After our visit to Aix, the first excursion of this type since Berlin, Sunday and Monday were quiet and unremarkable. Except for the Mistral.

Now the Mistral is an odd wind. It gusts rather than blows and is, it seems, accompanied by blue skies. The gusts rattled the awning and blew up dust so that we had to take it down. Then again, it only seems to blow during the day. Actually it does not seem to start with any degree of menace until late morning and generally seems to pick up during the afternoon. Certainly the trees, tall wispy spruces and oak get whipped around. We got showered with pine needles and the occasional cone. The birds, which until now had been hidden, high up in the canopy, flew lower and we managed to get a glance of one or two.

With Sunday being sunny I thought I needed a little exercise so out came the trusty old bike. Since the route to town is downhill all should be well, I thought. I even managed to find a cycle path, not the most common item on French roads. Trying to cycle into the wind, however, was a really hard job, even downhill! So much for my exercise.

And I was horrified to discover, having made the town that the Tour de France appear to use the climb back towards the campsite as a training run for their later exploits like, eg up Mont Ventoux. Needless to say, it was a slow climb back to the camp site for me!