To Bourg St Andeol: With help from the Mistral

September 27, 2015

On this beautiful sunny and still morning it was only us and the fishermen who were out on the riverbank. The cyclists don't come out to near lunchtime. But fishermen in France are a special breed, I think they have a special gene. They sit in a mediative state beside the canal or river with their long rods reaching almost to the other side. There seems to be no concern about ever catching a fish. Though yesterday I saw something exciting one of them actually caught a small fish, that is only the second time in all the cycling we have done in Europe that I have seen this happen. It doesn't seem to bother them though they just sit there.

Cycling along on the hilltop we saw what looked like an ancient and falling down fortified castle. We got closer and it looked more and more intriguing so of course we had to turn off and go into the town of Rochemaure which is a medieval village that dates from the 12th century. It is dominated by the Chateau and its rampants and coming into it it resembles a attractive heap of stones. There was a coffee shop there so we were able to fortify ourselves.

Back on the track our friend the Mistral had started to give us its help along the way. It was also the time that other cyclists had begun to appear. Along the Via Rhona it is interesting that there are a lot of dedicated car parks for it and people park and ride one section - this accounts for the majority of cyclists on it. I was sorry for those going the opposite direction to us, it must have been a real struggle. We crossed on to another island and things began to get a bit crowded. Not only were there cyclists but there were roller bladers and lots of family groups all out enjoying the sunshine and fighting the Mistral or taking advantage of it. What there weren't were touring cyclists. We only saw one other touring cyclist, a man from Montpellier who was completing a circular route around France. Most distressing was seeing a young woman who with her bike had collapsed on the side of the track. Luckily there was a French speaker nearby and a doctor had been called who arrived promptly. It does make you think how vulnerable you are riding these routes - it certainly is good to have someone else with you.

Our destination for the day was Bourg St Andeol, this is another town that looks like an attractive pile of rocks. I think it must be or have been a very holy town as coming in we rode past a group of nuns out for a walk, there is a huge old 16th century church built where previous churches had been and our hotel is Le Hotel le Prieure.

We really are in Provence now and tomorrow we ride to Orange.

The first village we went through, everyone was still asleep

Not such a pretty view. This electrical generating facility had 4 nuclesr cooling towers and 2 wind turbines

The lovely bridge across the Rhone from Rochemaure

Today's ride: 65 km (40 miles)
Total: 2,940 km (1,826 miles)

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