Tues 11th Beaucaire to Thurs 13th Nimes

Beaucaire to Nimes

It was a beautiful sunny morning so we set off past last night’s restaurant in search of the castle (very obvious from almost everywhere)

And stumbled upon yet another bull ring










Outside there was a plaque to commemorate the matadors who had come second, we suspected the bull didn’t come off too well either despite his success although I’m told that the winning bulls are the ones they really want to breed from .

– so who knows! I’m also told that a top bull fighter is paid 300k euros a bullfight, sounds like a lot of money,  but nothing would get me in there with one of those things.
We then dawdled off in the direction of Nimes which was quite complicated because of the plethora of busy roads and the non busy ones which are ‘rat runs’ with traffic going very fast. There was nothing particularly spectacular about it except it was an enjoyable ride. We stopped for our picnic lunch in Manduel

which was a quiet a pretty place but noticed and extraordinary amount of men hanging about obviously unemployed. The answer was given to us later, the grape harvest now being finished leaves a lot of manual workers with nothing to do but hang around the square and the bars chatting. Further on we passed a ‘pigeon’ farm from which there was a lot of cooing but not easy to take a picture as there was a high hedge!

Entering Nimes was pretty scary, the cycling guide books had warned us not to go there unless you are experienced at riding through busy traffic,  and they were not wrong. The traffic was everywhere, very close and fast – but we made it to the Office du Tourisme (open even at 7pm) and they found us a hotel (best friend of lady in Office du Tourisme) which was brilliant. The hotel owner recommended the lady with a restaurant next door which was a good call because it only had 4 tables; everything was fresh and the local speciality Boeuf ‘Guardianne de Taureau’ simply delicious. We were a bit worried about which part of the bull it might have been, but all was well! Walking around Nimes is fascinating. In the centre the Roman influence is everywhere and this is underlined by a mini Coliseum still in extremely good condition but as it is now a Unesco World Heritage site further renovations are also in progress.

In our hotel there was an aerial photo of the ‘coliseum’ taken in 2005 when a bull fight was in progress. It is reputed to seat 20,000 people and was full the highest tier – and that at a time when hardly any renovation work had been done on it at all – built in 40BC!
Nimes is also famous for creating' De Nime' as in jeans and jackets but when we asked whether the city still produced denim we were told ‘no, all production has now gone to the ‘Etats Unis’ – typical!!

The city has also adopted the mascot of a ‘crocodile chained to a palm tree, this is because coins were minted to celebrate the conquering of Egypt by the Romans in the 2nd century AD


Shortly after arriving at the hotel two lady cyclists arrived with about as much luggage as we were carrying – obviously travellers like us we thought, they were Dutch (we also thought, crickey, had they come all the way from Holland) but sadly we never got to speak with them so like ships in the night we simply passed on.
Now tomorrow we are picking up a car in ‘downtown Nimes’ and driving the 5 hours to Gensac (which is close to St Emilion) for a very special birthday party.

Orange to Beaucaire Monday 10th to Weds 12th Oct

Monday 11th October.
Orange to Avignon
We awoke to yet another sunlit morning with the church bells of Orange calling us from our bed. There was much to be done, a lot of it in Orange followed by a ride to Avignon. We left our bikes, luggage and paraphernalia in the proprietor's father’s garden and set off on foot to explore the city. Orange is absolutely staggering; we are so pleased to be here. The Romans built a lot of huge buildings at around the time of the birth of Christ and when you look at the size of these buildings we couldn’t help but marvel at the sheer ingenuity.

We took the audio tour of the theatre and forum which is pretty much exclusively about Roman times because after the fall of Roman influence and the arrival of Gauls and Vizigoths etc everything rather fell apart. The Roman theatre has now been restored as best it can be and hosts spectacular Opera, ballet and even rock concerts – it is the perfect venue and is absolutely huge.


