Hiking the GR6, GR5 & Tour du Mont Blanc 

DAY 1: Saturday June 2nd: Paris, Avignon, Roussillon, St Saturnin: 

Walk 9k: 2hrs 30: 18°C to 30°C very sunny and hot

Accommodation: Hotel St Hubert St Saturnin

It’s Day 1 of our 650k walk, and we’re already at Plan B. The bus to Roussillon was a NO-SHOW.  

Up at 5.30am, wizzed over the flat with Ian's old underpants, packed, left our "To be picked up later" box in the hole in the brickwork under the stairs and walked out the double green doors - every apartment block in Paris has double green doors to a courtyard.   We walk 300 metres to Bastille to get the Metro to Gare du Lyon for the TGV, then walk to the end of the 1k train to seats 53 and 54.   The conductor tells us we’re sitting in 2nd class when we have tickets for 1st class - so back 1k to the start of the train.  The seats are comfy and a power point charges my computer while I type yesterday’s diary. The TGV leaves 1 min late and soon we’re rolling through the country side for 2hrs 40 mins to Avignon.  

Outside the station, the bus is waiting but there’s time to sit on the grass and boil our Jet Boil for a cup of coffee.  We board the bus, and the bus driver speaks Frenchy English as he was a bus driver in the UK for 3 yrs.   He is very good dodging cyclists. There’s only us on the bus so he takes us for a guided tour of Avignon.  Past the long wall to St Benezet's Bridge built in 1185.  The city housed the Pope and was a mini Vatican from 1309 to 1376 during which time seven popes resided in Avignon.

We arrive in Cavaillon expecting our connecting bus to be there at 12.25pm to depart for Roussillon but no bus.  I check my timetable - yes there should be a bus.  We meet a Russian couple waiting for the same bus.   She could speak French to a bus driver. And she then told her partner in Russian, who could speak English and to us ,  Yes, there should be a bus but ??? . There never was a Plan B but now there is. 

We decide to get a bus to Apt, a large city south of St Saturnin Les Alpes,  and again, we are the only 2 passengers on the bus so the driver takes us for another guided tour through the hilltop villages of Provence - Menerbes, Lacoste, Bonnieux, and onto the main D900 highway towards Apt (route of the 2008 Tour de France) - very pretty with hilltop villages spread in the valley between two mountain ranges - the Luberon and the Plateau of Vaucluse.  The flowery smells of spring in Provence wafting through the bus window are magnificent.  The bus driver drops us off in the middle of nowhere just before Apt and points across the highway to a narrow road that we hope heads towards St Saturnin.  A few hundred metres and we’re lost, so Ian gets out his Samsung notepad, and the GPS pinpoints our position exactly at the town of Gargas.   We're finally off on the start of our 650 walk to Mont Blanc.

It’s hot.  30°C and my pack is really heavy with 2kg of extra of clothes I am supposed to be wearing because it’s supposed to be cold - jumpers, flannelette shirts, thermals etc.  We find a bar after 3k and have a Perrier and 2 teas and I immediately chuck out 2 shirts, undies, powdered milk, soap and some food - that should get rid of 1kg.  We head for the hills - literally. St Saturnin looms in the distance as the prettiest little town with its prominent church steeple.  We arrive at 4.30 and there's a sign on the Hotel St Hubert - closed til 6pm.  We find a small bar, and several beers and wines later, and a stint on wifi courtesy of the bar, we are ready to check in to St Huberts.  They have no record of my reservation - a bit of a worry.   But no problems, we are the only guests - another worry considering when I booked 3 weeks ago, every other hotel in town was full - the tourist office informed me it was Mother's Day June 3rd so reservations might be difficult.  But the room is OK, apart from the bathroom slopingabout 6 inches from one side to the other. 

 The reviews for the restaurant are good so we're looking forward to dinner on the terrace overlooking Provence. Dinner is typically French - each platter is exquisitely decorated.  We have pate, chicken and entrecôte (steak) on the terrace overlooking the rolling hills of Provence.  The restaurant is full and we realise the hotel is really a restaurant with the occasional guest.  After dinner we stroll through the old town and admire the magnificent crumbling fortress on top off the hill above us lit up with spotlights.  The temperature is perfect at 20°C.  We go to bed in the cool of the night.  Tomorrow is a 21k day to Chaloux.I