July 17, 2006
Day 19: Villeneuve-les-Avignon - Vallabregues: Avoiding the tourists
After initial problems getting to sleep in the new surroundings, I slept pretty well. When we took the fly off the tent, it was very breezy. It's a great tent for hot weather. Actually everything we bought is excellent for warm, dry weather, we'll see what happens if it gets cold or rains on this trip.
We wake up early but I can't say we get off to an early start. We're still kind of slow at packing our camping gear, the little we have. Within a few days we will be efficient and fast. We have breakfast in the pretty town of Villeneuve-les-Avignon, about 5 km from the campground, and circle around town for a while on our bikes before we head for Avignon, across the river.
Intending to spend the day in Avignon, we look for a campground where we can set up camp and be off sightseeing. What we encounter is incredible. The place is jam packed at 10 a.m. We wait in line at the reception, dripping sweat, it's terribly hot today, and when it's our turn we're told if we hang around for an hour we will be assigned a site when other people check out. When we walk around the campground and see the sites for cyclists and hikers, we know we don't want to stay here. The tents almost touch each other, the whole scene is unappealing, loud, sort of like slum squalor. We've had enough and decide to get out of Avignon as fast as possible, sorry to miss The Popes' Palace. We'll have to come back off season.
That's the nice thing about cycling with a tent, we can just move on and know we'll find a small campground somewhere along the way. Rural France has a greater density of campgrounds than any other country in Europe (my personal statistic, I'm sure I'm not wrong). We haven't considered "wild" camping ... yet. I want a shower or at least a water tap, and a toilet is convenient, too. Maybe next year, when we're more advanced campers.
Around noon we leave Avignon with a sigh of relief and follow the Rhone to Vallabrégues, a sleepy town with a market square shaded by plane trees. The campground here is a family place, the grass is tended, there are hedges and flowers and a little pool for kids to cool off.
It's 37°C in the shade - the newspapers say this is one of the hottest summers on record in Provence. The heat is uncomfortable, especially when there is no breeze, but we're doing okay, not out of commission.
Today's ride: 40 km (25 miles)
Total: 1,111 km (690 miles)
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