Frank Zappa played here in 1975 – we watched a video of the crowd and were amazed by how thin everyone looked, it must have been pre MacDonald’s and emulsified fat substances!!
After such an exhausting cultural experience there was nothing for it but to pull on the lycra and head south for Avignon. Although we are now almost on sight of the Mediterranean the countryside is starting to get quite bumpy – largely because we can no longer hug the Rhone, the French have turned the Rhone hugging roads into motorways! Still, the route we followed firstly toward Chateau Neuf du Pape (a must see from our point of view) was impressive with the amount of vines (and the amount of hills we had to climb to enjoy them) We were heartily relieved to finally free wheel into the town itself and try to look nonchalant as though we had merely stepped out of some smart vehicle. We were quite keen to have a tasting but it is a bit of a giveaway that we are not going to be taking much away with so little luggage space. We had no idea which cave to try first, but fell upon L’Artizan, and independent family producer. Charming, if in a rather dour French way,  and he took a bit of warming up but we learned quite a lot about the grape mix etc. Did you know that CNduP is predominantly 60/40 Grenache/ Syrah which changes with the amount of time it is laid down and other factors? What intrigued us most was the terroir. The ground changes from light sandy soil to being made up of almost entirely very large round stones (the size of cricket balls) as you go up the hills. Monsieur in the Cave told us it was not possible to rotavate the ground which saved much work. Anyway he was not keen on sharing any with us so we retreated to the cafe on the other side of the square and bought a couple of glasses instead. His loss as I am sure we could have been serious buyers.Vivi had a pink Cote du Rhone and Alec had a red Ch 9 du P, the pink we think was better than the red but probably because the red could have done with another 10 yrs in the bottle.


By now the wind which was pretty fierce but lovely and warm and was absolutely head on because to get to Villeneuve-les-Avignon we had to head north out of ChduP and cross the Rhone about 4 miles north west. We promised ourselves that once we could see the bridge we would stop for some lunch and it was a relief when we finally could. We found a disused quarry which provided some shelter from the wind and baked in the sunshine watching swallows and martins.
We entered Villeneuve-les-Avignon from the north and were immediately staggered by a huge fort on the outskirts of the old town.

It was very reminiscent of the forts and castles we used to see in Andalucía and not entirely surprising as they were all built by the Crusaders and we aren’t in fact all that far away from Spain. Villeneuve is the old part of Avignon, on the western side of the river but has a heavy Roman influence. The Popes built several palaces here back in the 14c. We were staying in a hotel overlooking the Rhone and the main Papal palace of Avignon and this turned out to be a pretty good place to stay. Needless to say there wasn’t a restaurant open for miles so we had a Vietnamese (a first for us) in the place next door which turned out to be surprisingly delicious!
This is Avignon from our bedroom window....

Tomorrow we have a lot to do and see!!

Tuesday 11th October.
Avignon to Beaucaire
Once we had crossed the bridge into Avignon we were full of enthusiasm about sight-seeing but thought we ought to visit the Gare to find out which trains would take bikes to Bordeaux for the weekend as we have to be there for a ‘grande fete’. On the way there was a colossal traffic jam which didn’t affect us but on arrival we found that it was due to a National Train strike and the workers were happily parading through the streets and shouting and carrying banners.


All sorts of trade unions seem to be involved; This of course meant that the station was in total chaos and they weren’t at all interested in our little problem 2 days hence, other than to say it was probably impossible! So we gave up and went off to see the sights. By this time the strikers were on the march through the centre so the Papal Palace and central square were heaving with people. Being French however this made absolutely no difference to the more important business of eating and drinking as you can see from the laid out tables in the square!

The Papal Palace is absolutely massive and very impressive. There are 25 rooms on view and since we only reckoned we had about an hour to spare thought that would give us time to do 3 of them so decided instead to cycle around it

Whoops Not very good at stitching photos!!
and visit the Pont D’Avignon. Now this was an important one for me as back in about 1961 when I was 10 our Woodcote House French master (name forgotten) brought to class one day a record of ‘Sous le Pont, d’Avignon’ I have never forgotten it and so far have never seen it – so here I am exactly 50 years on, visiting this place which for all this time has merely been a dream. Just the Table Mountain in South Africa and the Sugar Loaf in Sao Paulo and a few more besides to go and not much time left either!
The bridge only goes half way across the river, the other half was lost and the bridge abandoned after a flood back in the 1700’s.

