In which Sid and Doris go holiday riding along the Durance to the Rhone.
France is having a canicule, a heatwave. For Sid and Doris this is just another hot and sweaty day, we’ve been hot since at least June 13th and probably longer. In fact we haven’t been writing about the weather, because we’ve just got used to the fact that every day we routinely cycle in 30-35’C. We cycle, we sweat, we flog grimly along.
It has felt harder more recently however, maybe because the humidity has been higher.
Today is averagely down to the Rhone and we can generally find the quieter side of the Durance. Sometimes there is holiday riding side by side. Sometimes we have riding with trucks along roads that have plane trees either side. Sounds charming but the trees were planted when trucks, vans and cars were all smaller. For the forest rally fans, this nice poster warning you not to speed.
So we find our fun where we can. We see this elegant 1970s bike in Villelaure, reminding us of two vintage bikes (and their less vintage owners) that we saw in Corinth but, mysteriously, failed to capture on camera. Chapeau to people cycling these bikes.
At Cadenet we thread our way between lovingly-engineered irrigation channels and the railway, rejecting the gravel tracks. This is idyllic riding, the stuff of cycle holiday brochures. The irrigation is beautifully built, dropping almost no height, but always running.
We pause at Charleval where Doris has diverted our route for a close-up look at the petit chateau, a definite contender for the game of “That’s my house”. The square provides onzies and the epitome of Hotels de Ville. In fact it is all slightly spookily perfect and we worry that the local village committee might be a bit over-zealous, hints of Stepford Wives. We tidy up our picnic site including sweeping all the crumbs up in case we are spotted.
At Mallemort we find a new bridge over the Durance and the fun of seeing that the old one has been left to rot.
At Orgon we might have gone into the Musee Automobile de Provence, but it was shut for another hour or so.
In St Remy de Provence, a major UK summer holiday venue, we find the maps we have been looking for and celebrate with excellent ice cream [They NEED a franchise in London – you read it here first – D].
On the way out of town we see Bullitt Racing. With many of our friends starting a week at Monterey Car Week we are going to struggle in any competition in the matter of car of the day. Early on we saw a 60s 911 in a muddy burgundy, a 70s 911 and later a Giallo Ferrari Californian – which looked quite a good way to travel. In Bullit racing we see some good American classics. Doris was a fan of the “Concours de Lemons” in Monterey and nominates several “one owner since new” Citroens.
Tarascon is our stop tonight, on the Rhone. It has a splendidly looming fortress, built 1400 to 1435, which marked the border of France and the Principality of Provence. It has a few pock marks from the bombs dropped in 1944 to pop the Rhone bridges. The nearby town church was not so lucky and required major rebuilding. The fine Romanesque doorway had already fallen to more local vandalism when the carvings were chiselled off in the course of the French Revolution. Yes, the Catholic Church was complicit in the previous regimes but did cutting up the folk carving of their saints advance a better order? (Discuss)
The town Saint is Martha, who offered Christ her home hospitality. When the town was beset by a monster she tamed it. Sid and Doris consider it rather poor form that the townsfolk then killed the tame creature. Seems a bit unnecessary and a waste of an attraction – exhibiting a dragon would probably be even better then being on a pilgrimage route. No idea of the longer term.
We walk around town and muse on the story behind this sign. The obvious answer is that many towns have a Rue du Chateau, and people have been nicking the sign to use on their own roads. The only answer is to label it clearly with TARASCON to prevent such petty pilfering.
With that settled we can relax with beer and olives. While Sid tells his stories Doris looks out the route. There is a danger that we forget this is not easy. The run to the Pyrenees is beset with hill, valley, hill, valley, hot day, small place with no hotel, hill, valley, rinse and repeat – and in the Pyrenees themselves it will be the same story but without the valleys. We can speak the language but we can’t charm the hills into a gentle slope. When you sail the Fastnet there is a temptation to let the watch system drop at the Scilly Isles. It’s a long way to Plymouth, and it still is.