21st October, Sablet and Mt Ventoux

We walked our new village this morning without the camera, up and down extremely narrow lanes, steep steps, past fountains and washing "stations", small houses and elaborate houses, ramparts, towers,  a modern retirement/nursing home, boulangeries, charcuterie, restaurants, tabacs and found the tourist office which also doubles for a wine tasting and sales office. Sablet's economy is based on wine and the area is surrounded by vineyards. But more on Sablet later when we do a "Sablet exclusive". The tourist office armed us with more maps and where and what to's in Vaucluse en Provence than one could possibly consume in 3 weeks.

Today we had  another "must do" to get off the list - to reach the top of Mount Ventoux about 20 kms to the east of us and another 20 kms climb to the summit at 1910 meters.
Mt Ventoux is well known amongst those who follow the Tour de France as one of the notorious climbs. The climb claimed the life of one rider back in 1967, about 1 km from the summit, and a memorial is erected in his memory at the place where he succumbed. The road is quite wide and easily navigated in the car, unlike those mountain roads we travelled in the Alpes - although steep, approx. 10%incline, the sections were long and straight, before a relatively easy change in direction. This does not mean that the cyclists find it easy as most of those riding it today were discovering. We find the number, and age of these amateur cyclists, riding these challenging mountain ascents, quite amazing. There is a lot of grey hairs under some of the cyclists'  helmets.
The summit of Ventoux offers an unprecedented view over the valleys below. However, today cloud cover from about 1,400 meters to the summit limited visibility to about 10 meters and the driving conditions became a bit dodgey to say the least. But we did it and it's crossed off the list. We may go back with better weather reports later on to experience the view.

Scenery on the way up Mt Ventoux

Looking down into the valley

Monument to Tom Simpson who died on the TdF climb in 1967