 7 percent. We rode largely in the shade, with little traffic on a well-paved road.
Our only disappointment was that there was no convenient vista with a bench for us to sit and eat our lunch. We instead rode down a killer descent and into the town of Grignan. This was not a place we were familiar with but the center was hopping with the lunch time crowd. It’s a “plus beaux” village. We found a bench in the shade, and drank an orange soda Dave bought at the local tobacco store and enjoyed our bakery sandwich.
We still had 30 km to go so didn’t dawdle too much. The afternoon ride was varied; a mix of small roads and a few busier ones which were still tolerable. We were in the Côte du Rhone wine region and the countryside was thick with vineyards and other agricultural products. We rode through Buisson where we stayed 3 years ago and into Vaison.
Our accommodation, Villa Regina, was very nice. It had a good tub, a canopied bed and a safe place in the garage for our bikes, plus a beer from the fridge. Only downside: the owner smokes and there was a faint smoke smell in the landing. Not a plus.
Vaison is a famous tourist town due to its Roman ruins: hence the name, Vaison-la-Romaine. Whereas Vienne, our last Roman town, had great ruins and few people, this town is hopping and on the ride in we saw a fair amount of crowds. Because we had stayed here in 2021 and had explored it back then, we felt no need to check things out, not to mention we had just completed a 70 km day and were very tired. We cleaned up and lay a bit zombie-like on our canopied bed, bemoaning the inability to order a pizza and have it delivered.
We rallied however and walked into town to get something to eat. The host had tried to make a reservation at a local place but in the inimitable way of the French, they want you to book ahead but are never open when you think to call, and our host couldn’t get anyone to pick up when she called on our behalf. We had memorably dined in Vaison four years ago at gourmet style restaurant with our friends. That night was memorable as we ordered a mult-course dinner and Dave asked for and then overindulged in the cheese course which was followed by dessert and then some post dessert desserts! Dave could barely waddle back to the hotel after that.
On this trip we weren't sure where we were going to dine, especially since we had no reservations. We decided to walk into town to see what was available to us. We came to Restaurant La Bartavelle, checked out the menu which looked good, and asked if we could dine there. They did have an empty 2 top, so we sat down, looked around, and then realized this was the same restaurant we had been to four years ago. We ate well, if a good deal more moderately this time. No cheese course.
Today's ride: 70 km (43 miles)
Total: 328 km (204 miles)
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