Tournon sur Rhone to Montelimar

Tournon sur Rhone to Montelimar

Our apartment kitchen. This is pretty typical of what most of them looked like. I made a lot of scrambled eggs with butter.The apartment from the back side. We had the balcony, but it was too hot to be out there.
Leaving Serrieres, heading to Tournon sur Rhone. A factory of some sort - I think it was fencing.
A ceramic tile factoryOne of many campgrounds along the trail.
I passed this older couple, picking cherries. Then I thought...I wonder if they'd sell me 2 euros worth? They were happy to!
Lovely wild plums. I was almost all carnivore, except for when I ran across fruit on the trail.Entering Tournon sur Rhone. A beautiful park.
We hung out for a while, before we were able to get into our apartment.Biking across the old bridge to get to the chocolate museum.
At the chocolate museum, they had tickets with a QR code. Scan the QR code at one of a number of machines, and you get a free chocolate. Peter got double-chocolates.
Very cute apartment. AC, too.
At the Château-Musée in Tournon-sur-Rhône
View from the topThe pedestrian bridge that we crossed to get to the other side (chocolate museum)
This looked like fun - they were having an upholstery workshop inside.
Dinner at the restaurant owned by the lady who owns the apartment we stayed in.Biking from Tournon-sur-Rhône to Valence
Everything about the bees. Nothing about the historyEntering into Valence, you can see the Château de Crussol in the distance. I later hiked all around it.
A hydro plant on the Rhone.
We decided to take the most direct way to the old town, where our apartment was. It was STEEP! An elderly lady walked behind me and helped me with the bike occasionally.The apartment was fine, except for one thing - it was just under the roof, with no AC, so it was HOT. And never really cooled down. After this, I made sure every place we stayed at had AC.
This fish market truck is hauling a special container, an unusual size. Wonder why?At the town museum, an beautiful old mosaic, from the Roman era.
It was the Fête de la musique", and there were concerts all around town. We went to the piano concert at the museum.
It was packed, and very busy.The miltary was about as well.
These ladies did a dance routine on some weird trampoline shoes."Gallette", which is like a buckwheat pancake, filled with ingredients like eggs, cheese, ham, etc. I tried to get just the fillings, but that didn't work. So I just ate the fillings, and left the gallette.
A view (down a closed-off park) towards the castle.To the right, top floor, is where we stayed.
The next morning, I took an Uber to the Château de Crussol. Peter wanted to sleep in, and I felt like taking a break from the bike, thus the Uber. However, the Uber driver, though friendly, wouldn't drive up the hill at all - he thought it would hurt his Tesla, even though it was paved till about halfway up! So, I had a solid, steep walk up the hill to the castle. It was so worth it, though.I couldn't decide which photos I liked best, so I included most of them. It looked like there was a little village below the castle.
Views upstream
At the top
A view looking back towards Valence
Looking downstream on the Rhone
At the stadium on the way down, there was a group of men doing some very intense exercises.
More nature signage, no history signage at all, though.
TParc Jouvet in Valence
This fountain could have used some serious cleaning
The next morning - biking from Valence to Cruas, where we stayed in a campground
I looked up this tower - it's the Tour penchée de Soyons.
More tasty trailside plums
There were many basic lots for campervans. I wonder if they were free or not.
Crossing a river at Livron-sur-Drôme - we had to go inland quite a bit, off the Rhone, to cross this tributary river
This town (La Voulte-sur-Rhône) I remember mainly because as we were having breakfast (we skipped breakfast to get more early biking time, avoiding the heat), I cut my thumb pretty badly, slicing up sausage. Luckily I had a good bandaid.
Interesting geological formation here, right next to Baix. Apparently it's folded and tilted limestone
I saw this guy coming, on a ... I don't know what to call it, some kind of triangle bike ... and barely managed to take a picture. How did he get up? And down? Who knows...We stayed at the campground in Cruas, in one of these little shelters. There was nothing but an air mattress inside, in contrast to some of the other campgrounds we've been in. Good thing we both had some ultralight sheets. Also, so glad there were no mosquitos! Because it was right next to a lake.
All the other bike shelters but ours were empty.This is the map of Cruas that was in the campground office. It shows multiple restaurants and other businesses. But it seems like they've all gone out of business. The tourist office was open, though.
Biking to the little lake, next to the campground, Peter wanted to swim thereWe didn't swim much. It wasn't very clean.
You can see the concrete plant in the background.The old medieval village of Cruas
An old abbey
Interesting and unusual cloud formation called mammatocumulus.Getting to the old medieval part of Cruas, we had to squeeze past this car.
Nobody lives in this section of town anymore.
This is the monk's castle (that's what they actually call it, the chateau de moines)
Chilling at the pool. Others complained that it was a little wam, but for me it was perfect.
Peter was not a big fan of the liver pate pastryDoing the loop at the campground
We did an evening bike ride down to the nuclear power plant.
And, this is also the first photo of the next morning, after we'd packed up. Biking from Cruas to Montelimar, and got a pretty early start to beat the heat.
The castle of Rochmaure. I chatted for some time with a guy from Spain here, who was visiting a german fellow who's older now, and bed-ridden, but traveled the world on a bike for decades and decades - Heinz Stucke. I thought about going up to the castle but...the eternal heat!
In Montelimar, we waited at a cafe till we could get into our apartment. I saw this young couple traveling on bike with their dog!Our apartment in Montelimar. It was very nice, looked very newly remodeled. I made sure to get a place with air conditioning!
We were up on the top floor. I'll bet that without AC, it would have been sweltering.There was a music conservatory nearby, Peter found a piano. It wasn't in good shape though - odd, for a piano at a conservatory.
The town market in Montelimar
We visted Montelimar Castle. It was completely empty. Decent enough place, EXCEPT that it was exclusively kid oriented - all the displays were for the under 12 crowd.
Some very friendly cats in the area
Another empty fountain, out in front of the tourist office.Nougat candy is a speciality of Montelimar. We got to tour a nougat factory.
Wrapping the candies
The strap for the bag got wrapped around Peter's gearsDesert - creme broulee!