Day 21: Castellane to Nice

Well, I finished: St Malo to Nice ticked off. Shame there are no puns on my final destination that I could use to say how it's been.

It was a foggy old start to the day (pic). The first hour as I climbed up to 1200m it was like cycling inside Tupperware.

The drivers could see as little as me, but they wisely drove as fast as possible to get through the mist patches as quickly as they could.



After a flat 20km through high-level meadows, I descended into the cliffside town of Gréolières via this stunning gorge road that clings to the rock face (pic). Apparently it has appeared in several Peugeot ads. Funny how car makers don't tend to set them in more identifiable situations for British drivers, such as a jam on the York ring road.



It was quite busy with cyclists though (pic). But they were grinding their way uphill, whereas for me, it was downhill from here all 25 miles to the Med coast.

There have been some stunningly scenic gorges on this trip, the last being the Gorge du Loup, which took me down to the coast. It boasts this exotic looking waterfall (pic).

The heavy stream of cold water reminded me of the shower in the hostel I stayed at last Friday.



Anyway, I got to the Med seafront about 1pm. From there it was eight delightful miles of trundling along the excellent promenade bike path. I took my time, and lots of photos, and arrived at Nice's Promenade des Anglais about half past two (pic). I'll spend a couple of days here, hanging out in the squares and visiting Monaco, and will be on the sleeper train homewards on Wednesday night.

It's been another fabulous trip. No punctures, no mechanicals, no injuries or niggles. I did lose half a tent along the way, mind, but it was time to chuck it anyway: I was beginning to wake up to find little pools of rainwater in the tent that had somehow emerged during the night. At least I hope it was rainwater.

I enjoyed lots of local food, cake and pains au chocolat, a few glasses of wine, and several million glorious picnic lunches. There was decent weather, not too much wind, some memorable climbs and descents through awesome scenery, and I managed to avoid all the dog turds. I had many, many hours of joy and tranquillity. I really feel I've seen the authentic France. Except I didn't get held up by a strike anywhere.

Hmm. Where next? Can anyone think of a rhyming Spanish coast-to-coast...?

Miles today: 57
Miles since St Malo: 1065

Total metres of climb: 13,500 (44,300ft)
Days of rain: 2
Tents lost: 0.5
Pains au chocolat eaten: 36
Rate of wide-enough passes by French motorists: 98%
Total expenses for 24 days inc all travel, accomm, food and drink: £989
Value: Priceless

Day 20: Les Salles-du-Verdon to Castellane

A day of big climbs – over 1400m all told, and I've just told you so it must be true – but well worth it for some stupendous views of the Verdon gorge.



The early morning ascent to Aiguines gave me a view back over the town of Les Salles, where I spent last night (pic), and Lac Ste Croix beyond. It's amazing how a patisserie pain au chocolat and slug or two of coffee can power you up these mountainsides. And I still had a raspberry cream custard sponge cake thing in reserve.



The road kept rising, giving ever more dramatic views of the vast gorge (pic). I wanted to include my raspberry cream custard sponge cake thing in the picture, but between my finger pressing the button and the picture being taken, I couldn't resist eating it.

At the awesome bridge over the Artuby gorge, a tributary of the Verdon, there was a bungee jumping event (pic – you can just make out the guy doing it). A mere €115 a pop.

Fortunately, I did a bungee jump in New Zealand in 1999, so I never have to do one again.



Eventually (after a lot of downhill) I got back to the Verdon gorge, now on the road right down by the waterside of its upper reaches (pic). Yes, those overhangs do look a bit fragile. The southern French cycle touring equivalent of going under ladders, perhaps. I cycled rather briskly under them.



I'm staying in Castellane tonight, another handsome old town. It's famous for its chapel built high up on a rock a 30 minute walk from the car park in the square (pic). If they do weddings here, it's not a good place for the best man to realise he's left the ring in the car.

Miles today: 46
Miles since St Malo: 1008

Day 19: Forcalquier to Les Salles-sur-Verdon

Another lovely day of cycling on quiet back roads through lush countryside and tranquil woods.



Saturday was market day in several of the towns and villages I passed through, and they were bustling (pic). Locally sourced food is the norm here. When I asked where the fruit and veg were grown they usually just pointed to which farm it came from.



