16. Bike VENASQUE (and Satan’s private road to hell)

Perfect riding weather today, which I know is starting to sound boring and repetitious. The local riders feel this weather is a little hot - hahahahhaha! At most, it may touch 80 F around here, but seems to be mostly in low to mid-70’s, with almost no humidity. Us South Florida guys will never complain about these conditions! 

Today I wanted to get more into the National Forests around here, and sort of intended to get to a little mountain town Methamis, in the Foret Domaniale de Venasque. I’ve been riding a lot to towns in the adjoining forest, Foret Domaniale de Saint Lambert, which explains why the roads are twisty and climb, the traffic is light, and the scenery is so beautiful. Like the areas around our USA National Forests and Parks. 

Satan's road to hell - in my opinion

My route was loosely planned  while munching a croissant and some fruit at breakfast, and like so many plans fell apart on the road. I headed loosely toward Mount Ventoux, so it was in the background of all the scenery all day. Went through some towns I’d already experienced, and eventually got myself lost trying to navigate a shortcut through Le Beaucet. I ended up on a tiny hard-paved path, “smoothed” by what looked like the tips of Satan’s pitchfork, and it did nothing but climb through the beautiful forest. I kept looking for bread-crumbs on the ground left by Hansel and Gretel. Then I remembered that’s a German fable, wrong country of reference! This “road” had to connect to something I could find on my map, right? So I kept going up for a couple of miles, it seemed. Finally, this hell-road went nearly vertical and became a crumbly dirt path…so I gave up, and descended carefully back to where I started. Found some road repair guys to point me in the right direction, and resumed my trip to Methamis.


Next town I came to was VENASQUE, another beautiful hilltop village, and just as it came into view, the church bell started clanging out 12 noon. It was a clear, round, gorgeous bell sound, not at all like some I’ve heard here (they sometimes sound like someone banging a steel rod against a cast iron kettle, not pleasant at all!). Anyhow, I took this as a sign from God that I should climb up to this village and see about some lunch. So I did! 

First view of Venasque high above the road, as the noon church bells were pealing. Pretty inspiring.

Oddly, there was no cafe or lunch place open in Venasque, just a wine-tasting bar and a boulangerie where you could get bread and pastries, but no lunch food. 

Central fountain - no food to be found! 

Venasque DID have fantastic views of Mount Ventoux, plus some really huge walled ramparts and bastions overlooking the Provence valleys below. I explored, took pics, and headed out. Before going, I looked closer and found there was no way to get to Methamis from Venasque without investing a couple more hours riding. It’s separated from Vensaque by a mountain ridge with no close roads to connect to. So, change plans and head back a different route, through St. Didier! 

Venasque Bastion - do you see the Giant of Provence peeking around the tower?

Another Vensaque view the valleys and Mt. Ventoux looming over all

St. Didier was certainly set up for eating lunch. I found a sidewalk cafe, and settled in for the best Jambon et Fromage (ham and cheese) sandwich EVER. So good, I took a picture of it before devouring the whole thing. Hung out watching the local scene, drinking my beer and munching that sandwich, probably 45 minutes. Then, back on the bike and nailed it for home.

 "BEST HAM AND CHEESE SANDWICH EVER" award to Cafe de Paris, St. Didier, FR. 

I just re-read this, probably the most boring post ever, but what can you say when a day is pretty nice, but nothing too remarkable happened? Lynn made a fantastic supper after getting all kinds of fresh produce and fish at the market today. Before that we spent an hour or so sitting down by the river at our favorite park, reading our books, next to a little waterfall from a sluice that burbled and fell into the regular river flow. What lame stuff you can do when no other responsibilities intrude. It will end eventually; we will enjoy it to the max until then! 

We found a new canal under the streets of Isle tonight

great place to read a book and people-watch in Isle

LINK TO all the photos we took so far, if you'd like to see more:

https://picasaweb.google.com/104261232464745572476/ProvencePhotos?authuser=0&feat=directlink