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As we walked to breakfast, we were rewarded with a cool hot air balloon floating overhead which was a nice way to end our stay at La Coquillades, but leave we must as we bike over the Luberon mountain range with another good climb in our near future. The morning route is only 16 miles, and within a short distance we are on a dedicated bike trail for about 4 of them. This makes for easy biking and other than the occasional road crossing with “slow down” barriers, we can make very good time.
We exit the bike path and cycle into the little village of Cereste where we all gather for a quick coffee and the 3 mile climb up to the top mountain. Anthony/Ed chose to take a boost, while Sam with his young legs decided to give it a go on his manual bike. With the heat and not as much vegetation to give us shade as yesterday, I found it a bit more of a challenge and used a bit more power (not Turbo!) on the last 1/3 of the hill. However, it did award us spectacular views almost the entire way up and it was
well worth the effort.
At the top we met up with the van where Ed/Anthony were getting back on their bikes for the trip down the other side. Eric/Sandy/Ken and I took a quick breather before hopping back on and enjoyed the really fun 4 mile ride down until we hit a bit of a “traffic jam”. While in Ireland we are quite expecting sheep on the country roads, we were not expecting it on this ride in the middle of Provence. Yet, while we were speeding down we had to quickly slow to a stop to let the 100+ sheep, 4 dogs and 1 sheep herder move out of our way. The dogs were quite concerned about us and their sheep and made sure we weren’t impeding their progress. We stood and watched as all the sheep went in front, around, behind us on their way back into the hills. So fun!!!
Once we made it past our sheep friends, it was cruising into our small village for a lunch in a pretty square that was quite popular with the locals. While the food was excellent, the pace was slow even for France. Both Vidal and Scott
were encouraging the owner to move a bit quicker, as we had we were on a bit more of a timetable today. Finally we were done and did the 25 mile afternoon ride in record time, ending in Lourmarin, a village we had biked through on our first day.
We were provided tickets to see the cool castle, which the first section was built in the 12
th century, and the second “newer” section built in the 17
th. Just a little old.
http://www.chateau-de-lourmarin.com/home/. Once we all were done with the visit, we loaded in to the transport to takes to the base of the “baby alps” and hour away and our stop for the next two nights.
We arrived at Le Chateau des Alpilles (
www.chateaudesalpilles.com) another wonderful chateau with beautiful rooms in a serene setting. We explore the vast grounds, including the pool…but it wasn’t heated and a bit chilly. So, decided um…maybe time to relax on the terrace with a glass of rose. I am sure you are getting the drill by this point. ?
For the evening the group was loaded up and taken into the cute little town of St. Remy (no relationship to the
cognac) for a fun dinner at a local bistro. The highlight was that we got to walk across the small street to the Patisserie where we had our choice of magnificent deserts….all way too pretty to eat. Then back to the hotel with dreams of our last full day on the bikes.
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