June 5, 2025
Day 4 - Menerbes to Le Barroux
With a stop in Venasque (beau village #6)
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After yesterday’s efforts and a great dinner, we slept like proverbial rocks. Menerbes is very quiet at night - really conducive to good sleep.
After another large breakfast, we said goodbye to our friendly hosts and zipped back down into the valley. We passed fields of lavender (not yet fully flowering) and a surprising number of cherry, almond, and apple orchards. We didn’t realize what a fruit-growing area Provence was. A bit of zigging and zagging took us in a northwesterly direction across the back roads, eventually arriving in L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue.
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We know this town pretty well. This is the third time we’ve been there since it’s a well-known center for brocante (junk) and antique markets. They put on 2 huge outdoor markets every year, and there are many, many permanent vendors installed around town.
It’s a pretty town, too, with canals running through it and narrow streets with shops and restaurants. To add to the fun, today was market day. So the town was jammed. It was a challenge getting the tandem through the crowds, but we made our way to the center of town and had a piece of apple tart to refuel.
From L’Isle-sur-la-Sourgue, we got onto a beautiful bike path that took us northward to the edge of Pernes-les-Fontaines. This is another town we’ve been to before. We climbed from the path up into town, checked out the beautiful stock in the incredibly classy and kind of snobby bike shop “L’Officina”, and bought a sandwich to eat for lunch later.
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From Pernes, we worked our way east to Saint-Didier and then climbed up to Beau Village #6 - Venasque. It was a tough climb but a fair one - we arrived at the top tired but proud of having made it up on our own steam. We visited the beautiful old church and “bapistry”, which billed itself as one of the oldest religious sites in France. Hmm…not convincing when the Roman temples in Nîmes and Vienne are still hanging around. But whatever - it was still a cool old building with obvious Roman attributes.
We sauntered around Venasque oohing over the beautiful old buildings and had our split sandwich on some rocks just outside the city gate. We poked around some more, filled our water bottles from the free water supply on one of the streets, and then zoomed back down the hill to finish off the last 20 kilometers of the ride.
This part of the ride was mostly on beat up farm roads, with occasional stints on busier (too busy, really) departmentals. It had it’s moments, but in general it wasn’t the sweet riding we’ve had for the past few days. A final climb up to the hotel “Les Geraniums” in Le Barroux proved to be a really steep one. We rode most of it, but the extended segment 8 and 9 percent finally wore down our already tired legs. We pushed the last hundred meters.
The hotel has a mixed reputation on Booking.com, and Rich was nervous about booking it. It’s a little shabby for a 3 star hotel, and the toilets and bathrooms are pretty small. But it looks like it’s under new management. The restaurant has reopened after (apparently) being closed for several years and the manager was friendly, energetic, and fairly young. And they have a locked, secure place to store bikes. So we’ll take it!
After our 4th consécutive day on the bike, we were pretty tired and bordering on grumpy. But we roused ourselves and walked the 10 minutes down the hill to “Bistro l’Entrepotes”. It’s amazing what a bit of good food can do to restore good spirits! We had a great dinner on the patio, sharing an amazing eggplant loaf thingy and then going on to two plates - Cod for Robin, Porc for Rich.
After the satisfying meal, we walked back home in the beautiful evening light and collapsed into bed. Another big day behind us!
Today's ride: 64 km (40 miles)
Total: 206 km (128 miles)
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