The grand tour of France in a motorhome September 18th - day twenty

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A bike ride day! We decide to cross over the very high suspension bridge and visit the little village across the river. It’s very high cliffs and crumbling fort are visible for miles around. Racing around a corner on the E bike, I miss the red traffic light onto the single file suspension bridge. I reverse back carefully around the corner only to be almost killed by a mad French driver! One of my nine lives gone then!

The views along the lane that rises up to the village are stupendous. Breath taking views across the river and its deep gorge. And this is the lower end of the gorge!! However, such views are tempered by a vicious chilly wind. It may be sunny but it is towards the end of September and up at this altitude we are being reminded that autumn is on its way!

Whoever built that medieval fort atop those vertiginous vertical cliffs wins our admiration outright!  Creamy brown, grey streaked limestone cliffs and aquamarine green river below. A stunning natural colour palette. Below us on the river banks, fishermen are well wrapped and hunkered down amongst the bull rushes.

 

Aigueze proves to be a picturesque village, very pretty and restful. A hidden artesian community up high. The square by the church has two cafes under sprawling, magnificent London lime trees. Shady, cool and restful at the height of the summer no doubt. The little stone buildings have stunning balconies with obligatory vines creeping up them. They are buff coloured, ancient limestone buildings with individual histories to tell.

 Creaking purple wooden shutters, breezes that rustle the tree leaves, menus blown off cloth covered tables. Swirling mini dust devils spinning uncontrollably across the stone square. A wild day made glorious by puppetry like shadows of swaying trees on the roads, art works brightening dull rendered gable ends. It is a splendid village with narrow streets, little alleyways and lots of surprising hidden viewpoints across the gorge. 

Of course, we stopped for coffee in the square! And yes, we did spend time wandering the intimate little streets.

 

Refreshed, physically, spiritually and intellectually, we set off on the rest of the bike ride (green euro route 9) recommended to us by the tourist information office the previous day.  Down onto the floodplain we rode, passing through orchards and vineyards, fields of left over lavender and tilled fields ready for their next crops. 

Fertile soils, polished rounded stones. Buzzards, extraordinary moth caterpillars, clouds of goldfinches, thickets of elderberry bushes, tall bamboo plantations, long stems bent low in the winds sweeping the plains. Fields of sunflowers and maize left unharvested. Tall, willowy silver birch trees and flocks of starlings assembling on electricity wires.  It proves to be a wonderful bike ride full of nature and interest.

 Back at St. Martin we stop at the riverside restaurant on the river waterside for frites and Pepsi’s. We know how to live! The owner isn’t initially impressed with us or the cheapskates we seem to be; an attitude that soon changed as we ordered gigantic ice cream sundaes – 7 euros each! All is forgiven; and what a sundae - vanilla, coffee, coffee liqueur, and real, real mind, whisked cream – mountains of the stuff!  An imminent heart attack in a giant cocktail glass. Wonderful!

Feeling guilty about this fragrant overindulgence we cycle up the road to Sauze hoping to follow a river trail that shows up on google maps. Even on E bikes, it proves to be too rough in places so we head back to the campsite where I spent another hour of my life (which I will never get back by the way) crawling under Bryony trying to identify where that alarming ‘twanging’ creak is coming from. Nope! I didn’t find the source!

As a consolation to myself, I set up my astrophotography gear. Everything is laid out just before dusk, so imagine my annoyance when I discover later when it is darker, that Polaris is blocked by a huge tree! Polaris is vital to any astrophotographer using a star tracker – it is the star on which we do our polar aligning – without which we cannot achieve perfect deep space object photography!

 I move my gear, I set it all up again, I polar align successfully. The photography evening passes pleasantly as a French motorhomer, intrigued by all my antics, comes across for a chat. Through broken English and google translate we manage to understand each other and he leaves happy – more knowledgeable about the night skies. And my French vocabulary has improved. Now I know twenty odd words and a few useful sentences which is about 10 more words and five more sentences than I knew before he came across to see me!

Useful information:

Cycle route eventually followed green euro route 9 – see map below.

Distance covered – 29 miles