Avignon is a University town and today they were in evidence in droves as their lecturers were all on strike. Sitting around in parks and on street corners they all looked amazingly bored. I suppose some of the more radical amongst them were marching with the strikers but from the look of it, not many.
We left the walled part to negotiate our route south towards Arles and Beaucaire where we are staying. We stopped off at a little bar to change into ‘bikey clothes’ and the locals were very friendly joking with me “we izz zo zorri abaaat de roogbi” if you can call that being friendly. I just said we woz robbed and left it at that. They were so surprised to get any tourists as the cafe was a couple of miles outside the walls so it was some time before we got away. Lots of Franglais was spoken.
We then spent the most ridiculous amount of time trying to negotiate the new autoroutes around the TGV station, which are not on the map, and had to be passed to get over the Durance River, and southwards to the Camargue. About 2 hours after leaving Avignon we were triumphant having been turned back a few times. A cyclist had been killed last week so they had changed the ‘preferred routes’. After that it was downhill all the way to Tarascon and Beaucaire which are the loveliest towns.
This area has a very Southern European feel, the signposts have 2 translations, 1 French, 1 Provencal, we came across our first bullring and then very narrow (rather grubby) streets which have a real feel of Tunisia or Morocco and the inhabitants look a bit like that too.

Tarascon also has an amazing castle right on the riverside and adjacent to a similar sized one on the other bank which presumably guarded the inhabitants of Beaucaire.

From Roche de Glun to Voulte s/R, Pierrelatte & all the way to Orange

Friday 7th October to Sunday 9th October
Roche de Glun to La Voulte sur Rhone
This morning our world has changed from how little can we wear - to - have we brought enough warm clothes. Suddenly as monsieur said at breakfast ‘Hiver sont arrivé’ and he wasn’t joking, it is perishing. Looking on the bright side though, the sun cream was about to run out so we won’t be needing that anymore and the incredibly strong wind was blowing from behind us, so would speed us on our way.
We crossed the Isere river shortly after taking a quick look at Roche de Glun, nothing very interesting there, and there was a marked contrast in the colours of the waters where the 2 rivers met. The wind was whistling from the North East off the Alps so no doubt they are getting the first snow up there. Skiing is advertised as only being 1 hour away which is a curious thought.
In this photo to the right is the Isere river and the left the Rhone, if we had a motorized canoe we could be in Val d’Isere in no time.

We headed into Valance which seemed nice enough but the tourist office were so keen to be off for their lunch hour, they had locked the door between me going in and Alec finishing locking the bikes. They couldn’t wait to get rid of me and just told me that there was no longer a velo route and that the path - it had ‘terminee’d.
We had a hot cup of coffee to cheer and warm ourselves up but didn’t stay in the city for long. As it happened we found an excellent route marked ‘le Drome a velo’ which took us a long way, along the edge of the River and on some minor roads.

Occasionally it was necessary to cross the river and the bridges were quite a challenge as there was a very strong cross wind. We also came across the first marina that we’d seen, full of Sunseekers presumably up from the Med for the winter.

Abandoned nearby was the remains of an old steamboat which apparently had caught fire and sunk in 1837 but despite the evidence in front of us we were a bit sceptical!!

Anyway, after many miles of more river bank etc we were cold and tired enough to try to find a hotel in the town of La Voulte sur Rhone- back on the Ardeche west bank now. This town had definitely seen better days with only 1 hotel remaining open and I should think it is not going to last many more years either. The lady who owned it commandeered us on the side of the road, bossed us about a lot in a cheerful manner and before we knew it, had our bikes locked away and our money taken for the night. It was in fact perfectly comfortable and warm, but I don’t think she is much bothered by what standard of food is produced. We looked at Tripadvisor and it was full of people telling one DO NOT stay here. We decided to play safe and eat out, so looked around the town on foot.
You could wind your way up tiny alleys to the top of the hill where there was an enormous old chateau in ruins above the river with the wind whistling through the broken panes. They are beginning to do it up in small patches but it will take a long time.













We found a tiny bistro at the furthest end of town which served the local speciality of Crique, a new one on us.
This is my crique!!

