Day 63: Apt to Roussillon

April 21, 2025

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Our BnB made us wait until 8:30 before producing its breakfast of just croissant and coffee. Dodie pointed out (to me, not our French hosts) that this meant no protein at all - no yogurt, cheese, ham, eggs - not so good.

We exited into our square - Place Carnot - where even less was happening than yesterday. My brother commented that Easter Sunday was perhaps a reason for the quiet, but since the square includes a church there might have been a little action?

Further to Easter Sunday, I think it was an achievement for Pope Francis to wait until now to die. We were thinking it would be a shame to die too early in a Jubilee year. We don't know the background details, but it seems believable that he waited until now.

We left our sort of non-breakfast and pedaled over to Intermarche to pick up some real food. I got parked outside, which gave me a chance to put a comment into the Anderson's blog, and also to wander across the street for a shot of the Calavon river. We have cycled its veloroute a lot, but this is the first time actually looking at it.

The Calavon also offered what would normally be "just' a Mallard photo, but here was a family of 13 ducklings - hard to keep in a row!

Aside from Mallards, there were swallow like birds in the air. These are hard to shoot, but Dodie recommended just pointing and shooting. That does not produce any artistic bird images, but it can work for ID.

As we crossed the river and began to leave town, we got a perspective that was more positive than what we felt when we were on the actual streets.

Apt - with the church that is on Place Carnot

Another view of Apt - looks pretty good?

The first real phase of our day had us gently pedaling over to Roussillon. Roussillon is at the western end of the Luberon ochre massif. Apt is halfway and Viens holds down the eastern end. We downloaded a track called "veloroute des ochres". and while this does hit all the towns in the region (like Gargas, St Saturnin, Villars, Rustrel, Caseneuve, Gignac, and Viens), it seems like Roussillon offers the best chance to really see ochre cliffs. All we did was to wander up to Villars, pass between St Saturnin and Gargas without going in to either, and land at Roussillon before noon.

The ride, however, was memorable, because I mean, this is Provence! Any ride is going to include quiet lanes, cherry trees, olive trees, vines, cedars, lavender, and maybe some bird sightings!

That is St. Saturnin over there.

St Saturnin has this long wall type thing

We were too far to figure it out. Here is the structure at the right end. Does anybody know?

This greenhouse was unique, with apparent solar panels. They must grab a lot of the light?

Olives, cedars, and a house to phantasize over.

Cycling up to Roussillon, under our first ochre cliff.

We were really early, but the hotel had our room ready.

The ochre deposit here is fascinating. Ochre is a clay that contains natural pigments. The deposits here are 90% sand and 10% ochre. A centrifuge is used to separate the sand and the ochre. The ochre, which is usually yellow, turns red during a heating process. While yellow clay is apparently most common, we seemed to be seeing a lot of red.

While parked outside the hotel waiting for Dodie to find out about the room, I found that I could easily scrape red clay from the cliff, and use this to stain my hand. Humans have been using ochre to paint the body, and cave walls, for 350,000 years, but my discovery did not seem to be all that popular with Dodie!

Our big thing for the day was the Roussillon Ochre Trail, which I think is also Roussillon's big thing. It is an extremely well constructed and safe short hike by ochre cliffs, and amazing megaliths of eroded clay.

Let's go on a replay of that walk:

The buildings of Roussillon are naturally ochre coloured.

And because it's built on a hill, the streets are like contour lines, and there are strange connecting passages.

As we walked toward the town, we encountered a man offering nougat samples from a little shop. Dodie is immune to truffle samples, but this was nougat! We ended up buying the smallest quantity on offer. But nougat is costly! Our investment was 20 euros!

The trail has an entry fee of €3.50, which is reasonable, considering how carefully it has been constructed, with steps and railings.

The yellow and red clays are exposed all along this area.

The trail continues through the forest. There is a long and a short version, with the long being about 2 miles.

Those who take the long trail are rewarded with the sight of these crazy eroded columns.

Whereas we had just basically walked through the ticket booth, unhurriedly kibbitzing with the ticket seller, by the time we got back out there was an amazing line of fellow tourists waiting to take the trail.

It was even longer than we imagined. I had sympathy for the young Asian couple who were at the very end.

Maybe they could have just looked over the side here and called it done?

We walked back toward the town, and looked more carefully at possible destinations, like that church.

We headed up streets we had never attempted on our past visit, finding that the tourists had evenly filtered through them all.

And some had found their way up to "our" church.

Finally finding our way back to the hotel, with the help of the GPS.

Back at the hotel, Dodie found the room too warm, and also that the open window was not producing enough cooling. So we fired up the white heat pump thing, mounted high on the wall, with a fixed controller nearby. This differed from the similar units we have used in Mexico, which have hand held controllers. And it differed from the thermostats we have found in many a hotel room on this trip, where there are simply grills in the ceiling delivering the air you have ordered up. We found in 100% of cases that the thermostats have no effect on anything, and the hotels glibly inform us that that is because they control everything centrally. So why build up our hopes with a thermostat? Don't know, don't care is the consistent response.

But today, since the device looked rather like the Mexican ones, we dialed in our request for 16 degrees. No response.

We also happened to flush the toilet. No response.

This was enough to send me to the front desk, and I returned with a man who radiated an air of authority. He began by asserting that (implicitly) sane clients would only use the controller to summon up heat. With the outside temperature a frigid 18 degrees, no one would ask for cooling! I protested that I was Canadian and that in my home country it was 8 degrees, making even 16 degrees tropical to me! But this fell on deaf ears.

OK, over to the toilet. This was one of those streamlined jobs where you see no tank. What there is is a large and a small paddle in the wall. Usually I would try fiddling with a flush mechanism in a tank - but not here. I had also gone to Plan B - fill our garbage can with water and pour that when needed into the toilet bowl. To fill the garbage can and without having a bathtub and spout, I made to use the hand held shower. This tried to repel me by first turning on an overhead fixed flower style shower head, drenching me! But once the trick shower control was understood, I got the handheld to fill the garbage can. Unfortunately - and this is another hotel beef - the garbage cans provided are minuscule. Not enough volume to flush a toilet.

So, back to the authoritative desk man. He popped a panel containing the two paddles off the wall, revealing that the paddles pushed on two rods, and these rods were adjustable. He lengthened these, so they would push more effectively on .. something deeper in .. and thereby release more water. He seemed to accuse somebody - maybe us? - of pushing these toilet paddles too much, thereby shortening them and reducing their effectiveness? It does seem like now I have a chance of flushing the toilet, and without risking getting water poured on my head.

So now I can sleep easy. Except one thing, now I'm cold. I am thinking of going to the desk and asking for a blanket. Do I dare?

Today's ride: 26 km (16 miles)
Total: 1,866 km (1,159 miles)

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