March 21, 2015
Across Provence To Cote d'Azur: The Rhone To Nice.
Wednesday
I still have horrible stomach cramp, though no sickness: I eat porridge for breakfast. I've been up earlier than usual; welcomed by the sun's rays breaking over the hills around six-thirty. And rolling at five to eight. The final way into Carpentras is bumpy urban street doing little for my ailment.
I stop in the main place in the centre with a fountain and benches underneath mature beech trees where old men stand around chatting. I have already called at a drive-in boulangerie, so now I need coffee and to use a cafe's toilets. The café appears posh, old fashion with claret awning and sophisticated cliental peering over the morning paper at me dragging myself in like the proverbial cat. The walls velvety with old black and white framed photographs. I order a café crème and ask the woman behind the bar in simple French "toilet?" She points me upstairs "les escalors et le droite" The toilet is an old swat type, still common in Morocco. I consider myself comparatively young and fit, but if I were extremely unfit or physically disable someway, I would need help; as it is, it is difficult aiming for the small hole. I miss and soil the flush outlet which I try cleaning, but the brush is disgusting, looking like it has never been cleaned since new, so I leave embarrassed. On the landing back down I stop and muse at two young ladies from the nineteen-twenties with short-bobbed hairstyles turned in at the neck, sat round a café-table and smiling sweetly out of a black and white framed picture at me.
I stop at Lidl on the way out of town. Today's lunch will be simple food as not to irritate the stomach more, which is feeling much better. I go for a tub of couscous with some red and green pepper bits and dressed in vinegarette, a yogurt for afters and carbonated water to drink.
I take D938 south to L'isle Sur Sorgue, stopping at another drive-in boulangerie on the long urban stretch in; buying a marzipan filled almond croissant and snacking on it outside by the shop's delivery cargo-bike. The town centre as the name may imply has a river-like a canal along it's principal street lined with pavement cafes. And by a stone-bridge carrying the main through-route, a cascade where the river falls sideways into and along a second canal-café street.
The D900 toward Apt, a dead straight road toward blue-ridge foothills, has no shoulder and too many cars and commercial vehicles flying by, that I feel at peril. There were cyclists earlier on D938, but none on this road. Then just when I'm thinking it's time for lunch, I come to a picnic place with a car park and wood barrier to stop vehicles entering a path onward; a cycle-route called Veloroute Du Calavon after the river along the valley.
A pleasant alternative and sociable with cyclists young and old, in lycra and on racers, or ordinaries and in civvies; single riders, couples and larger groups; with a friendly bonjour greeting whenever meeting or passing.
Shortly after two I arrive at a high but narrow sandstone humpback bridge with three arches over the Calavon. The interpretation board in French and English reads: There has been a bridge here since Roman times, but the original of stone with timber walkway not far above the water-level, was washed away in flooding. The present bridge has a central arch sixteen metres above the water-level...... I don't recall it mentioning when the present bridge was built, but appears to be from the seventeen hundreds and perhaps in use for motor traffic up to the sixties when the modern concrete one was opened nearby.
I didn't lunch at that initial picnic place as the tables were occupied, so now I wheel the bike down the bank from the bridge approach to the grassy riverbank to sit and eat the couscous under a tree. It is good having running water. I empty my kitchen pannier out on the grass and take all my utensils to the river and give them a good scrub as they've become grimy: the chopping-board has mould. Perhaps my lack of hygiene is what gave me stomach ach. Also the jar of pasta sauce bough yesterday and not opened, mysteriously opened itself and spilled all over the inside of the pannier, so I take the pannier to the river too and rinse out the inside. Then return and lay it on the grass propped open by a bottle to dry with the other things in the sun.
All the time cyclists pass, most pausing moments on the bridge, but as I begin packing up, some car sightseers turn up springing down the bank to look at the bridge underneath. I do likewise and take photos. On returning to the bike an attractive young Asian woman approaches down from the road. She makes eye contact with me and I turn away shyly to the bike. Next I hear her giggle and see her in the corner of my eye bound further down until behind me and say something. Is she talking to me? Then she gets my attention and come forward. She hand me her phone and requests I take her photo with the bridge. I make a clumsy job with the touch-scream. Nothing happens. She playfully come over and fingers a physical button on the side. This time it works and she poses with head slanted, then slanted the other way for another, standing with feet planted apart then half turning and looking back for another shot. She come back and I hand her the phone. She views the photos and cackles contently. "Ah thank yaw!" she announces and turns and hops light footed away and is gone again in an instant.
