The drive and the ferry home

We left Dijon early this morning to drive to Calais for the ferry back to Dover.  

All passed off without event and we got home later that evening after another pleasant meal in the ferry's smart restaurant.

A day exploring Dijon

We got up quite early today and had breakfast in our hotel.

After breakfast we did a walking tour of Dijon visiting the Cathedral Saint Benigne, then had a look at the Porte Guillaume archway.

Next up was the Jardins Darcy then we had a wander around a nice indoor market (Les Halles) and bought a few presents for people back home as well as some nice food for lunch.

We ate lunch near the Museé des Beaux Arts and then explored the museum itself – there were some fascinating pieces dating from the 19th Century right until the 20th.

After the art museum we stopped for a quick coffee and then went on the museum of scared art which was next door to the museum of Burgundy life.  The latter was really interesting and finished our exploring off nicely.

We went back to the hotel for a rest and to book dinner.

Leaving Provence and the drive to Dijon

We had a good breakfast and made some baguettes for lunch today then packed everything up and left Bedoin to do the 420km drive to Dijon.  We got there around 6pm and checked into our hotel, the Hotel du Palais and parked the car in a nearby secure car park.

We had a short explore around Dijon and then had a gorgeous dinner at a restaurant called La Theatre de Sens (The Theatre of Senses).  The meal and the service were both delicious.  We had a few drinks in a nearby bar afterwards.

Gordes, Village des Borries and Rousillon

We did a driving tour around the Luberon area today, starting with Gordes where we had a nice lunch at L’Artegale restaurant.

We saw some ancient cellars used for olive oil pressing and great views across the area.

Village des Borries is an old abandoned village with lots of amazing houses and other buildings made of drystone walls.


Rousillon is a pretty village and had near it some amazing natural stone formations containing lots of Ochre so showing really vibrant yellow, read and orange colours.

We came back to the campsite for our last evening, preceding dinner by a last hour by the pool.  We ate in the campsite restaurant where I had faux-filet of steak again because it’s very good there!

Back to Vaison la Romaine

We left the campsite fairly early this morning to go back to Vaison thinking we’d spent an hour or two there and then go on elsewhere.  It turned out the Roman museum was really interesting and came with an excellent audioguide that took us not only around the museum but around the extensive Roman remains in the town as well as across the Roman bridge over the Ouveze river and up into the Old Town.  We had a good explore around there and went up to the castle from where we saw great views of Vaison and the area.

We popped into Bedoin on the way back to see if we fancied a restaurant that was featured in Trip Advisor but its menu did not look enticing so we picked up a few bits at the small supermarket there and ate back at our tent.

The market at Bedoin and Vaison la Romaine

We drove into Bedoin this morning as Monday is market day there.  The market was much bigger than we expected and we had a really good explore, buying all sorts of tasting cheese, meats, olives, garlic and fig chutney.  We took all this back to the campsite and had a lovely relaxing lunch with some French soup that we had also bought.

Later in the afternoon we drove over to Vaison la Romaine to explore it – it’s only 20km from the campsite.  We got to the extensive Roman ruins and bought tickets but realised that we were not going to have enough time to do it justice so had a quick walk around and decided to return tomorrow (the tickets are valid for 24 hours).

Back at the campsite we had a rest and then ate in the campsite restaurant again.  I had delicious gambas and Gordon had dorade (bream).

Mont Ventoux and a special dinner

We spent today resting at the campsite again and then in the early evening we drove up to the peak of Mont Ventoux, which is near where we are staying.  We ascended about 2,000m in 15 km for a really spectacular view at the top.  It was extremely windy, as the name of the mountain suggests.  Ventoux is also a very famous stage of the Tour de France and we did indeed see lots of cyclists.

The descent of Mont Ventoux was fine and we stopped at a nice restaurant at the bottom of the descent called Le Mas des Vignes where we had a really wonderful meal.  The car’s brakes were clearly very hot as they were smoking gently at the front and the plastic wheel trims were feeling decidedly soft!  

The view of the sunset over the dentelles de montmirail was really gorgeous to see.

We came back to the campsite bar for a couple of drinks after our meal.