A market, cycling to Bonnieux, and very tired legs (6 October 2024)

About to leave- it was quite cool

It was our first day of cycling around the Luberon.  Natalene arrived at 8:30am to give us our riding instructions and to check that our bikes fitted us.  Mine did very well but the bike for Graham did not fit so well. 

 

Soon enough we were wobbling our way to Coustellet.  There is a bit to get used to when riding in France, the rear brake is on the right hand side, you ride on the right hand side of the road and while you give way to the right on a roundabout you give way to the left.  Great mental exercises for preventing dementia. 

 

The first part of the ride took us along a dedicated bike trail which was an old railway line that has been repurposed.  After about ten kilometres we were in Coustellet where there was a big market.  Apparently it is the best in the region.  We got some Beaufort cheese, and a few vegetables.  I would have bought more but I had no idea at that point what I might cook in the evening. 

The market

 

From Coustellet we continued along the bike trail until we were then directed through some little country roads.  We went through a small village which featured some amazing plane trees which had already lost their leaves (or maybe they were dead).  Closer to Bonnieux we rode through a number of vineyards with grapes on some of them still.  They were too tempting to resist so we picked a bunch to try.  They were very nice but I have no idea what the variety was.  Perhaps Grenache or Carignan.  I don’t think they were Syrah. 


 

The next challenge was the 2.5 kilometre climb to Bonnieux.  I was relatively slow but the gradient was such that I managed the climb relatively well.  When we got to a Restaurant called Les Terraces I recognised it from the time I had visited seventeen years ago and it did not seem to have changed one iota.  After a much larger lunch than expected we rode around the little hilltop town for a few minutes before riding out of the town on to a different road.  It was mostly downhill, past vineyards and through little villages.  We went past a village called Menerbes which we were going to be visiting on another bike ride. 

 

Bonnieux

We had ridden about 50 kilometres  when we got back to our accommodation and my legs were really feeling it.  We had done about 400 metres of climbing so not too bad after not having done much cycling in the past couple of months. 


Lavender plants - what at sight it would be in summer

Outside Les Terraces and about to depart



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