The cycle-route continues through Apt. Now in wooded foothills, the town fills the valley. Then continues intermittently with D900 toward Forcalquier at first. The last bit along a rural road that turns uphill winding up a few switch-backs to reach a village called Cereste, wherein I descend steeply down the main thoroughfare and not finding the cycle-route on, retake to D900 for the remaining hour of the day; getting to a track at the bottom of a hill going down to a river bank where I camp by a bridge.
Thursday
I was working late in the tent trying to work my way round the netbook's low disc capacity. I've taken tons of pictures, but it is no longer possible to upload photos to my computer. I counter by looking at other options and find out, with the camera memory card in the card-reader slot at the front of the netbook, when the "AutoPlay" engine or whatever pops up, I can press "view photos", which allows me to view and edit the photos I've taken and store those journal-ready pictures on the camera memory card. So now when I go online I'll try uploading these directly from camera card to Crazy Guy page.
It was a clear starry evening and chilly by the time I've finished and once I've made and eaten dinner, I get into the sleeping-bag to warm up. I take out the book but don't open it. I'm too tired to do anything else but sleep. Waking shortly after six the tent fly-sheet is stiff with frost. Though thaws near enough instantly once the sun breaks over the hills.
There's no sign of life this morning at the house directly across the river from my campsite, as I push back up to the road and ride over the bridge and past the house's road-frontage. I hadn't seen the house at first when I wheeled the bike down from the road yesterday as the whole river area at the bottom of the valley is shrouded in shrub and tree foliage, but having seen it, I take cover behind a large clump of shrubs and put my tent up on what is perhaps the most level spot on the riverbank.
It is climbing all the way to Forcalquier to arrive in the main hilltop square at twenty past nine, flanked by cathedral and stately old buildings: the Mare and Hotel de Ville and lined with pavement cafes. I see the camera battery icon is flashing, depleted, needing charged. I look at post cards on a stand outside a paper shop. I chose one with a Citroen 2CV with a background of lavender and go in and pay. Then call at boulangerie and afterwards sit outside on a stone eating second breakfast of quiche and pan au raison. Then coffee. The first café I look in has no customer electricity outlets, but the next has them just about everywhere, so I take a table by the open window front and plug in. I also bough a map when buying the card: the Michelin orange regional: Provence-Alpes-Cote D'Azur. Although showing everything in a lot more detail, it doesn't show many more roads that aren't on the red whole country map. I spend an hour over coffee, writing notes and the post card and leave with the camera a third charged, enough for a couple of days of conservative use. I cross the square to the post office and send the card, then set off down the hill stopping and stocking up at Intermarche on the way out of town.
Early afternoon on road D907 to Bras d'Asse is boring, rising and falling sharply through a tight river valley with steep rising scrubby pine hills enclosing either side with only a narrow strip of lavender fields on the right along the valley floor. The only view out is a lofty snowy mountain ahead.
I reach the aforementioned place two-ish, a hamlet but with picnic tables at a community centre to the left before the bridge where I lunch. Once moving again I cross over the long bridge and up a rise into a crossroads village deserted in mid-afternoon and turn right, signposted "Gorge du Verdon". The way winds steeply up to a flat plateau with open lavender and brown cultivated fields either side and faint distant chunky grey rock escarpment and a conical peak which appears to have a bite out of the top, both emerging over the level horizon ahead and would be my view for the remainder near enough of the day, growing more distinct, until the road drops down a long descent into said gorge. At the bottom I see a cycle-route sign point right, local road C1 and so take it. It narrows off to a vehicle wide asphalt path and winds steeply up through pine trees, is an extremely tough gradient on each bend until I emerge needing a rest back up on the cultivate plain, which I duly do in a layby a short way along from the crest.
