Day 3

Day 3 Monday July 14th 2014

A beautiful morning, a lovely breakfast [home made jams, local walnuts, scrambled eggs, perfect] views over Montbrun and Ventoux, and the dog coming to say hello [actually “got any food?”] We chat with the patrone then cycle up a col; a perfect Provencal morning, blue sky, lavender fields, lonely mountains, other cyclists, hardly any traffic. Really lovely. We drop down to the next valley and then make our way to Sisteron fortified by a coffee on the way in “Betty’s Cafe” no relation. At Sisteron we find no shops open so have a bit of a lunch deficit filled by Alligator Samosas [from the shop of that name, I am still Vegetarian]. Then ride up the quiet Grand Vallon which has amazing folded rock strata all around. It seems to be a glacial overflow channel to me, rather than a conventional valley. We drop back down to the Durance valley and then follow the main road to our hotel at Lautaret. That road was hot and a bit busy [there was a tunnel - never nice] and uphill. The hotel seems fine. There are acrobatic paragliders above us, Fritillery butterflies around and a massive stag-beetle on the patio. Another great meal - fish pie, omelette, fruit pie.

The photo is of The Rock hotel at Sisteron. I think it is well named.