Day 62 : Lapalud to Avignon

November 7, 2022

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We were left to fend for ourselves in the large old house, as we woke up around dawn (which is not all that early in this season) to get the show on the road. Pretending that we lived here, even for an hour, was rather a fun thing to do.

The old kitchen (with modern appliances).

Here we are outside, almost ready to go.

Most streets in Lapalud looked like this one.

Some standalone houses off the man square.

Partly it's the early sun, but houses are starting to have southern "juice" colouring.

We hit the nearest bakery to fill up the food bag for the day. Lapalud has three bakeries.

We were quickly out of Lapalud and immediately reveling in some of the things that Provence is much known for. That would be sunflowers, lavender, figs, and apples, in the order we ran into them:

There were many fields of lavender, some extremely large. In this season, the plants have been cut down to clumps. Even without flowers they still have a lavender hue.

Here is part of a long line of fig trees. Our friend Marvin would like to see these!

No actual figs to be seen at this season.

Oh look, they forgot to pick these apples! (Actually, harvesting crates were being assembled.)

We also experienced or thought about some physical parts of our route. For example we ran into the Via Venaissia, which is a rail trail from Orange to Isle Sur La Sorgues and Robion. It is 60 km long, and overlaps with Via Rhona and EV 8 over about half that distance.

Mont Ventoux again. Next time, we say, we will go for a closer look.

Here our route passed under National 7. Clearly this route no longer quite offers the romantic holiday jaunt of 60 years ago. There is a National 7 museum in Piolenc, but we gave it a miss this time.

This is only the second half of a long suspension bridge. I hoped it was rigid enough to not raise Dodie's heart rate, but no, it swayed quite enough for her.

When we came through here in 2017, on our way to Santiago Compostella, we wrote that the signage of Via Rhona totally fell apart at Pont Saint Esprit. This was totally not the case this time. In fact there seemed to be lots of quite newly paved pathway, plus all kinds of signage.

The last time, I am sure the trail went down the Ardeche side, and that we crossed to river on the bridge at Avignon to get into the city. But now the route stays on the east side, and passes through Orange, as well as Chateauneuf du Pape. This is an advantage, because those two places are well worth visiting, but there is a killer disadvantage, that we will get to.

I had no preconceptions about Orange, but I struggled throughput our whole visit to get a grip on how it was laid out and what it was all about. We started with a long run down what turned out to be National 7, minus the trucks. It was terribly nondescript, as you see below.

The N7 did lead to the Arc de Triumph, not Napoleon's, but one erected by the Romans in the first century. It depicts victories by the Roman armies at the edges of the Empire.

I tried to make some sense of the carvings on the Arc, but they seemed very jumbled, and weirder than even the one in Paris.

Eventually we got to downtown Orange, and found a jumble of small streets, a cathedral hard to spot in the jumble, and surprisingly almost all shops shut. I asked a lady about this, and she said that Monday here is a day of rest. They must be resting up from so much resting on Sunday!

The hard to spot cathedral - is closed for renovation.

We did find this square, which perhaps is the heart of town.

A big thing about Orange is it Roman heritage. Just off downtown there is a huge amphitheatre and other remnants. It is very impressive to see such a large structure, and to realize that it is 2000 years old.

Look at this huge intact wall. It's a block long.

Another good thing in Orange was that we found the post office, allowing Dodie to mail some postcards. We had searched in vain for a mailbox all day.

After a suitable amount of wandering around central Orange, we realized that we had no idea how to get out of town and back on the track. To boot, Dodie's GPS was not finding satellites, and even with some was jumping all over the place. We pulled put our backup phone and plotted a route to the route. It was about 5 km, and took us through additional boring parts of town.

Once we regained the track, we were on the way to Chateauneuf du Pape. which is about 10 km from Orange. After about half way something dramatic happened. The terroir changed, literally before our eyes. We began climbing, and things felt warmer and dryer. We spotted more Mediterranean looking herbal plants, and even cactus, and pomegranate. Then came the vines, with their feet completely covered in rounded stones. It was a unique and wonderful world. We stopped and ate our sandwiches, sitting on some large stones, and with a view of a beautiful wine estate. Then we swooped down, in among the rock covered vines. It was a wonderful experience.

Cactus signals a different local climate.

Looking back, we have climbed quite a bit.

Yes, we definitely are now in Chateauneuf

Growing in this must give the vines character.

Soon we could see what we took to be the "Chateauneuf"

This was the high point of the day, literally. And in my naive mind I envisioned a triumphal and easy descent into the medieval city of Avignon, where we would lodge soon and elegantly at our Kyriad Hotel, right beside the Papal palace.

What an idiot! What actually lay before us was about 15 km of roundabouts, traffic, and confusing signage. We twisted and fought our way through, eating up three hours to cover the distance.

At last we arrived at the city walls. Now this is impressive. The walls are mostly intact and completely encircle the whole old city. We followed along for about 1 km outside the wall, before choosing our gate and making a bee line for the palace and our hotel.

We may have passed through 15 km of icky suburbs, but that did not make the walled city just a little nugget at the centre. Rather, once we were inside the wall, we found ourselves in a rather large city. But the character was much different than outside the wall. Here there were a lot of people walking, some shouting. There was street food for sale, and impressive buildings. I got stashed outside a bakery, and photographed some of the architecture.

We carried on into a square, and beyond that, our Hotel of the Palace of the Popes. Only thing, the hotel appeared to be a ruin, mostly. We looked for an entrance, but it was all locked up. Curious. Then I spotted a Kyriad sign back in the square. A phone call confirmed that yes, that modest building was our place. I have not yet delved into why on Booking, they called themselves the hotel Palais des Papes. Some sort of cruel hoax? But we are here in our very modest small room, gearing up for tomorrow's buffet breakfast in the modest small breakfast room. They told us they also have a group of 45 that will be there, so it could get ugly!

The hotel that somehow is not ours, by the palace.

Today's ride: 75 km (47 miles)
Total: 2,811 km (1,746 miles)

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Scott AndersonCheck your email. We’ll be in Arles tonight.
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