The narrow road ahead as I ride toward dusk meanders with open cropland to the right and to the left, sapling woodland still with last year's crisp brown leaves attacked, and soon the woodland thins out to reveal, a great drop down to the emerging sheet of water which is Lac de Saint Croix with the bitten off conical mountain now large on the far side.
This evening's campsite is in a woodland track where the road turns a little away from the the gorge rim and a wider belt of trees reappears.
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Friday
The sun rises directly opposite where it set the evening before, a day now before the Spring equinox, meaning there's equal daylight hours to darkness
I pack up and rake up the pressed down leaves of the tent's footprint, leaving no trace that I've camped and am on the road before eight. Just ahead is a farm with a roadside campsite board at the drive end, so free camping about may be frowned upon. Up on the plateau rim where I ride is as well inside the Verdon national park boundary making unauthorised camping a no-no here too.
Further I descend sharply to the narrow outflow of the lake and cross over a long bridge. A bit further the lake ends at a hydroelectric dam in a narrow ravine and having turned right off the bridge toward Aups, I climb looking down to the right into a deeper narrower ravine, the Verdon continuing therein between two walls of weathered rock.
The road D9 levels out, drops a bit then climbs again to Baudinard Sur Verdon. Riding into the village, a ginger cat jumps from a garden wall and springs across the road without looking for traffic. No wonder so many are killed on the road with such reckless disregard for road safety. Moments later the same cat is seen prowling gingerly along over cobblestones towards pigeons.
Heading for Aups and then on to Dranignan, I've decided against the small cornice road along the Gorge du Verdon, which would take a lot of time, as I want to get to Grasse and have a day or two off the bike.
I ride on nondescript road all day with head down as it is about a hundred and twelve kilometres and will take me all my time getting there by nightfall. I arrive at twilight. The tourist office is shut and the town map outside has no Auberges des Jeunesse symbol. In cities in Northern France they are usually signposted but not here. I think Grasse has a hostel as I stayed in one here in the nineties. Anyway hotel alternatives look pricy, so I ride on out off town on the road to Nice. The road is urban with streetlights with steep rising ground on the left enclosed by walls, trees and garden foliage with gateways up to expensive houses at regular intervals. And the same on the right, falling away steeply with steep drives down to more expensive houses. Then I come to an Auberge on the right with two stars on a street sign, so think it may be reasonably priced. Through the glass door the patron stares at me and bike, perplexed as I halt by the entrance on the house's gable side, down a drive one storey below road level. Then opens up with an inquiring look upon his face. I ask is there a free room and he replies yes. I ask how much and he replies "wait a moment". He goes in and returns out moments later and says "sixty-nine euros". I state it is too much and he asks, "what is your price?" "Thirty?" "Sorry, I can't do it"
I keep going. But not far until I come to a bit of a layby on the right, which when I investigate, find it leads to a dilapidated steep driveway down. Halfway down I lean the bike and walk further down, between gate posts with gates missing, overgrown in vines: a vertical bank also overgrown in vines and shrubs rises up to the road on my right. I am in a narrow yard with the flat stone base of a demolished house to the left. And from what was the vehicle parking front of the once house, I walk across the floor with grass growing in divisions, and out across a patio into a large garden at the rear with clumps of dwarf palms and shrubbery left uncared for for a long time, and the remains of flowerbeds full of grasses and wildflowers. The house looks as if it wasn't knocked down yesterday or last year, or five years ago. More like twenty or thirty years as there is no trace of resent groundwork activity. And what is more the nearest house is well away. A real good find. I return up for the bike and come back and set up the tent on what was the lawn.
Saturday
In the morning I wonder why the house was knocked down and why this place has remained vacant for what looks like so long. I wonder about the people that once lived here. I imagine it was the sixties or seventies. Who were they? Could some notorious crime have been committed here. A brutal sadistic murder or murders all those years ago; captivating society into disgust and condemnation, that no estate agent could ever put it on the market and hope to sell it.
I continue on to Nice and am now staying in a nice hostel, having my few days off, doing the usual, journaling, looking at the route ahead, looking around town, checking the bike, clothes washing, relaxing. Relaxing! When?
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Today's ride: 311 km (193 miles)
Total: 1,714 km (1,064 miles)
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