with more character, a little bit our own Tuscany,
end of July 2021
To the east of Carpentras is an immovable giant, impressive from the Rhone Valley, white summit, snowy or stony limestone depending on the season.
Like a modest Fuji-Yama (but it's not a volcano), whose cone, always very imperfect, really emerges only from the Rhone Valley, the massif is a colossal limestone ridge oriented east-west : Mont Ventoux, 1909 meters.
It's visible from everywhere at a very long distance, and even at very high speed from the TGV (High Speed Train), a worm in a hurry that pops up and escapes there through the Rhone Valley.
1- Mont Ventoux, Babel Tower of bicycle derailleur
At 1900 meters, usually still remain the conifers. Here, the domain is already mineral, more because of the exposure to the wind than to the effect of altitude.
At the peak, the mistral broke an absolute French record with 320 km/h on 19/11/1967!!!
Enough to pluck even the pebbles.
Mont Ventoux, windy mountain perfectly bald.
Climbing it from the south-west, the endless switchbacks rise, cross groves of pine forests and dense maquis.
There, drivers slalom slowly, cautiously, sometimes coming to a stop among groups of cyclists who wrap them in clusters, often accompanied by a nurse vehicle.
Coming from all over Europe, they climb to a very small gear, short of breath, or go down running fast, bent torso covered with a windbreaker, hands on the brakes that heat, vertiginous, repelling the motorized disturbers.
For here stands the temple, the sacred mountain of cycling : more than 126,000 cyclists in 2017, a growing figure (excluding the Covid period).
The traditional starting point, named "point zero", is in the village of Bédoin, 300 meters above sea level (nothing to do with the Bedouins, but rather a Latin or Germanic origin, which means "birthplace of wine" because the vine is already mentioned in Roman times).
A large village dedicated to cycling, departures, returns and stays, necessarily very touristic-mercantile, with its many shops and more or less fast food café-restaurants. A somewhat artificial anthill of young families and sportsmen.
Certainly prosperous, it is crossed by a wide and winding sloping street, with in its center a vast square shaded by superb and venerable plane trees.
We will prefer other neighboring villages more quiet and authentic.
From there in any case, almost 21 km for 1594 meters of altitude difference on two wheels. And an average slope of 7.7% which, in some places, reaches 13%...
Among the pedalers, men, women, and sometimes entire families, including children.
Many e-bikes, (Electrically Assisted Bicycles), perhaps a good quarter of them, also carry to the top the weaker from the least exertion.
Sometimes the older guide of a group of young trained cyclists uses it to reach the summit with them without cardiac risk.
The e-bikes can easily be recognized by their battery, clearly visible at the rear or integrated into the thickness of the oblique frame.
Too often their owner, neophyte of cycling, adopts a too low "sitting" position on the saddle.
So that the leg unfolds badly, without extension. Worse, the thrust is sometimes done with the sole of the foot instead of its forepart and fingers.
Clumsy and very uncomfortable posture, very inefficient, even with the electric help.
So many heresies for bike purists.
Especially because the the climb is a real feat and can't be improvised. Physical preparation and training are necessary.
Also, more painful will be the cramps and injuries, even for those who don't reach up there.
But... homage and respect : they had the desire and dared the adventure!
In any case, this sport and specially this test are those of truth : without the artifice of the EPO (very unhealthy) or the e-bike, those who arrive up there don't lie to themselves, more sincere, authentic and estimable than many tanned "you-saw-me" and paradors of the Coast to the south.
At the top, in the irresistible euphoria of their victorious climb, the cyclists celebrate their feat in all languages, brandishing their bikes at arm's length, congratulating each other, retrospectively looking down on the valley.
A high-altitude Tower of Babel, where cars squirm and sneak on the perfect but modest strip of bitumen, a black snake that contrasts on the limestone slopes.
A car park below, to the south-east welcomes vehicles. From there, it's easily possible to climb on foot, via a sturdy little stone chapel to the top up there. At the back, a radar station for air traffic.
The summit is signposted with its vertigo relay tower.
Arrived there, we have lost 12 ° C from the base : sweater for 15 ° C with a light wind. One can imagine the chilling effect on a day of strong mistral, even in summer.
Only a few gray donkeys with dru hair sneer freely, having fun obstructing the passage.
Elsewhere a sheep with wide horns as twisted as the pines tortured by the mistral, tries to steal the food of some inattentive picnickers.
A black shepherd dog has lost his master and believes to recognize him in any passer-by.
But, people of pedalers, your most beautiful trophy, which is also a tribute to the Tour de France is in the valley, in Malaucène.
On foot, however, a hiker climbed the Mont Ventoux in the Middle Ages (April 26, 1335), the illustrious Petrarch himself, aged 32, with his younger brother and two servants, from Malaucène where his family went into exile.
Often straying in search of less effort, his physical pain to reach the summit of the Ventoux was a matter for him to find himself.
Yet the ungrateful will not even bring back a photo, only a long letter!
