Bonnieux

July 12, 2003

For a fairly short tour, our month-long tour of Corsica and Provence produced a considerable number of our most enduring cycling memories, ones we’ve often shared with others and reminisced over together with each other. Today’s ride through the Luberon includes some of those memories - especially the blooming lavender at Senanque Abbey, and our sweltering night in that small room in Bonnieux that forced us to wrestle our mattress out onto our balcony for the night so we wouldn’t expire from the heat wave, as thousands of others actually did that summer.

Surprisingly though, I can’t quite piece together the route we followed. The one I’ve sketched out must be generally right, but it seems sketchy to me somehow. I have a few fixed points I’m sure we biked to: Senanque Abbey obviously from the photographs. Also the Beaumettes even though there’s no photo of it, because I clearly remember recognizing it from our first visit ten years earlier. But don’t remember riding to Senanque Abbey as an out and back, even though I can’t see a through option to L’Ile sur Sorgue that looks plausible. And there are no photos of Gordes, which I’m sure we at least saw in the distance as we did a decade earlier. And did we also pass through Menerbes and Lacoste this year? I think so but can’t be sure.

I can’t really get it back. Memory is blurred by our visit in 1993, and none of the obvious routes quite makes sense. Maybe we swung by Gordes and the abbey on the following day on the way to Roussillon? That doesn’t seem right either, and is refuted by the order in which the photographs were stored. Really, I should have kept up with that journal.

A borie, east of L’Ile-sur-Sorgue. I’m glad of this photo, as it brings back the memory of riding through this dry, hilly oaken environment on such a hot day. I can remember being delighted to see this structure and walking around it in the brush trying to find the best angle and lighting for a shot on such a bright day. And of course being careful how many shots I allowed myself to preserve our few rolls of film.

Near the Baumettes along the Calavon I’m pretty sure, from the exposed ridge in the background. We must have biked past this same spot last fall, on our way to Apt.

Gordes, from our tour in 1993. We only viewed it from a distance then but this time I remember that we actually rode into and through the town, so maybe it was on route to Roussillon? Possibly.

I’m not sure about this, but I think it must be shot from Bonneaux looking west to Lacoste. If so, the large building crowning it would be the Marquis de Sade’s chateau.

Heart

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Today's ride: 35 miles (56 km)
Total: 852 miles (1,371 km)

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