Tarascon—Les Baux—Saint-Remy loop: uphill and down

November 3, 2009

Weather: cloudy

This morning three older Dutch ladies joined us at the breakfast table, and of course they spoke excellent English. They were here for bird-watching in the nearby Camargue and had not brought their bikes along. They said that at home the bicycle was their main form of transportation, and they admitted to owning three bicycles each. Some day we'd like to visit the Netherlands to experience life in such a cycling-centred society. We were enjoying our stay at the Hotel de Provence and had chatted quite a bit with the owners in a mix of French and English. Emmanuelle was originally from Madagascar but had spent a year in Canada, so she spoke English very well. We knew that she and her French husband, Stephane, did everything themselves at the hotel, but were still surprised to see him cleaning the rooms one day.

The quirky staircase leading to the reading room in the Hotel de Provence.

After breakfast we walked over to the weekly market which stretched for blocks through the centre of town, with an impressive number of booths selling a variety of food, clothing and household goods. Tarascon has a large North African immigrant population, and we had noticed young men hanging out at the bars and kabob places, but today for the first time we saw the women, wearing headscarves, out in force to do the shopping.

We collected our bikes from the hotel and headed out of town toward Les Baux de Provence and the first real hills of our tour. Les Baux is one of the most picturesque villages in France, spectacularly positioned in the Alpilles mountains atop a rocky outcrop and crowned with a ruined castle. Its name refers to its site--in the Provençal language, a baou is a rocky spur. The village, built around the ruined castle, gives its name to the aluminium ore, bauxite, which was first discovered there in 1821, and mined extensively in the area until the end of the 20th century when it had been completely worked out; France now imports most of its bauxite from west Africa.

The roads were very quiet today, with a car passing us only every 20 minutes or so. The climb to Les Baux was about 200 metres, but the grade was gradual and not a problem, especially since we had no weight on the bikes. As we got closer to the village, we passed bus parking spots along the road which fortunately were all empty. The tiny village of Les Baux is indeed very picturesque, but extremely touristy, with one souvenir shop after another and overpriced restaurants and cafes. This time of year there were hardly any visitors, but we could imagine what it must be like in the high season. We walked our bikes through the town and up as far as the ruined castle, but didn't linger.

We left town on a quiet road leading to Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, and got a terrific view of Les Baux from across the valley with the white bauxite hills all around. Unfortunately the day was cloudy so the light was not particularly good for taking photos. We could hardly complain though, after our many days of sunshine, and no rain at all since the Loire. A long downhill run took us into Saint-Rémy where Vincent Van Gogh spent the last year of his life at the town's mental hospital. We felt lucky to find Mistral Gourmand, a small restaurant in the centre of town, where we slid into the last two available seats for an excellent lunch of troute meuniere with zucchini flan.

The view back across the valley at Les Beaux as we climbed up to the pass.

Stopping to look at the view and quarries along the very quiet road. Only two cars passed us all the way to St. Remy.

After lunch we rode a different route along leafy tree-lined lanes and arrived back in Tarascon in time to tour the chateau, which turned out to be very impressive and much bigger than it looks from outside the walls. We climbed winding stone staircases through large apartments inside the castle right up onto the roof, with a great view of the Rhone and surrounding countryside.

The towers of the citadel in Tarascon - a former expression of the power of the Papacy.

From the outside the castle looks blocky and monolithic, but there is a large inner courtyard that provided light to all the apartments which faced it.

The view from the roof, with the Rhone flowing by below, was extensive.

Today's ride: 50 km (31 miles)
Total: 549 km (341 miles)

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