Day 17 Vaison la Romaine to Sault

May 4, 2023

A Dinner Engagement

When Kirsten awoke this morning and consulted her social calendar, she informed me that we had a dinner engagement in Sault tonight and as a result, we would need to change our previous plan to cycle to, and camp, in Villes sur Auzon.

With that she cancelled the campsite that we’d booked (honest!) and made alternative arrangements at a hotel in Sault.

Our poor tent is feeling serious neglect, but sorry Agnes, this is something that we can’t pass up. We hope you understand and we will try to make it up for you.

So off to Sault it was under once again, perfect cycling conditions.

How perfect of a morning was it? This little vignette encompasses it, perfectly:

As whe wheeled out of town heading east along the banks of the L’Ouvèze river, a woman out for her morning run stopped, rose up on her tip toes, and smelled the flower blossoms on a fruit tree overhanging the road. One deep inhale, then a smile, and she was back on her way.

It was just another beautiful day of cycling in southern France and we were basically riding the northern and eastern edge of Mount Ventoux, so needless to say we had a lot of company in both directions from roadies.

Although modest in distance, there were two decent climbs during the day and a net ~500 m elevation gain. Coupled with the temps that were reading in the high 20’s on my Garmin, it was enough to get a good sweat on.

Arriving in Sault was a bit like being in a Cycling Haj (Johnny Canuck here again - no offence intended to anyone), and as we rolled up to the first bar we came to, with a beautiful deck looking north onto Ventoux, the parking lot was festooned with carbon and the deck was covered in Lycra.

Although we felt a bit out of place with our steel off road vehicles and our sweat encrusted merino attire (well at least me) we were welcomed with open arms … and a large beer. We have arrived.

Celebratory bevy consumed we headed off to our hotel (the one with bicycles attached to the entire front facade), checked in and prepared for our diner engagement.

Fellow CB’ers Susan Carpenter, Suzanne Gibson and Janos are in town tonight and they kindly invited us to crash their party (for tonight).

This will be our first ‘on the road’ meetup, but after last night’s serendipitous meet up with Serge and Stephen, who knows how many of these the future has in store!

The dinner party was great, the five CB’ers spent the evening recounting tales of trips long done and dreams for future adventures. It ended all to soon but we will start up again over breakfast.

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SOTD - Walking on Sunshine by Katrina and the Waves. When I saw the morning jogger stop to literally smell the blossoms, this song popped into my head and would not leave. So from the Way-Back machine, lets go back to 1983 and have some fun. Take the time to enjoy it!

Thanks for a wonderful stay at Jade en Provence Sabina!

Leaving this little Shangri-La in Vaison la Romaine

Super ‘Isn’t that cool’ cloud formations over Ventoux

Spring is so wonderful. Poppies, thistles and mountains

Looking for a meal or practicing pole climbing?

Looking NW after leaving Vaison la Romaine. This is the sort of terrain we were traveling through all day.

There was a reasonable amount of climbing but it was all under perfect conditions

For the first half of the ride we had Ventoux as a constant companion in front of us.

Hey, there’s another col sign, modest, but we’ll take it!

It was a fun run down from the modest col … any downhill is a good one

Beautiful spot for our roadside lunch stop

Final climb into Aurel, our high point for the day, and then a 5 km ever so slight downhill cruise into Sault

Parking the RV’s amongst the carbon sports machines

Great day and looking forward to a great evening

They still serve you even if you’re wearing sweaty merino!

A couple of Dutch guys were interested in our bikes. Careful what you wish for … K reports that I was about 2 hours into it when this picture was taken … just starting to discuss planetary gears ….

The 5 CB’ers enjoying a meet up at La Provençal. Thanks for the wonderful evening Suzanne, Janos and Susan.

Today's ride: 47 km (29 miles)
Total: 646 km (401 miles)

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