Bicyclists and Lavender

We have settled into a three day routine - one day exploring nearby places, one day exploring places requiring a bit of a drive and then what we call our 'day at sea' day.  For any of you who have taken a cruise, you will recognize this pattern - cruises tend to take you to two places and then give you a day of rest and relaxation "at sea".   So far this is working well for us.

Today was our 'travel far' day.  We starting by forifying ourselves with fabulous chocolate croissants (pain au chocolat) in our little village, Chateaurenard.  They are so buttery and delicious and only 50 cents!  Can you believe that?  If we didn't bring own sodas to wash them down, those would have cost about 3 dollars EACH (but we did). 

Then we headed off to the east to explore Mount Venteux, a 6000 foot mountain in Provence for the views and to seek out some lavender fields on the drive down the mountain.  We succeeded nicely on both objecives and along the way passed several medieval chateaux on the hills.  The countryside was just lovely. We stopped for lunch before making the main ascent and Larry was delighted to find his Croque Monsieur to be more traditional than the ones we had previously.  It is a grilled ham and cheese sandwich and it is supposed to have lots of cheese on top.  The ones we had yesterday at Les Baux were fine, but had no cheese on top.  Today I had a very tasty Quiche Lorraine.

It turns out that Mount Ventoux was on the Tour de France route in 2009 and is a favorite destination for bicyclists (remember it is 6000 ft high).  There is even a video on-line which I just watched of Lance Armstrong storming the top of the mountain - he cycled up faster than we drove up!  The inclines are very steep much of the way - 10% grade, believe it or not.   Anyway, there were tons of bicyclists ascending and descending this mountain as we drove.  One of them almost smashed into us as he was coming down in our lane.  He was probably coming down at 45 mph or so.  No damage done, but all of our hearts got a nice work-out from the near miss.  The mountain is quite strange, I thought - very rocky and totally barren.  There were ski lifts there so I presume it is as busy in the winter with skiers as it was with bikers in the summer.

After sampling the lavish display of candies for sale at the top of the mountain, we drove down the mountain on the other side to find lavender fields everywhere.  It was lovely, but I do think that perhaps they are not quite at their peak.  I will have to research this.  Some fields were spectacular but some had only a tinge of lavender color.  I really enjoyed it nonetheless. 

There is Museum of Lavender but we saved that to visit another day on a 'explore nearby' as it isn't very far from "home".

Our meal at home last night was very good - the fondue and bread especially and the wine.  After drinking my half of the bottle (local rose, cost about $3.00), I pretty much passed out.  I just can't hold my liquor like it used to.  I'll try to do better tonight...we are eating in again.  We have two baguettes, some ham, cheese, another package of fondeu and I have the makings for a salad with vinaigrette dressing (including an immense red pepper!).  

I am very pleased to report that our ice bag experiment worked well and we now have a bag of small ice cubes.  I haven't figured out how to open the bag, but I imagine that I can simply tear it open if it ocmes to that.

Tomorrow we are 'at sea' - which means we will do mundane tasks such as laundry, resting, and research where to go next.