October 2004. With funding for me to attend a three-day conference in Toulouse, in the south of France, my wife and I opted to build this into a shared four-week French holiday, including a week cycling.
Cycling? What were we thinking? Neither of us was more than a very occasional cyclist but we committed to a self-guided cycling tour. The tour company would provide bikes, maps, baggage relocation to our overnight accommodations, breakfasts and evening meals. Brochures showed idyllic scenes of exuberant couples spinning along sundrenched country lanes. That would be us; we’d have a great time!
The title of the tour should have warned us. ‘Perched Villages.’ Only after committing did we realise that ‘perched’ meant hills—very steep hills—in the Luberon massif of central Provence. In the centuries following the fall of the Roman Empire, villagers had relocated from the plains to the mountains, where height substituted for the protection of the Pax Romana. The quaint medieval villages are tourist-clogged in season but by October only locals remain.
After collecting our bikes on the first day we set out in bright sunshine and high spirits, heading downhill through small and picturesque towns. Then it got serious: our map led us back into the mountains with repeated steep grinds. By late afternoon we were flagging, with hours still to go. And the rain began.
We pressed on until the map said our destination was close: le Moulin Brun. This would be like le Moulin Rouge, I reasoned, on the basis of my minimal French, just brown sails, not red. We left a valley in our wake and climbed a steep hill before reality dawned; le Moulin Brun was a water mill. We’d passed it kilometres back, down in the valley. We retraced our wheel tracks and arrived at our destination tired, saturated, and grumpy. Not a good start; but things got better—and worse—on successive days.
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