The first day out of Die we were very tired and we only went about 20 km before we found a lovely medieval village called Chatellion-en-Diois. We were glad of the stop, not only because it was a very unusual and picturesque village, but also because the next day was hard work, up another massive mountain (col. Grimone - see recent photo blogpost). Fantastic gorge on the way up, but a noisy busy road at the end for about 20km.
We spent the night at a somewhat lonely campsite just after the town of Veynes. Calling the campsite "lonely"is a bit unfair, the was one other person there. When we met the owner the next morning she was very friendly, chatting, offering us coffee and remenissing about her holidays to London and to Perth in Scotland. She only charged us 5 Euros, which was a bonus.
The next day was mostly a slog along the main road, through the big town of Gap (scary traffic after small towns for so long). We got a bit lost getting out of Gap and ended up on a back road which went the right direction, but which took us "unnecessarly" up a hill. Adrian enjoyed this, but Ais was not very impressed. We were both tired when we finally reached our lakeside campsite near Embrun. Huge campsite, but only about 5 sets of people there because September is near the end of season.
A much needed rest day was had at Embrun. This consisted of the usual lounging around, clothes washing, eating a lot (Adrian bought a 16 Euro tuna steak, kind of by accident), and avoiding riding the bikes. We had a nice walk around the lake and into the town to run a few errands and look around:
- Bakery for cakes to eat in the town square
- Internet cafe for coffee and blog
- Garage to buy petrol for the multifuel stove
- Sports shop for some new trainers for Ais and some bike parts
- Art shop for some postcards (still haven't sent them yet...) and a sketch book (still haven't drawn anything yet...)
- Supermarket for some new water bottles and... more food...
The ride out of Embrun followed the contours as much as possible in the mountains (so still a fair few hills) and we avoided the main road which was great. When we got to Guillestre we were quite tired aleadly because it was hot. Glamorous lunch outside sat in a supermarket carpark whilst we waited for it to open. Then onwards, up from 800m altitude to 1400m altitude which was a fantastic ride in the relative cool of the late afternoon.
It all went a bit wrong after about 6pm. A crazy looking frenchman rode past us on what appeared to be a homemade bike. We had just ridden past a campsite but decided we would continue 10km to the next one. What we didn't think about was that the next campsite was at 1900m altitude. As it began to get dark we the crazy frenchman passed us again, pushing his bike and talking to himself in a very spooky way... We began to start pushing our bikes at about 8.30pm and walked into the village of Pierre Grosse. We couldn't find the campsite and the villagers stared at us through their windows. Eventually, we worked out that the campsite was just beyond the town (up the hill further of course!). Arrived safe but wrecked.
The next day we rested at campsite and had short walk to a bakery with a cybercafe (most unexpected in a small alpine vallage, largely unspoilt by mass-ski-tourism). The day after we cycled (and push-walked) up to Col Agnel, the border with Italy at 2700m altitude. The altitude was so great it left us short of breath, but with enough puff for a chat with friendly Italian cyclists! The ride down was long and steep (see photos in recent blogpost). The day ended with an expensive and tatty campsite, 30km into Italy. As we later found out, most campsites in Italy are like this, we were just spoilt in France.
The downhill run the following day seemed endless which was good because the area seemed quite uninteresting. A slightly disappointing start to Italy, but it got steadily better as we went east.
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