The bars and cafes were buzzing too (pic), and full of good humoured locals. I kept stopping to use their toilet, and so bought a contributory coffee. This did get me into a certain sort of pattern.



I had lunch at Moustiers-Sainte-Marie, a pretty town perched on the side of a cliff (pic). It was thick with tourists, though when I unwrapped the full-strength local cheese I'd bought at one of the markets, the area around me cleared. It was delicious, but I'll be storing the remains tonight outside my hostel room, on the windowledge.



I'm staying in the beach resort village of Les Salles, on the banks of the Lac de Sainte-Croix. At the head of the lake is the Gorge du Verdon, which I'll be cycling alongside tomorrow (pic). The lake and gorge waters are amazing shades of green. As will I be if I eat too much of that cheese.

Miles today: 49
Miles since St Malo: 962

Day 18: Sault to Forcalquier

Another very easy day today: short distances, lovely countryside, friendly little towns, a profile mainly downhill, and plenty of inexpensive local food and drink.

Heading east out of Sault, I got my last look at Mont Ventoux (pic). Here, looming over the lavender fields, it actually looks more like the isolated big climb that it feels, than it did from Sault.

Lavender products are on sale everywhere here, but for me the aroma always conjures up visions of grandma's bathroom circa 1968. Enough to drive anyone up a mountain.



Lunch was in Banon (pic), a lively provençale small town with lots of cafes and, bizarrely, France's fifth-biggest bookshop, Le Bleuet. I looked to see if they had a copy of Bluff Your Way in Cycling in amongst their 150,000 titles in stock. They didn't.

En route to my destination of Forcalquier I passed one of several examples of a borie (pic), an old traditional stone roundhouse dating from 2000BC.

Tiny, draughty, cold in winter and hot in summer, they anticipated British housebuilding values by four millennia.

As I post this I'm enjoying a rather excellent fish dinner for ten euros in the old town, and a pichet of local white for six. I like cycle touring.

Miles today: 33
Miles since St Malo: 913

Day 17: Mont Ventoux

From Sault, the summit of Mont Ventoux looks trivially close (pic). And not that much higher.

Indeed, Sault is the easiest of the three options for base camp towns for the climb every cyclist wants to do, being the highest (700m) and having the shallowest road to the summit (5%). And the best facilities for cyclists, namely, having the best patissier for custard flans.

And the first 12 miles of the 16 to the summit is pretty easy and straightforward: a steady gradual ascent through woods (pic).

Thanks to my early start I had the road to myself. The only sound was the chirping of birds and the squeaking of my back wheel.

But it's a long, long climb: 1200m of up, helpfully logged by a series of signs (pic).

Here you're on your own, just you against yourself, totally alone except for hundreds of retired blokes in lycra on road bikes overtaking you.

Oh yes, and camper vans, There were loads of those too.



The last four miles is the exciting, and, er, steepest, bit, where the bleached limestone scree has a lunar, airless feel. Here the milestones don't just tell the distance, they also entertain you with gradient and altitude information (pic).

The road surface also has messages spray-painted to riders, most of them encouragement to nicknamed friends or heroes ('BEERS au sommet Guigui!!!', that sort of thing). My favourite however said simply 'NO NO VOMITO'.



Shortly before the summit is the moving memorial to British rider Tom Simpson (pic), who perished here in the 1967 Tour de France. High on amphetamines and alcohol (his bidon had been filled with brandy), he pushed himself so hard that he died of exhaustion. Well, two of those are never going to be a danger to me, at least.



Here's me, anyway, at the top (pic). Forget that stuff about being airless. If anything there was too much: it was very, very, very windy. There were dozens of other cyclists there, all in full road kit on featherlight bikes. I'm smiling because I know I'm the least likely to be blown over, thanks to my pannier full of drinks and picnic stuff.



There's an awesome 360 panorama from the top (pic): Ventoux is the tallest thing for miles around, and you feel you're on top of the world. A very windy world where most of your pictures come out blurred or lopsided because you can't hold the camera properly. This is one of the few that did.



That plain, down there, is where I started from, and where I zoomed back to, freewheeling with a tailwind almost all the 16 miles back to Sault.

