This is a place. A village of sorts near Mirabel. It was such a lovely day today that it struck me this would be a good place for a wander. We'd been there years ago when we were staying in Mirabel and on that occasion in the hot summer we'd watched a troupe of beeeaters swooping over the road scoffing butterflies. So I found a route on t'internet that we adapted a bit to shorten and off we trotted.
Warm enough for Bare Arms! Yeah. The walk starts in the village in front of this frankly gross sculpture done directly into the rock. Called La Belle Vendengeuse (this is wine country).
You are instructed not to climb on it. Then it's along the lanes past the restored 12th century chapel and up to the bell tower below the ruins of the old village.
Great views and worth the precarious scramble. Mirabel is below in the distance and Ventoux behind me, wearing a fresh white snow collar. It was so quiet here. Just bird song and the occasional distant vehicle, hens chuntering and cocks crowing, jackdaws chirruping as they brought nest material to the tower.
We stopped at the top of a ridge by a vineyard around midday. A couple of blokes were having lunch by their van but as usual we had brought nothing with us! Really do not like lugging bottles and bags on a walk and we weren't bothered. They were replanting a whole hillside with cuttings that looked as if they'd been dipped in red wax. It was at this moment that we heard the lads, way over Sablet way, and saw that they were still practising with red and blue smoke, no white yet!
Ventoux looked dramatic but no sign of vehicles up there yet. Should have opened yesterday but if there was fresh snow this might delay things.
At this point the walk went on for another few hours past some ruined village where giants had been found (!) but we took the short cut back through the vines and a smart domaine where obviously they also did serious olive production. The trees all had rolled netting attached ready to be unfurled to catch the ripe olives. No way these precious fruit were going to be sullied by contact with the soil.
