We left early in the morning on Monday to conquer Mt Ventoux a mountain famous for its wine and for the harrowing leg on the Tour de France in which the cyclists climb to 1910m (7500 ft) on a 7.5% gradient. We drove slowly up the mountain the views growing ever more impressive and the temperature dropping from 25c at the bottom to 4c at the top with an icy wind to boot. About 200m from the summit we hit cloud and drove through the thick mist until we got to the summit.
From time to time the cloud lifted and we saw the countryside below spread out like a map with no detail able to be spotted from the height we were at. Just like a picture we saw the jumble of colours far below us. On a clear day you can see the Pyrenees 300km away.
As we got to the bottom again the cloud all lifted which was a disappointment but C’est La Vie. We drove onto the magic town of Sault for breakfast and looked at Mt Ventoux in the far distance over rolling Provencal countryside.
We completed a circular tour around Mt Ventoux admiring the lovely Village Perche that Provence is famous for like Montbrun below.
Tuesday dawned bright and sunny again and we decided to drive to eastern Provence via the famous Fontaine de Vaucluse, where the River Sorgues appears from a spring and almost magically forms a wide fast flowing river. We set the Garmin to take us by the shortest route, and very quickly it had pointed us down small tracks crossing the Vaucluse Mountains where it seemed only goats would go. Eventually we reached a quarry in the middle of nowhere and the track petered out so we turned around and using intuition rather than Garmin we drove into what was now a rainy Fontaine de Vaucluse and found a car park. We trudged along the river in the rain to the spring that the river is formed from and trudged back again in the rain.
Unfortunately the rain stayed with us for the next two days and so we did little sightseeing while we stayed in the sleepy town of Barjols which has as its claim to fame 30 fountains all fed by local streams. The mushroom shaped ones are the most famous.
We stayed at the great value inn called Pont d’Or which is all that is great about French Provincial Hotels. Smallish rooms, great fixed price menus. 17 euros for a three course meal that couldn’t be bettered almost anywhere. The omelette with herbs was the best I had any where, and Wendy’s Daube Provencal (like Beef Bourginonne) was the best beef stew she had ever had.
And so our time in France came to an end and on Thursday morning we left in drizzly conditions for Italy. We had 500km to go that day and once we got to Nice we entered the incredible A10 autostrada that goes all the way to near Pisa. It is just one long stretch of tunnel followed by a viaduct all the way. We lost count of the number of tunnels (hundreds and some over 2km long). It was tough driving – in to the dark, into the light, overtake that truck, be overtaken by an idiot Italian and so on. It is without a doubt the most impressive engineering for a road in the world at least as far as the length of what has been done. Eventually late afternoon we finally pulled out of the constant series of gullies and ravines leading down into the Golf Of Genoa and brighter weather beckoned as we drove into La Spezia looking for a hotel. Nothing looked that attractive so we continued along smaller country roads southwards until we found a charming hotel with friendly management who welcomed us.
We needed a SIM card for our phone so after a short rest we went driving looking for one and after alot of wasted time in traffic jams and getting lost we found a shop in Aulle that sold what we wanted. It was staffed by a single girl and there were a few people in there. It was 7pm and we were tired. But it turned out she had spent three years in London studying English so she was pleased to see and help us. Unfortunately in order to get a SIM card in Italy you need a passport and we didn’t have ours on us. She tried to get around the rules with a driving license but the computer system wouldn’t accept it so we gave up and decided to return the next day. We had a lovely meal at the Pizzeria that the hotel had downstairs with pizzas cooked in a wood fired oven.
Next morning we woke up to a gorgeous view from our window.
This area of Italy was flooded with walled hilltop villages – two a penny. After getting our SIM card and getting the internet for a month for just 10 euros we continued our long drive south and after a long day stopped at a place about 70km north of Rome on the coast called Tarquinia. It was the site for an ancient Entruscan settlement and it has the best preserved necropolis ever discovered with thousands of burial mounds containing quite magnificent tombs. We wandered around the burial mounds going down flights of steps and peering into the tombs which dated from 500BC and had the most marvellous paintings on the walls and ceilings to guide the deceased in the after life.
We were almost alone there admiring the achievements of a civilization predating the Romans and about which little is known. After viewing the tombs we drove into the ancient town of Tarquinia and went to the museum based in a 15c palace and saw some of the fascinating finds found in the tombs.
On Saturday we continued south around Rome and arrived at Naples where we exited the motorway and headed along the Sorrentine Peninsular along narrow windy roads that are carved out of a solid 500m high cliff to the small town of Praiano where we had rented a villa for a week. The view from the villa is outstandingly gorgeous. We unloaded our luggage on the narrow corniche road outside the villa attracting much hooting and waving and found a park for the car aways a way on the main road. We had been told that at 7pm there would be a procession and celebration as part of the Festival of Saint Gennaro and it would go right outside our balcony overlooking the main road and the bay below. We waited outside at 7 and just as we heard the procession gathering strength from the church, the heavens opened, thunder and lightning appeared from nowhere and the procession scattered into shelter. 15 minutes later it was all over and we saw the mortal remains of St Gennaro carried on a sedan proceeded by priests chanting some ancient verse. They went past us, turned around and went back to the church and when they arrived the skies were lit up with the most marvellous firework display. Maybe not the most spectacular in the world, but as they were just over the road they lit up the skies and assaulted our eardrums in a great display.
On Sunday after a stroll around the village we rested. In 7 days we had driven 3200km (with no locks!) from Amsterdam to Praiano. It had been tiring driving. This week we shall explore Capri, Herculaneum and Amalfi before driving another 600km to Sicily. Pictures of this lovely villa next week. Ciao.