I passed maybe two hundred cyclists who were on the way up, and felt lively and fit and relaxed like I could do it all over again. Then, as soon as I got back to the hotel about one o'clock, collapsed into bed for a two-hour nap.

So, in sum, Mont Ventoux? Piece of cake.

Plus two pains au chocolat, three bananas, a baguette, tomato, block of pâté, and a custard flan.

Miles today: 33
Miles since St Malo: 880

Day 16: Le Pontet to Sault

My cheapo place last night should have been called Hotel California. It was almost impossible to leave. The only exit east was a motorway bikes are banned from, or an absurd backtrack on scruffy lanes through retail and industrial estates. The only sensible way to get out of North Avignon's badlands was by a short train journey (pic).

Clearly, France's nationalised railways are struggling mightily: even with cheap fares, bright well-staffed stations, lovely spacious clean trains with plenty of bike spaces, and regular services even on little branch lines, I saw few passengers. Compare that to our privatised railways, which are so popular that many routes – even with high fares – are standing room only.



Anyway, I cycled east up the Gorges de Nesque on the D942 (pic). My guidebook says this is 'arguably the best 30km you can ride in the whole of France'. It's certainly spectacular, and the even gradient made the height gain of 400m totally painless, like my dentist. When she drills my teeth she doesn't feel a thing.



I'm shy about putting pics of me, but here I am (pic). That's the confident smile of someone who went shopping for chocolate at Aldi yesterday evening. There had to be some benefits from staying in the middle of a retail estate.



There were zillions of other cyclists doing the same route, most English, and all in lycra and helmets (pic). I was the only one wearing M&S shorts and a sunhat. However, I did meet an excellent couple of friendly lasses from New Zealand – a decade or two older than me, and with a similar down-to-earth approach to cycle touring – who were wearing something identical to me: broad smiles.



Here's one of the tunnels on the gorge road (pic). I think they left them in deliberately to stop oversized mobile homes getting through.



I'm staying in Sault tonight, a road-cycling Mecca for those wanting to go up Mont Ventoux. As I will be, tomorrow, so I've started banking calories for the 1200m ascent by troughing some custard cakes for dinner. The locals preferred less strenuous activity (pic).

Miles today: 37
Miles since St Malo: 847

Day 15: St Martin d'Ardèche to Le Pontet

An easy day of flat cycling with tailwinds and in excellent company. (In other words, English cycle-tourists.) Among vineyards, which helps.



The Rhone isn't the world's most picturesque river to cycle alongside (pic), though it was enhanced by classical French sights: countless vineyards, and a nuclear power station.



A short length of cycle path (pic) brought us to Châteauneuf-du-Pape, the famous wine producing region, where cyclists gather to sip the gorgeous reds which take your breath away. When you find how much they cost.

But Penny, Andy and I found the smart way to enjoy the regional plonk on a touring budget (pic). Go for the pichet with your ménu: still local stuff, but six euros for 50cl rather than twenty.

Fortunately, we only had a very few km to ride afterwards, to Avignon: them to the train station to go home, me to my €33 hotel. I like cycle touring.

Miles today: 42
Miles since St Malo: 810

Day 14: Villefort to St Martin d'Ardèche

Today I crossed into the South of France. In the morning I was wearing woolly hat and gloves to skirt the Cévennes out of Villefort; in the afternoon I was baking under a hot cloudless sky.

I was about the only person baking, though. On Monday it seems almost all the boulangerie-patissiers close. My breakfast cake didn't come till 3.30pm.

Anyway, after some easy climbing and glorious downhilling through fab countryside (nine miles of freewheel into Les Vans!), the day was shaped by the dramatic limestone gorge of the Ardèche. The key sight is Pont d'Arc, a natural arch (pic) which made for a fab picnic lunch spot.

I thought about Wild Swimming here, but the water was far colder, and far faster flowing, than it looks. So like everyone else there I settled for Wild Paddling instead, which doesn't sound quite so promising as a niche book.



From here was an annoyingly up-and-down road overlooking the Ardèche and its many sinuous bends (pic). I couldn't help thinking wistfully of 16 years ago, when I canoed this stretch with someone I love. Lots of water under the bridge since then, but luckily I'm insured for that.