It is pretty similar to Rosti (Swiss grated potatoes) fried and served with any amount of variations. Alec went the full Swiss bit and had raclette and ham, I had chicken in wine sauce;Both very good, warm and filling. We arrived at the bistro at about 7.15 when Granny and granddaughter (aged about 4) were in charge, the place was fully laid up but we were the only people there, would it be like this all evening? Shortly afterwards another couple came in and then another and soon Granny and granddaughter looked as if they were about to crack under the pressure when suddenly in comes grandson plus cousins and friends (aged about 10) from football practice plus Mum and Dad who within seconds had their pinnies on and were swooping around the room taking orders and chatting to all of the guests. It was a real French family bistro (Le Petit Creux). Thank heavens we went there and didn’t accept madam’s offer of dinner on our own at the miserable hotel.

Saturday 8th October.
La Voulte s/R to Pierrelatte
In the morning we watched enough of France v England to know the French were going to run circles around us so ate our overpriced breakfast and departed. Madame said it was madness to contemplate crossing the river and trying to ride down the east bank as it was all industrialized and motorways – too dangerous. So we settled for the Regional road (as opposed to National) and headed off. With the tailwind we found ourselves easily ploughing UP hills at 8 – 10 mph and going down a scary 26 was achieved before we applied the brakes for fear of a potential fatal accident! You couldn’t really describe the west bank as being particularly rural either as for about 10 miles they were demolishing the hill and converting whatever they were mining into cement. Ingeniously however they had transformed a huge disused and crumbling Abbey built along the roadside and river into their cement factory which seems like an excellent way to breathe new life into an old monastery and town walls.


There are two Logis in Andeol; one is a foodie’s paradise and way, way too expensive for us travellers and the other is in the town centre and is perfect. But not today, they were closed for a private party. Vivi persisted and eventually Le Monsieur remembered that 4k’s away across the river was the town of Pierrelatte which had a hotel in the centre next to the church. It took us a while to find our way out of Bourg but eventually an elderly lady walked with us for a couple of hundred yards to make sure we were going the right way and sure enough we were crossing the Rhone (again) and heading into Pierrelatte into the head wind which was very hard work. We found the hotel and were greeted by a blast of warm air as we entered our only thought being ‘oh please God put us out of our misery and let us stay here) we had after all by now been pedalling for 6 hours and done 42.5 miles and were quite saddle sore and weary!
Monsieur was a great guy, mucked us about in a friendly way for a bit said he couldn’t do a bath only a shower and then came up trumps with bath, soda for whisky in fact everything we needed, and to think they had just beaten us at rugby- they were too polite to even mention it!
There were 7 restaurants where we could have supper, as it was so cold we opted from almost the nearest. A traditional pizzeria which didn’t only do pizzas but all kinds of viande as well  plus lashings of vin de la region – life suddenly was looking a whole lot better.

Sunday 9th October.
Pierrelatte to Orange
We slept like logs last night and never even heard the church clock strike until 7. Church clocks and railway lines have been beside our hotels all along the way. It is lovely to hear the bells ringing and most of the churches have 2 clocks on them, which seem to be set 3 minutes apart so there is no excuse to be late for anything! The trains fortunately don’t run much at night either.
I asked our hotelier’s wife the history of the town and region as Pierrelatte seems to be rather stuck in the middle of nowhere with a large nuclear station nearby, but also a rather charming old town centre. She said that there used to be a giant in the region who had a pebble stuck in his backside, which irritated him a lot. So he went to Mount Ventoux (that of Tour de France fame, and which takes up a lot of the horizon) sat and wriggled upon it until he was able to expel the pebble -And that is where the town is now! Well -not quite the answer I was expecting but a lot more entertaining!

We then had the best day’s cycling of the sort we enjoy. We were able to navigate our way towards Orange via very small roads through villages. Lunch was bought in St Pierre Trois Chateaux,











yet another charming medieval town encircled by city walls. We didn’t see any chateaux but there was a fine abbey which we weren’t allowed into as a service was going on. They must have recognised my ‘Ulster Prod ‘roots. Actually the hotelier also said this was a big protestant area in the old days after the Popes moved from Avignon. Of course we should have realized this is where William or Orange must have come from.

After Trois chateaux we had a choice of the Route Nationale to Orange (not advised for bikes) or crossing over into the next valley and following a little ‘white’ road to Orange. Despite the hill we would have to climb over – Le Mont du d’Uchaux , we decided on the latter option as it seemed by far the most interesting and enjoyable although half way up when the road began to zig zag through the pines the thought of a straight flat belt down the motorway dodging the cars did seem quite attractive!

