Carpentras to Orange via Chateauneuf-du-Pape: an eventful day

October 30, 2011

WEATHER: sunny, warm, beautiful again!

After breakfast we packed up our panniers and hauled everything downstairs to load the bikes. Al stuck the room key, which was attached to a small stuffed teddy bear, into the middle back pocket of his jersey as we left the room with our arms full. Eva checked out, we bid farewell to the friendly receptionist and took off out of Carpentras towards the celebrated wine village of Chateauneuf-du-Pape. The sun was shining and the temperature was plenty warm enough for cycling shorts.

The approach to Chateauneuf-du-Pape along quiet roads.

We cycled west through rural areas with vineyards, pastureland, and fields with the remaining stalks from harvested sunflowers. The terrain was quite flat at first, there was no wind and hardly any traffic. The last few kilometres before lunch were uphill into the very picturesque village of Chateauneuf-du-Pape. In contrast to the roads we had been cycling on, the village centre was relatively crowded with pedestrians toting cameras. We settled ourselves at a table on the south-facing terrasse of a small bar à vin and ordered large salads for lunch. The sun was so warm that we had to trade places part way through to toast our other sides. It was so comfortable that we had to make a special effort to actually get up and move on.

We had to keep trading seats to keep from roasting on one side.

We walked our bikes up the steep main street towards the ruined chateau until we reached the pedestrian-only stairs, and then rode out and around to the automobile entrance. It was very windy up on top, and there were views all down the Rhone to Avignon and the Palais des Papes, and back east towards Mt. Ventoux and Les Dentelles. This would be our last view of Mt. Ventoux for this trip. There were only two walls left of the chateau, but it was still impressive, and surrounded by the celebrated vineyards that produce the very expensive wine of the same name.

One of the remaining walls of the chateau.

Our route north through the vineyards toward Orange.

We headed north through those vineyards, mostly downhill towards Orange. About four kilometres outside of the town, just after the quiet road had turned into a busier one, Eva heard a loud noise as she tried to (and couldn't) shift into a higher gear. She yelled ahead to Al and pulled off the narrow road at the bottom of a driveway. While Eva envisaged a search for a bicycle shop in Orange and expensive and time-consuming repairs, Al checked over her bike and discovered that a small bolt had loosened and flown out of the derailleur. First he tried replacing it with a spare water-bottle bolt, but it didn't fit, so he decided to walk back along the road and look for the original bolt. This was rather like searching for a needle in a haystack, because Eva hadn't stopped right away, the bolt was black and the road was black, and the shoulder of the road was quite fractured with plenty of crevices to hide a small object. Against all odds, with traffic whizzing by, he found it several hundred metres back in the middle of the tarmac. We were both delighted, and in short order the derailleur was fixed and we continued into the centre of Orange.

We rode past the impressive Roman theatre to our hotel, Lou Cigaloun, where the proprietor looked very familiar. She took a look at Eva and said 'I know you!' Turns out we had met her and her husband (Emmanuelle and Stephane) on our first cycle tour in 2009 in Tarascon, where they owned the lovely small hotel we stayed in for five nights. Since we were there for almost a week, we had talked with them quite a bit and appreciated their knowledge of the area. In the intervening two years, they had sold that hotel and bought this larger one in Orange. It was such a coincidence that we had picked their hotel--they even remembered our Bike Fridays--and they very kindly invited us for an apertif the next evening.

The wall of the Roman theatre in the setting sun.

Our room was large and bright with a very fancy bathroom. As we were changing our clothes, Al felt a bulge in his jersey pocket. He reached in and pulled out the stuffed teddy bear with the room key for the hotel in Carpentras--oh no! Emmanuelle phoned them for us to let them know we would mail the key back the next day.

We cleaned up and went out for a walk around town. The hotel was very well located in the old city near a historic church and just a short walk from the Roman theatre which we planned to visit the next day. We had dinner at a nice little restaurant nearby, Côté de Jardin: squash soup, dorade en brochette with vegetables and tarte aux pommes for dessert.

Today's ride: 34 km (21 miles)
Total: 607 km (377 miles)

Rate this entry's writing	Heart	1
Comment on this entry	Comment	0