We're coming to the end of our time in L’Isle sur la Sorgue, and determined to make the most of every remaining day. Today's plan was for me to bike to some new towns, and meet Lynn out there for a late lunch, sightsee, then motor back home the slow way. A very nice lady we met yesterday in Orange insisted we needed to see the hilltop town of Roussillon, because of it’s unique ochre (ocre in FR) colored cliffs, dirt, and houses. The color is apparently prized by artists, as there are artist supply studios making colors and tints from the local materials. So, we went to see!
I biked out of L’Isle, and headed east on what’s become my “traditional” route through Lagnes, Cabrieres-de-Avignon, and worked my way to my favorite mountain town, GORDES. Fantastic country scenery on the way, lots of good hard climbing to the hilltop communities, and hardly any motor traffic. I tried to invent a new route, got lost, and was able to have a conversation with three young guys building a traditional loose-stone fence at a beautiful new house. My terrible French wasn't much help, and they spoke no English, but once again the “velo” language connected us! I got going the right direction, and learned a bit about their fence building.
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| Last trip through Gordes, so one last pic to remember the view forever |
Stopped at the Gordes overlook for one last picture - man, that is just the most picturesque place in Provence, IMHO. A nice guy took my picture, so I have one from the first ride I took in Provence, and a similar one for the end of our trip. Great bookend pics!
After climbing to Gordes (which was having market day again, so crowds and traffic in excess on the mountain), I continued climbing north out of Gordes and eventually reached a new town (for me): MURS. It’s also a hilltop town, but not as scenic or renowned. beautiful to see these ancient buildings being used for modern purpooses. I bet the Ecole I passed was several hundred years old, with students laughing and playing in the schoolyard with no thought to the history of their building. An artist was set up on the roadside, painting a view of the town…so I stopped and took a pic of that view! Then, fast descent, and at the bottom of the hill I met some local cyclists filling their water bottles from what looked like an old Roman fountain.They told me it was “eau potable”, so I filled up too. Icy cold, clear … one of the guys told me it was “Eau de la Source”… water from the source. I guess from a spring; whatever it was, it was welcome.
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| MURS - pretty hill town from the back view |
ROUSSILLON was the last hill town today, and I rode in on the “back” side. The first view of Roussillon showed the ocre-colored mountain and surrounding terrain. Very unusual here, as the Provence area is predominately limestone. so, most of the homes, fences, structures, and materials you see are a light sandy limestone color. Here, reddish-brown was the color theme, of the natural surroundings AND the homes built from these materials.
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| First view of Roussillon from bike |
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| Roussillon cliff in National Park next to town and our lunch cafe! |
I biked on into town, up a steep road of course, and found NARROW town streets - even micro-size cars could not pass each other. All traffic required patience and courtesy to take turns driving either direction through the town. What a treat! I found the outdoor cafe where Lynn had snagged us a table with a valley and ocre-cliff view, and ended my biking with a nice beer! We stayed at this place for lunch, even ordered fries (Sacre Bleu!), and I continued my search for the best ham and cheese (jambon et fromage) sandwich in France. This one WAS pretty good…
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| Fromage et Jambon pour moi, s'il vous plait |
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| More of our cafe view in Roussillon. It was majestic! |
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| More Ocre cliffs! |
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| Roussillon behind us, it's a redder-brown color than all our other pics of hill towns |
Lynn’s day was completely different! She stayed in L’Isle while I biked out, and did some household shopping at the SUPER-U, got us some meat at the boucherie, gassed up the car, and then drove out to meet up with me at Roussillon. Her route was more direct and less scenic. After I changed out of my bike clothes, we walked Roussillon, saw the beautiful views, then found an old cemetery at the top of the hill overlooking town. It was pretty inside, so we explored the cemetery and sights. Interesting that so many graves have beautiful porcelain flowers and plaques on them, with personal messages from family members and embossed photos of the deceased. We started to feel creepy sightseeing in a graveyard, so went back to looking at scenery.
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| Cemetery high above Roussillon |
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| Lynn at Cemetery |
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| Hi from the OCRE capital of France! |
After our lunch and sightseeing at Roussillon, we drove back home together, taking my route through Murs and Gordes. The countryside is just wonderful, we can’t get enough of it. There are grape vineyards, olive groves, and other products being grown on working farms and huge estates all over the mountains here. Weather is perfect and mild most of the year, rain is sparse, sun is ever-present, roads are small and uncrowded, and life seems pretty good. Beautiful homes are all over in the Provencal style, of limestone and pastel colors. Sure, we can understand why a lot of the world wants to live in the south of France!
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| Lynn's day started here - the supermarket! |
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