Climbing Mount Ventoux

Today started like every day in Provence, waking up whenever we happened to. In my case it was at 6:30 a.m. and in Jess' case, 8:00 a.m. when I started jumping on the bed like a child to wake him get up. While we slowly ate another long, relaxing breakfast we tried to decide what to do with the rest of our day. The pace of life here is rather relaxed which was the intention of this part of the trip. It doesn't make for very exciting blog postings... great for us, bad for you.

Today we decided to tackled Mount Ventoux. Mount Ventoux was the second to last leg to the Tour de France and occurred the day we arrived here. We hopped in the car (yup, car, don't think we would try cycle this thing) and headed out. We decided to take the scenic route via the village of Sault which is know for the lavender fields that surround it. We are past the peak of the season but as we decended into the valley there were huge fields of purple and you could smell it in the air (again, photos don't do this place justice).

From Saulte we headed towards Mount Ventoux.
The road was a complete nightmare. Narrow, twisting roads, littered with approaching cars in the centre of the road, and what seemed like thousands of cyclists retracing the route of the Tour de France. The road was incredibly steep and every cyclist we passed looked ready to throw up. This was a 26 k.m. climb and I have no idea why anyone would want to do such a thing. Driving it was hard enough. As I gasped at every turn and every approaching car, I listened to Jess curse a blue streak as he whiteknuckled his way to the top.

Of course, everybody thought they were Lance Armstrong, sending their family up in advance to take pictures as they reached the summit. People were holding their bikes above their heads having photos taken. It was ccomplete madness. We, on the other hand, bought 2 bags of the most delicious cookies and macaroons from a vendor there selling to bikers that wanted to replenish their energy and got back in the car, eating them on the way down the mountain. Hey, we earned it... that was a stressful drive (for Jess... and me... in a supporting role).

We relied on our trusty GPS to get us back to the hotel but the damn thing doesn't know the difference between a highway and a pony trail.


Back at the hotel we had lunch were I opted for the BURGER??!???!!

So far, we've finished the day with more lounging in 'our' cabana by the pool. Now, I'm thinking it's time for another bath.