July 1, 2023
Bourg-saint-Andéol to Taulignan
The weather was clear in the morning, though cooler than it has been for a while and with a strong headwind. The sun came out from behind the clouds by the time we reached Pierrelatte though. Biggest highlight for Tobias in Pierrelatte was the tiny supermarket trollies in the Aldi. He charged around the supermarket but was surprisingly careful and didn't actually hit anyone or anything.
From Pierrelatte we headed across the canal and spotted La-Garde-Adhémar ahead of us. Its an impressive town on a hill and was a pretty hefty climb to reach it. We got there just before 12 and parked up on some seats near the church for lunch. There were some great views down across the valley and we could still see Ventoux.
After lunch we had a short descent then a whole afternoon of climbing directly into a pretty fierce headwind. Besides the hills, the route was great and followed mostly quiet, scenic, country roads.
Tobias woke up just before Grignan, so we stopped there for a coffee and an ice-cream. There were an awful lot of car parks, but not so many people around. At one point someone was making some very strange poses in front of our bikes. He did eventually come say hi and it turns out some Belgians at a campground had mentioned us to him and then 2 days later they actually managed to run into us.
From Grignan it was more uphill and more headwind towards Taulignan. I had the route pinned right in the centre of town until I got the actual address from our warmshowers host, but I forgot to take that out once we knew we were staying a bit past the town. It was okay because it was a pretty town to look around, but there were some very steep narrow streets and one flight of stairs to contend with.
Damien and Naómie live not far out of town with their 4 and almost 1 year old sons. Tobias was instantly at home with Léon's toys and we didn't have to do much in the way of parenting all evening. We convinced him to come for a swim in their pool with us so that we didn't have to clean him, but after 5 minutes he asked if he could go back to the toys. They are renovating the house where Damien grew up and it's in such a beautiful location among the trees. We sat out in the trees eating a late dinner and after all the kids were in bed sat up drinking some of Damien's uncles hydromel. It was very interesting talking to completely different people from a completely different place and finding how similar we are doing things.
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Today's ride: 35 km (22 miles)
Total: 1,980 km (1,230 miles)
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