2- Harsh and superb Provence: the valley and its piedmont villages
Westward, the immense plain-plateau, hilly, is full of well-maintained vineyards, olive groves leaning against groves of yews, lined up poplars, and where dominate very old plane trees of astonishing vigor on small shady mounds, in the heart of ancient villages with sharp bell tower or sometimes capped with a campanile.
By cheating a little on the photos above :
they are from Albion, around Sault ; failing to have taken correct ones in the plateau yet very captivating, lower to the west.
Quick vision of two of them, too quickly traveled : Malaucène, northwest of the Ventoux, where there is another famous cycling starting point to the summit, and more modestly, Mazan, where was our accommodation.
Malaucène :
Like all nearby villages, the historic part curls up on its hill in its ancient protective shell, whose ramparts were partially destroyed in the 19th century.
A very picturesque large village (around 3000 inhabitants), with its curved streets, fountains and stone doors, its listed roofs with beautiful round tiles, its bell tower that crowns the tower-dungeon and the panorama of the near foothills of the Ventoux.
And at the foot of the calvary hill, the powerful St-Michel church, whose construction began at the end of the 13th century, but which will be consecrated only ... 400 years later.
Village popular with some past celebrities.
But wherever you are, in Malaucène or elsewhere,
children play,...
... old doors are unpadlocking, and time is running away.
Mazan :
The very limited historical perimeter caps a dome at the top of which sits the church.
In short, a few narrow and steep alleys, arcades, a remnant of rampart above a pointed arched door, a short and beautiful avenue of plane trees, venerable and mossy walls enlivened by oleanders, a former chapel converted into a museum (work in progress).
The massive cut stones witness a rich past.
3- Towards the Albion and the Lavandier myth
To the south of the giant, towards the east a steep plateau is bled from a deep and zigzagging valley, the Gorges of the Nesque.
The limestone cliffs pierced with erosion caverns are lined with dense and green maquis vegetation, but under the overcast sky whose mists are fading on the summits, the majesty of the place cuts short.
Without ever from the road (D 942) seeing the river at the bottom, well masked, perhaps dried ; here and there sometimes emerge downwards snippets of white hiking trails.
On the overhanging road, a stele gives a short excerpt from "Calendau", the 2nd epic poem by Frédéric Mistral, of course in Provençal language ; the 1st was "Mireille".
It tells the story of Calendal, an intepid anchovy fisherman from Cassis at the end of the 18th century, in love with the princess of Les Baux, Estérelle, whom he tries to conquer despite his enemy, Count Sévéran who is none other than the husband of the beautiful.
But anchovies and princess did not work well together : only the success of "Mireille" passed to posterity.
Then a valley-plateau in trough flares widely, the Albion.
On one of its wide spur flanks, a perched village dominates the landscape, Sault (765 m).
The country of Sault, erected as a county in 1561, enjoyed with the d'Agoult family a certain independence from the 13th century until the Revolution.
Continuing beyond to the east is the former famous plateau of Albion of which still remain some "big ears" in a well-marked military terrain.
All around, thank you for the late frosts of the year!
Indeed, to the detriment of producers, but for the happiness of visitors, some large lavender fields have still not been harvested because still in bloom at the end of July.
A locally composed circuit, "the lavender road", allows to make the tour of it for 30 km.
The clear and stony soil squeals under the footsteps. We guess it is not very fertile.
The long, parallel mounds fan out their intense mauves and blues. They stretch long and curve the gentle relief of the fields.
Then to tarnish into hard gray and flush bushes just after the picking-harvest.
But let us go to the mallow enchantment that never drowns in the clear sky.
The magic escapes towards the horizon underline here a village, Aurel.
They undulate under the wind that caresses them in waves, shudder ...
and between two gusts suggest the intense hum of swarm of bees, drunk with these scents that perfume the tense air, but which remain surprisingly light.
Perfect sobriety, very far from the heady and heavy perfume that we imagined a priori.
Here and there, a borie of white dry and flat stones, and rare exhausted almond trees punctuate the landscape.
Such pleasant are the panoramas that some lavender farmers have fenced their field (lavender grove) with a high barrier, to prevent from being trampled by the shamelessly hordes.
Here, no fence but an intrusion, there, among the heavy blue spikes.
Provence, by what do you hold us?...
On the plateaus with gentle slopes, free rein has been given here to lavender culture for a century and a half ; previously, it existed, wild, in the maquis.
Indeed, lavender loves the sun but water only at the first sowing, appreciates freshness, here at small altitude, and dry, poor and alkaline soils, whose alkalinity is reinforced by gravel, all conditions (but also elsewhere) here met.
But it pumps them out and depletes them even more, which requires the change of plot from one year to the next.
Lavender is grown with great care in the region.
But production is becoming less and less lucrative, now competing in an unusual but yet too efficient way by that of the low plateaus of The Himalayan India, both in quality and cost ; and even in Quebec, yes! But with plants that resist frost. And even on the other side of the world, in Tasmania, devil's island, by way of Eastern Europe.
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