Provence Cycletour 6

Thursday 2 September 2010 Bedoin via the Gorges de la Nesque
Get up when we feel like it, and wander out into the sunny town for breakfast, sitting dazzled by the brightness and surrounded by chirruping swallows. At the hotel we pack – a by now familiar routine, and set off gently up the gorge, a long slow ascent before an even longer, gradual, swooping descent through the massive gorge, with tunnels and arches and sheer drop off the sides of the road.
We stop in the midday heat for coffee at the bottom. Flatter roads with fruit growing alongside, lead to Flassan and Bedoin, where we see millions upon millions of small white snails festooning the vegetation for miles along the road. At Bedoin, there is an excellent lunch which we eat whilst watching passing cyclists, before investigating the campsite possibilities – looking at three. One, a naturist site, where we stand live perverts at the tall gates peeping in when they drew soundlessly aside for a real naturist to enter. The fourth campsite is the one we really like, the Garenne, with sandy terraces up the hill of a forest, and a pool and bars and people enjoying themselves. Eat out a Bedoin Bar, with good food but a strangely hostile young waiter and then back to the camp bar for a night cap and a short walk to the nearby tent and trusty cycles.

Gorges de la Nesque

Gorges de la Nesque

Gorges de la Nesque

Snails Festooning the Roadside Vegetation

Snails Festooning the Roadside Vegetation