May 8, 2023
Carpentras - Tarascon
First we say good-bye to Susan who is going her own way now. What a terrific week we had together. She is such an excellent companion, helpful, calm when the married couple gets a bit stressed with each other, organizer of meals at restaurants, remembering passwords for the admittance to hotels. We are on our own now. Thanks, Susan, for being such a great friend.
This is possibly the day with the most kilometers, stress, wrong turns, bad decisions on planning the route, hottest sun, a serious sun allergy on my legs, heated discussions between Janos and me... Let me see, what else? I am writing this more than a month later but fortunately have my notes to refresh my memory. I don't hang on to the unpleasant stuff for long.
Of course the day isn't all bad. Our ride starts out fine, we find our way out of Carpentras easily. The day is sunny, very sunny and by the end of the day I will have had too much sun. Our first stop is in Monteux for a few pictures.
We trust the route I revised last night, now paralleling the highway, when all of a sudden it ends in a patch of scotch broom. That is about 20 kilometers into the ride. Actually, the route created by Komoot went on the four lane highway and not on the small road next to it but I hadn't noticed that. We backtrack to Monteux, it's noon and we aren't far from where we started. We create a completely new route on the fly. Now we are looking to follow the bicycle routes marked on Open Cycle Maps that I originally discarded as being too long.
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Today is not only sunny, it is windy. We thought we would have the strong mistral - I guess it is mistral - at our backs. It turns out to be a cross wind most of the time. To get on our newly designed route, we pedal six kilometers on a road with too many cars and no shoulder and the wind is whipping us. We reach the Via Venaissia bike path, nice and although it's a bit dull I would gladly ride it to our destination for the day. We have some nice scenery and the wind isn't always a battle.
It's hot but all goes smoothly until we reach Chateauneuf-du-Pape where we lose each other. I have the new route on my phone, Janos doesn't. Janos follows the signs, I follow the route on Komoot. I am convinced we must take a round-about route to reach a bridge over the Rhone. After several Whatsapp calls and riding back up some hills, we locate each other. We are both beginning to feel very stressed and I am definitely not making very good decisions on what roads to take any more and for some reason Janos is letting me have my way. We get to the Rhone and I am too put out to even take a picture of the river or the bridge.
The pictures today are of the nice parts.
Re-routing on the Komoot app works pretty well, except it doesn't count the kilometers correctly any more. It looks like this is going to be a 95-kilometer day. Janos worries his battery won't last and his chain is making unsettling sounds. Did I mention that today is a holiday and of course nothing is open if he does need an emergency repair? Early on in the day we found an open restaurant for a light meal. Thank goodness for that.
We are finally on the Rhone bike path heading toward Avignon. It's not all flat but no giant climbs either , just enough to worry Janos that his battery won't last to the end of the day. We leave the bike path and its extra kilometers and take to the more direct and flatter D-2, sometimes okay, sometimes not. Once in a while I bail out and get on the bicycle path while Janos waits where it will again intersect with the busy road he is sticking to.
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Avignon behind us, Janos convinces me to get on a D road once again, a good decision for the final 20 kilometers to Tarascon. It has a fine shoulder, few cars, is flat and we benefit from the only really true tailwind of the day. We are beginning to feel happy again.
In Tarascon we have a hard time finding our B&B. After walking our bikes through some construction sites, we find our private room in a small alley with old buildings that are sadly in need of renovation. The neighborhood doesn't look too prosperous. From the outside it looks like we will probably have to climb narrow stairs and I am wondering where we will be able to store our bikes. I ring the bell, a pleasant woman of 70 or so comes to greet us and shows us into our room on the ground floor, our bikes can stay in the wide hallway. Our room opens onto a patio with a fig tree, palm trees, oleander, a banana tree, calla lilies, cactus and an orange tree.
We don't change our clothes but are off for a meal almost immediately. The only restaurant that is open today is a pizzeria. We are thankful for pizzerias.
We get a closer look at the room when we get back. Everything is rather old and shabby, probably furnished with second-hand items or furniture salvaged from grandma. Who cares, the water flows down the drain, which hasn't always been the case in pricier hotels, and there are enough outlets to recharge our devices. We shower and sleep.
Today's ride: 86 km (53 miles)
Total: 382 km (237 miles)
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