We took the road East out of Bédoin that would take us to the summit of the mountain. We passed many cyclists along the way. At first we were envious of the riders, until we started getting higher and higher and the winds were stronger and stronger, reaching 50 to 60 km per hour at the summit! The mistral is always an issue in Provence, and it blows hardest at the top of Mt. Ventoux! Freezing cold and almost knocked me over! As we came down, we paused to check out the memorial to Tom Simpson who died on the mountain during the tour in 1967. We didn't see too many cyclists who had made it up to the upper third of the mountain. A lot of the people were under dressed, as at the base of the climb, the temperatures were around 23 degrees. The summit was cold - maybe 2 to 5 degrees. We saw a lot of people who had only climbed 3 to 5 kilometers of the 22.7km climb who were grimacing and didn't look to be in good form. I didn't envy them. The best thing was to see the people who had just started the climb and who were still smiling... they had no idea!
We came back down, passing lavender and sunflower fields and many grapes, stopping in Bédoin for a local market and grabbed some wine, cheese, sausage, tapinade and grapes for lunch.
The market was very cool, and although there were a fair number of tourists, locals far outnumbered us and it had a truly local/Provence feel. We found a vendor that had a huge round of two year old Comte and we bought a huge hunk... it turned out to be the best cheese we'd ever had.
We took off down the road West out of Bédoin and passed a bunch of other cyclists were climbing or returning from Ventoux. We meandered along the roads, eventually stopping in Vaison la Romaine for our picnic lunch.
We set up in front of the Roman ruins in the middle of the town. Beth polished off a couple of glasses of wine (now her usual lunch amount!) and we walked around for an hour, killing time until we could call the kids. I was amazed how nice all of the towns we stopped at and drove through were, and this town was no different.
Our next stop was the famous Châteauneuf-du-Pape for some excellent wine tasting! Excellent!! We ended up picking up our max 4 bottles from there, all 2005's which was a great year apparently.
We got back at around 4:30, just in time for the Vuelta again! As Beth said in an email to her mom... "We always get a little homesick after our daily calls to the girls but we manage to talk about how great they are for awhile and then move on! We do miss them but are having a wonderful holiday."
Meanwhile, I received an email from Gram with an update on the girls:
We arrived amidst cheers from the peanut gallery! Abby asked what we had for dinner, and I told her we had brought meat loaf. After due consideration, she asked Tita to make her eggs and toast. They both ate their veggies, Abby her toast and eggs, and Robin had two helpings of meat loaf, rice, green beans and salad with yellow peppers!
The bristol board was a hit!!! They coloured their names (new markers for each) and I explained the rules. Needed additional explanation for "good deeds". Abby wanted to know if she did something more than once, could she get extra points [Editor's note: Nerd!]. I said sure! So they both passed today's rating, and each got 4 stars for extra effort (like saying please, helping,etc). They're anxious to do the pirate treasure hunt tomorrow am!
All's well! Lots of love,
Mum xx
I had prepared clues and hidden presents around the house before we left. The kids got a clue each morning (Robin was to trace the letters of the first half of the clue, Abby had to decode the second half of the clue) and called it a "Pirate Treasure Hunt" - it was quite the hit!
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