August 27, 2019
Arles
Such a varied day’s ride
We had two basic options today. Straight down a fairly major road with a cycle track beside it - dead flat, straight and we thought probably rather boring. The other option took us over to the hills and wandered around the small villages at their base. It involved one really steep and long climb to a cute little village in the clouds but we thought we would be able to avoid that, we were after all seeing lots of cute little villages.
The variety today was fantastic . First we had to get through the rather uninspiring town of Salon. Salon was important because it was on the salt route between the Mediterranean and the Adriatic. Today its main claim to fame is that it is where Nostradamus was lived and died. Out of the urban sprawl we were riding through quite lush looking grass land All the time climbing gently. As we got higher things were getting drier and drier and we were in serious olive producing country, it was somewhat to our surprise that we saw that these were being irrigated. Although it looked so dry there were wonderful looking irrigation canals/ditches. It was about now we saw lots of plastic houses and when we looked in they were full of courgettes and cucumbers, it must be very labour intensive.
We came to the top of a hill and from our dry rocky perch we were looking down on what seemed to be a Garden of Eden. Down we sped through orchards - cherry, apple, apricot and peach and before long were sitting under Plane Trees at a cafe in Mouriès drinking our cafe creme. After this was when my cunning scheme went into action. The road on was longer and steeper than the one we had taken to Mt Victorie a couple of days ago but I could see an alternative which we followed. We were on the Route de Aquiduct and we did indeed pass through the remains of an old Roman Aquaduct. Also coming towards us came a large (around 25-30) cycle tourists on what certainly must have been a guided tour. Ken had seen two old tractors and a big onion so was more interested in those.
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In the distance we saw an enormous dour looking stone building . It turned out to be Montmajour abbey a fortified Benedictine Abbey built between the 10th and 18th centuries on what was then an island. Not surprisingly from then onwards it was then a completely flat road into Arles. We found the hotel and the centre, dropped the gear and went out for a delicious and expensive lunch. Then Ken explored while I sat and waited for check in time. Later we went and looked at the St Trophime church which was started in the 12th century. You may wonder who St Trophime was, so did we - he was the first bishop of Arles in about 200AD. It is in Romanesque style, fairly dark but with some magnificent carvings particularly around the portal. However probably what interested us most was that in a little side room was a man stamping pilgrims credentials on the start of their journey to Santiago de Compestella. We had been unaware of it when around 14years ago we started our walking pilgrimage from Arles
Today's ride: 52 km (32 miles)
Total: 1,511 km (938 miles)
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