Tuesday 12th July: Overcast and Rain all day until we arrived in Avignon Cool 15°C to 21°C
Malaucene: Train 9.40am to 4pm. Car 5pm to 6.30pm.
Accommodation: Apartment Maloc 10, Avenue de Verdun, Malaucene
Rain Rain Rain as we leave Briancon
Breakfast in a bus shelter
Today we left the Alps in rain - our first day of heavy rain in 4 weeks. A good time to leave Briancon. Highlight was seeing the bald top of Mont Ventoux for the first time. We're headed to Malaucene, at the foothills of Mont Ventoux to see Stage 12 and 13 of the Tour de France.
We awake to overcast foreboding skies. At 8am, we're down to the City Carrefours to buy breakfast to eat at Briancon station while waiting for the train and lunch for the day we’ll spend sitting in trains.
We then walk the 1.3k to the Briancon railway station. The train leaves at 9.40am and after checking the electronic board that all is good, there's time for breakfast. But it's now raining, so we dash across the road to the bus shelter and have muesli, milk, yoghurt with a hot Jetboiled cup of tea, before running back to the warmth of the station. It’s a cool damp 15°C.
The train leaves on time. It's a pretty but misty trip down the Durance valley towards Embrun, where Ian and I had walked in 2012 to Briancon on the GR5. It takes 3 hrs 40mins to get to Valence Ville, stopping at 15 stations on the way, and it's rained the whole way.
Train in the rain to Avignon
There's an hour between trains, before we get the TGV to Avignon, so time for the lunch we bought at Carrefours in Briancon while huddled in the warmth of the station – fresh bread, cheese and tomatoes At 2.14pm, the train leaves for Avignon. It stops only twice, and at 3.30pm, we arrive in Avignon, and need to change to the shuttle train that takes only 6 minutes to get to the Avignon TGV station where we have booked an Avis rent-a-car through rental cars.com - a subsidiary of booking.com. Damien speaks good English as he's worked at Roma Street Brisbane for several months, and it's easy to fill in the paper work with his help. Half an hour later, Graham is driving out in an almost new Toyota Auris, a hybrid car. He has volunteered to drive as both he and I acquired International Driver's Licences before we left Oz, but I'm happy to be a backseat driver.
Bald head of Mont Ventoux
We've earmarked a large Carrefours just 1k from the TGV station but it's not easy to find, and 15 minutes and 15 roundabouts later, we're there. It's ginormous. Ian and Graham get the beer and wine, Jenny and I get the salads, cheeses and a pork filet. We know the apartment we're going to in Malaucene has a stove, and France has particularly good pork fillet, more reasonably priced than beef or chicken, but you can't get it from a little store in a mountain village.
At 5.30pm with a boot full of groceries and back packs, we're on the ring road and heading north towards Orange, then turn off to Carpentras before seeing the signs to Malaucene. Soon, we come face to face with the famed bald heights of Mont Ventoux - a stunning sight, rising out of the lowlands of Provence. Malaucene is buzzing with cyclists and the smell of bolognese and pizza - cyclists food!
It's easy to find our Apartment at 10, Avenue de Verdun - it's smack bang in the centre of the village where all the action is. The sign on the door indicates we need to telephone for the receptionist and lucky Jenny has a phone. The apartment is small but perfectly suitable - 3 bedrooms, one bathroom and a kitchen/dining/lounge area about 3m x 3m.
We quickly unpack the car of our luggage and groceries, cook our pork filet, throw together a salad and have dinner with a cold beer and rose that the boys have bought from down the road. There's a village car park 30 metres away and we're lucky to find a spot, given the number of tourists in town. Time for an early night after a long day travelling.