Anyway we sailed up the hill (puffing and wheezing a bit) through the pines and the oaks it was a beautiful experience and then sailed down the other side only stopping for a picnic lunch outside the gates of rather nice looking chateau hotel in Hauteville. A stork flew over which was a treat and we are finally in real Provence with villas, and a strong scent of pines, red squirrels and some heat in the air.

On arrival in Orange, we paused at the L’Arc de Triomphe which had been built in between 30 B.C and 20 A.D. and is still looking pretty impressive.

Our Hotel de Glaciers is right in the centre of the old town and we had a quick look at the theatre walls before a good supper in a local bistro. Our host in the hotel was keen that we should try the local wine from Mont d’uchaux so we thought we ought, we had after all cycled past it and anyway he was most persuasive!

from Serrieres to Glun

Wednesday 5th October.
Vienne to Serrieres
Oh dear, this morning we woke to a few white fluffy things in the sky which we haven’t seen since we arrived in France, but luckily they had vanished by the time we were ready to go. We were both full of enthusiasm as for once, we had a good route map in our hands and had booked a little hotel in Serrieres about 30 miles further on.
However, the lovely map we held was not that accurate and once over the bridge in Vienne, it bore little relation to what was actually in front of us. The first few miles were along the walls of the Rhone past pretty suburban merchants houses and villas, with some rather complicated barriers which are clearly designed for bikes without panniers.
Vivi had a certain amount of trouble negotiating her first one and a small boy was eager to show her how it was done!

then we went through very agricultural land on the West side of the river. It is very fertile, rather like the Nile delta and everything grows here, including Artichokes, chard, celeriac and vast orchards of cherries and pommes.





Chard planters and a field of artichokes.


Why it is wrapped in polythene we could not find out.
We crossed over the Isle du Buerre which is a designated wildlife reserve with hides for bird and beaver watching. We were hopeful that we would see a beaver as we were unsuccessful in Canada. However they are apparently mostly nocturnal so we didn’t. It was lovely and quiet until we lost our way on one of the many sandy tracks and ran into several rather hostile looking old men in florescent orange jackets with rifles. They started shouting at us and gesticulating madly as we tried to peddle through. They were on a wild boar hunt and had encircled the wood we were trying to ride through, so we would have really spoilt their fun had we been allowed to continue and they ours, too. Several turns later we were back on track.
Certain Departments in France aren’t too fussed about cyclists and provide no signs at all, at times like that some helpful cyclists make their own for the benefit of others!


Condrieu is an attractive town situated where the Rhone is very wide with a hostellerie which has a rather good reputation but we had our packed lunch so continued on a bit further before having our picnic on the river bank. Several species decided to join us and were all particularly fascinated by Alec’s big toe.


How the snail got there was amazing as he never noticed and must have taken a while. The bank was covered in snails so we felt a bit guilty sitting down as goodness knows how many were squashed.
The Romans introduced snails to this area and they feature much on the menus along with frog's legs.
There was a man with a large machine cutting the banks which we thought was a bit of a waste of the tax payers’ money, but thinking further, we realised that it all has to be kept short as presumably it would be a serious fire hazard if left. We have also past several timber yards where there is a constant spray of water over all the timber piles. We criss-crossed our way over from the east to west sides of the river which made for interesting changes of scenery. The west was very hilly and mostly labelled with wine maker’s tags and we learned at supper that the wine from the Cote Rotie is very select or certainly priced as such.The east bank is much flatter and more open with walnut trees and cherry orchards.
Barges plough up and down the river constantly but this was a different sort, a double barge. However, readers of Mark Twain will know that after the demise of the steam boat on the Mississippi due to the railway the enterprising boatmen tied together huge floating rafts and had them transported by a tug boat several at a time. This seemed to be exactly what was happening here.

We had booked into a little 2 star hotel in Serrieres – a town on the west bank which had probably seen better times in the 1930’s. The hotel was pretty uninspiring from the front as you had to check in via a scary bar full of local men putting bets on races and the lottery, which runs constantly on a screen in the bar. However, once shown upstairs, our room was at the back on the top floor with it’s own private balcony with chairs and an olive tree, facing west. As we had arrived quite early for once we made the most of the sunshine and sat on the balcony and painted the view of the church spire and clock- At least Alec did; I painted him painting the view.

