Cavaillon

Day 14, part two:
We walked back to Loumarin, pretty tired, had a shower and headed into town for tea. We decided that we'd earned dinner in a restaurant, but went to a cafe and had a couple of espressos first (we love coffee). We were planning to head to a pizza place that we'd seen, but when we got there we were amazed to be told that the inside was full (though it'd only been open for about 20 mins - restaurants only open at 7:30 in France). We started to walk off, but decided that it really wasn't so cold outside, and that we couldn't be bothered wandering around town looking for somewhere else.
We were glad we stayed - the pizza was awesome! Some of the best pizza we've ever eaten! And we did sit outside, next a small fountain with flower pots on the edge and some goldfish swimming around. It was lovely. The food was great - really simple and quite generous. We had two fantastic entrees, one was fresh figs with proscuitto & bread sticks, the other simply salad with fresh tomato & aubergine with melted cheese... mmm... Pizzas were great- one with ham & lettuce on it (sounds weird but it really worked!) The ohter was salamon & cheese. YUM!

Day 15 Cycle to Cavillion. Jeudi 27th.
We left the camping ground fairly early, because we weren't sure what the weather was going to do. We started on the bike course, and as before struggled up a few hills. We got to ----- and had a couple of coffees with morning tea, and it started to rain (despite being told by several locals that it wouldn't). We decided to leave the bike path, go on the more main road, and just get to the next town for lunch - we knew there were some sizable hills on the path that we thought we could avoid. It was worthwhile - we got to the next town after only about 40 minutes of cycling in the rain and wind but beautiful views, which stopped approximately in time for us to sit down and eat some lunch - nice! We found a small picnic area surrounded by olive trees and looking up towards the spectacular mountain range next to us. After our (as usual) tasty lunch, we continued along the bike path which led us along small roads between orchards, lavendar fields, the aforementioned mountains, the train line, a few canals with rushing water, and lovely tree-lined pathways. We had a few small hills later in the afternoon but it wasn't too bad, and it meant we were closer to the magnificent pink rocky cliffs of the Petit Luberon Mountains. We came to Cheval Blanc about 3pm and were ready to stop for the day, having ridden 35km and both being very tired from the long walk the day before, but found that the campground shut about two weeks ago, so no-go there. We decided to ride on to Cavillion, our least-favourite town of the trip, but where our train was booked to leave from tomorrow! So we rode the 10km to Cavillion through spitting rain and wind (the Mistral had been with us all day again today - but luckily not as strong as yesterday). By the time we got there we were very ready to find somewhere to sleept, but the campground we knew was pretty crappy (we had checked it out last weekend when we were passing through), so that was no good. We went to one 'hotel' but the shower was in the corner of the quite-average looking room, and there was no toilet. Didn't rate too highly! We found another hotel which was a bit like a youth hostel, but we thought it seemed adequate so booked in for the evening. We both felt quitea bit better after a shower so we grabbed some ingredients for dinner from the local shop and cooked in our room. A pleasant evening after a challenging cycle day!

Day 16 Cavillon to Perpignan. Vendredi 28th.
Our first organised travel day today. We have train tickets from Cavillion to Avignon and then Avignon to Perpignan. We had breakfast in our room & un grasse matinee (that is, a lazy morning!). We went to the local cafe where again we had wireless, so did the banking and checked a few emails etc etc. We had a couple of coffees, our traditional second breakfast of Pain au Rasin (we may have a winner here!), Pain au Chocolat & Cafe Noisette (that's a short black and bit of milk - selina's normal ;-) we have about 2-3 of these a day here in France, might need a detox progam in Edinburgh, which should be easy until we buy a coffee machine!!). Then about 12ish we headed down to the train station to reorganise our gear for the 1:30pm train. Our little trailer is fabulous and packed up in only minutes, then we just shoved all our other gear into our big bags. Then we had a picnic lunch in the train station and with the leftover bread Angus made a bit of a pig of himself by finishing the fig jam we had bought the other day. Now when I say jam, it's a little untrue, it's more like a very watery jam with whole sugary figs in it - total sugar fix! Angus was mopping up the jam and eating the figs with his fingers - Judy, Pete, Zoe - i'm sure none of that will surprise you! He finished up with fig jam all over his face! (well not quite, but you can imagine!)... So we managed to catch the train ok - it was much easier given that we were a bit organised this time, but we still didn't have much time. We made it to avignon ok, had to change platforms (down in a lift with all the gear, then up lift/escalators! Bit of a logistical challenge, but nothing too hard for us seasoned travellers!! We are currently (as we type) sitting on the train to Perpignan, and we have just been through (perhaps our favourite city) Montpellier! We bought some fantastic strawberries in Cavillion, so have been nibbling them on the train ;-)

To be continued... :-)