June 29, 2023
Vaison-la-Romaine to Bourg-saint-Andéol
We were on the road at 10:30 this morning again. It just seems to be our leaving time unless we urgently need to be somewhere. Everyone was in a good mood as we waved goodbye to the campsite host, each with a piece of baguette in hand. We started the only real climb of the day right outside the gate, which was difficult with a mouthful of bread. It was over in less than a kilometre though, and within 3km we passed through the pretty town of Villedieu and stopped for a coffee in the square with all the other cyclists.
If we want to get anywhere, we are probably going to have to break our habit of stopping for a coffee in every cute town we pass through. We only made it another 3km before we passed a farmer selling peaches and apricots out of the trailer of his tractor. So we bought a kilo of apricots and Tobias was talking about sitting up in the tractor for the rest of the day.
By lunchtime we'd covered only 14 of the 55km we needed to ride to get to our apartment, but we had to stop to eat so found a bench in the town of Tulette. Once Tobias was in the trailer and off to sleep we could actually cover some ground and we rode the next 25km in about an hour, stopping only once to fill our bottles. The route was still pretty and quiet. We passed through more vineyards and less olive trees the closer we got to the Rhone river. When we toured in Asia we spent lots of time working out how the production to rice worked, now I find myself thinking lots about some production. The tractors and very narrow and wouldn't be much good on a slope.
Tobias woke up near Lapalud so we stopped for a cold drink and a playground break then joined with the Via Rhone cycle route for the rest of the day. Our original plan was to follow this from Avignon all the way up, so have shorter, flatter, days than we've had for the last 3. The route was fine, and we passed lots more cycle tourists than we have in the last few weeks. But I'm still glad we took the more challenging route to get here. It was only half an hour to Bourg-saint-Andéol but we couldn't check into our house until 5 so we stopped in a bar in the center of town for a beer. The bar tender was so friendly, offering to fill our bidons and trying to give us a free beer when it was time for us to go.
Our apartment is really big and unfortunately on the 3rd floor of the complex without a lift. We did know this before we booked it, and there is a bike cellar downstairs so we only had to carry the bags and the trailer up. We have a day off here tomorrow which is good. We need to sort out our route for the next couple of weeks. It's quite hard work planning on the fly like we have been the last few days because by the time we get to camp, set up, play with Tobias, feed and get him off to bed, do the chores and normal admin it's usually past 9. When we rest we can use his nap and do it before we are ready to fall asleep for the evening.
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Today's ride: 50 km (31 miles)
Total: 1,945 km (1,208 miles)
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