We were given orthopaedic beds too which you could sit up or lie down in, not sure whether that was the only room available or because she took one look at us. Annoyingly we couldn’t get the Stannah stair lift to work to transport our bags up all the flights of stairs!
Of course, being Wednesday the whole town closed after lunch so there was a momentary panic as they told us that the only place to eat was back over the river in the Macdonald’s on the motorway a few miles away. Very fortunately we found the other hotel in the village (le Scheaffer) had a restaurant within walking distance so rushed in there. Linen table cloths are always a step too far for us as it means you will eat very well but probably at more strain to the pocket. Alec went into a bit of a decline to begin with, when we realised we could only afford a glass each of the local wine. However once the food started to arrive, he began to sound like Greg Wallace and John Torode on Master Chef and had to award full marks! From the bonne-bouche onwards It was delicious and the fact that we had to savour every mouthful of the restaurant’s Syrah from its’ own vineyard made it even better.

Thursday 6th October.
Serrieres to La Roche du Glun
After a very foggy start on the river bank, it was another glorious day and we had a great breakfast in the bar absolutely chock full of locals. All putting bets on trotting races in Dubai and who knows where else.
 This is the unprepossessing hotel from the other bank.

We headed back over the river to where we had spied a bike shop yesterday.

En route a lovely lady regaled us with tales of woe about how polluted the river now is, but it was looking very picturesque anyway. You do get horrible smells whilst travelling along the bank when you hear a whooshing sound as they discharge all sorts of nasties into it. One is certainly discouraged from swimming or going too close as there are signs all along the banks warning you not to.
The bike shop lady gave us a most useful map of the next 50 miles so we set off very happily. You might wonder why we are being so over-enthusiastic about trying to negotiate our way along the Rhone, but on our last trip through France we found a book telling us that this route ‘La Via Rhona,’ all 850 K’s from Lake Geneva to the Mediterranean would be open shortly. This was published in 2009. Sadly due to various financial constraints it is taking a bit longer than anticipated. France is so divided into ‘Departements ‘there seem to be some with larger grants than others for tourism, so it is a bit of a financial lottery. It is now due to be completed by 2013 but we couldn’t wait that long – we would be even less able to get on our bikes. The biggest frustration is that the Rhone is the division between the Drome on the East Bank and the Ardeche on the west bank. They have absolutely no information about each other.

Anyway, today was very easy as we were spoon fed our route, the result of which is we can’t really remember much about it. We had expected to see quite deep gorges and castellated buildings on top of rocky outcrops but it was not so high or steep. One of the local sites is the ‘postman’s palace’ which is the most amazing castle the local postman built by collecting stones on his rounds and slowly but surely putting together a very Gothic looking palace . We never actually saw it as it was several miles further off our track than wished.
We ping-ponged back and forth over the river bridges several times until we reached Tain L’Hermitage with the town of Tournon on the other side of the river.


These are both really pretty towns so we stopped for a while, enjoyed a glass of Crozes Hermitage since the vines were winking at us from the hill, but decide to go a bit further as it was still early.

Another claim to fame of Tournon is the lady who discovered a cure for Epilepsy. People came from all over Europe to be cured and left her with donations with which she built this chapel. We rather liked this  abandoned chateau on the outskirts of Tounon.











We carried on to the rather nicely named town of la Roche de Glun along the bike route on the side of the river, which was now gravel and not so easy to ride. We were delighted to arrive at the Auberge du Golf. Alec was keen to see if there was a course so he could see how his hand is faring towards holding a club next week, but there was no sign of one and not sure why it had that name. Anyway, it was the best place to spend the night once we had persuaded the couple running it, to cook supper for us. They looked totally exhausted as they had fed 95 for lunch! But no matter, the husband cooked sublimely and we had a very early supper. Fortunately one other person was staying so he needed feeding too so we felt marginally less guilty. We had tiny ravioli to start with, filled with some cheese /herbs /garlic which melted in the mouth. Madame said that in the war when they couldn’t get any meat, they made up this recipe from the local mountain cheese to give people protein. This must have been quite an area for the resistance as in most towns, streets are named after people who were either shipped to Dachau or shot by the Gestapo.
St Joseph seems to be the local wine which slips down very easily too.