In which Sid and Doris take the high road to Vaison’s music festival.
Those who like a map challenge should be able to see where this is…
… and as the sign on the left says, it is a Route remarquable. And as the stone explains involves nine kilometres of up.
Laborel is home to this enthusiast’s (difficult to know just where to put the apostrophe) museum.
There seems to be no one on the road until around 11.30 at the top (1,304 metres) Belgians, Germans and French are streaming up from the other side, their minders having set up a coffee wagon.
The route was more important in the 14th century when there was an extra Pope in Avignon and Montauban would have been a normal stopping point. To show how vital this tiny byway was, in 1860 the Buis to Orpierre road was designated the ‘great communication route number 15’. Though the road is now only important to Col bagging cyclists, in 1955 Bothy McWeevil’s French cousin, Pierre Mesquin, renamed it the Route of the Princes of Orange.
Here is holiday riding and Provençal scenery in the Ouveze valley.
And at Mollans sur Ouveze this tiny chapel ….
… is in here on the bridge with its Bar du Pont.
The approach to Vaison la Romaine is via Inter Sport as Doris’s kit is getting a bit shabby (or mesquin) and besides we need more inner tubes.
Vaison is en fete with a music festival. The room at the Hotel Burrhus (explanation to follow) looks over the main square with maximum boogie in the centre of now (as Dubai readers will recognise).