The stupendous views just kept coming, with regular balcons giving vistas over the gorge (pic). When they weren't blocked by Germans in cars taking up all the best viewing positions.



I had a look round Aiguèze, the suggested overnight stop in my guidebook, and one of France's 156 Most Attractive Villages (yup, there's an official list).

As you can see, its medieval lanes and alleys are totally unspoilt by anything such as cash machines, patissiers or off-licences. So instead I'm spending the night in the nearby town of St Martin d'Ardèche.

Miles today: 62
Miles since St Malo: 768

Day 13: Mende to Villefort

An easy day today, the first half uphill in the Lot valley, the second half one long downhill.



I slipped out of Mende – which is something of a mountain biking hub – this morning via the Old Town, where several shops have the same pro-cycling-message sticker in their window (pic). Not that this passer-by looked too pleased about it.



After twenty miles of so of climb, on a lovely sunny but fresh day, I reached the col marking the watershed between the Atlantic and the Med (pic). It would have felt more remote and thrilling, had it not been for the Carrefour supermarket half a level k up the road.



Clearly, then, it's all downhill from here. Maybe. But the next 25km from the watershed to my destination of Villefort certainly was: many miles here and there without pedalling. And it was all a nice shallow gradient, enough to freewheel, but steady enough that you could enjoy the view (pic).

I've no idea what's going on with this milestone, referencing Albert Einstein (pic). Who, famously, is quoted routinely as saying he 'thought of [relativity] while riding my bike'.

Sadly, I've seen well-informed comment that says he never owned a bike during the time he worked on his ground-breaking theories.

I didn't have any grand theoretical insights as I freewheeled down 15 miles to Villefort. I was only thinking of a nice cheap hotel, dinner, and a glass of wine. All of which I duly got. QED.

Miles today: 36
Miles since St Malo: 706

Day 12: Entraygues-sur-Truyère to Mende

The longest and hardest day of the whole trip today: 74 miles' riding (whatever that is in kilometres) and 1600m of vertical climb (whatever that is in rods, poles or perches).



After a dawn start I cycled alongside the Lot for a couple of hours on a misty, damp, atmospheric morning (pic). If you look closely, you can see that my water bottle is actually carrying local red wine from Entraygues, which is only available inside the town. It's rather perfumey and peppery. And, now, plasticky.



Estaing is one of the many fine old towns and villages on the Lot (pic). I had a coffee here. Good job I didn't have it outside. It started to drizzle - it'd have taken me half an hour to finish it.



The day included the biggest climb of the trip so far: the Col de Goudard, 1020m up. Obviously I didn't understand this sign at the start of the steep bit, because it's in French.



That climb is part of a big local annual bike event, and the tarmac – in the French cycle-sport fashion – gets decorated with messages to the riders from fans. The text is mostly riders' nicknames, or stirring stuff such as allez or le sommet arrive – courage. But this message (pic) seemed to have been written with me in mind, as anyone who's biked with me knows. I take frequent stops to admire the view.



At last there was some downhill (pic) and a swoop down to the town of Mende, where I found a comfy and cheap hotel right in the centre. And soon emptied that water bottle. I'll sleep well tonight.

Miles today: 74
Miles since St Malo: 670

Day 11: Gramat to Entraygues-sur-Truyère

A tedious start to the day, parcelling up and sending home the camping stuff that I won't be using now that I'm tentless. Then I took a wrong turn and ended up on a main road for ten miles... But it got better. Much better. Better even than the raspberry crumble custard cake thing I had yesterday.



I got to Figeac for lunch (pic), a lively but untouristy place where it seemed the entire population was out having lunch in the old town. For three hours. No wonder most of the shops are shut in the middle of the day.



After some climbs and glorious descents, the last third of the day was a lovely flat ride in the sun alongside the Lot (pic). Now I can truthfully say that when it comes to cycling in France, I've done the Lot. Note the lighter bike, now devoid of tent and camping gear...



Anyway, there was a lot of this sort of thing today (pic). I'm staying in the delightful confluence town of Entraygues, where the old centre has hardly been touched since medieval times. Like the carpets and wonky floorboards in the hotel I'm staying. Which is a win-win: 'character', and dirt-cheap prices. Seriously, I'm really happy.

Miles today: 68
Miles since St Malo: 596