IN JULY 2015, BEFORE THE TYRANNY OF THE PLYMOUTH–ROSCOFF CROSSING HAD BECOME ESTABLISHED, we had made our way to Sablet via Dunkirk, with stop-overs at Noyon and Poulet-de-Bresse, the latter being an A39 autoroute service station in reality, not a chicken. Hmm. We don’t come that way anymore, thank you very much (true, we don't come the Dunkirk way anymore but I've been having a senior moment or five as to when we did pass this way… we certainly didn't trouble passport control at Dunkirk when we transited through Le Pertuis before [Poole Cherbourg more like] but the year was 2019, in March. Please read on with a generous sprinkle of sodium chloride at your elbow where reference is made to our first passage through Le Pertuis etc. Let's get back to the saga shall we? Right ho).
So hardly surprising that we abandoned the interminable autoroute south to call in at Crest, a favourite town at the time, a good place to obtain Clairette-de-Die, etc. Except it was 11 July (nah). Busy. (usually is) And the bridge over the Drôme was closed (Route Barrée, [yes that was true at least]. So we skipped Crest and went on to Aoust to cross the river, or was it at Mirabel? Who cares, we were heading for Sablet, the last leg, and we decided to cut through the Drôme hills to lighten the spirits after the tedium of the A39. We got over the river somewhere and headed into those inviting hills (carry on we are with you, just about).
So in 2015 (no, wrong again – it was 2019-ed) we’d resolved to come back at some time, take a day out we said . . .
In 2022 here we are doing it. After our experiences of the southward journey two weeks earlier with Routes Barrées I remark to Mme Melling that it will be just our luck that the bridge at Aouste-sur-Sye (our intended destination on the river Drôme) would be just that: Route Barrée.
On this occasion we go by a route of our own construction, as a tour, details of which I attach to the end of this post. But I need IGN maps. And I shall get. Michelin is good for roads but is not the best for hills and crags. Vague. Not forthcoming. Sticks names rather far from where they should be at.
Now, you understand that Drôme is the departmental name for the region we are negotiating here, the whole of which is a favourite of ours for food, landscapes, architecture and style. It is only just across the Eygues river from Sablet – it butts up with Vaucluse hereabouts, although one has to allow for the Enclave-des Pâpes, now attached as an outlier to Vaucluse and which extends as far as, and includes Valréas. Some Avignon pope or three wanted the enclave under their control as they fancied the wine from the region, or some such nonsense. Drôme the department, named after the area’s principle river you see? Anyway, it is a lovely day to be in Drôme. Shorts, me. Open toed aussi!
As we travel north we note some fragmental relief cloud but conclude correctly this to be simply resulting from saturated air moving over the higher and grander hills of D and cooling enough to make a smudge of vapour at times. We are on quiet, often narrow roads after Valréas; long views here and there are at first slightly compromised by high pressure haze. There is the odd tunnel to negotiate (Pont-de-Barret, opened in 1945) before honeypot Saou is reached. Not too many visitors on this occasion and we enjoy a mooch round the village, under the mural crags of the Roche Colombe. I think that is what they are. Sadly I don’t as yet have that IGN of the area and as already mentioned Michelin is a bit vague on this sort of detail, it being a road atlas, essentially.
Then we thread our way through Le Pertuis (gap) on the D136. It is a tight fit for a road. No pictures taken as we have them already from the 2015 (2019 actually) visit. Ditto the gallery stretch of road further down the hill which I think is called the Pas-de-Lauzens, the route hollowed out of the hillside limestone. And on to our destination lunch stop at Aouste . . .
Sure enough, it is Route Barrée. As in a dream foretold. Not the bridge across the Drôme itself, but immediately beyond. Four points on your licence and €90 fine for trying to go the wrong way, the road signs advise. So we park south side, and foot it across. Aouste is on the north bank, you see. We find no sign whatsoever of the enticing bistro we envisioned eating in. We conclude it must have been in Mirabel, further up river.
We drive along the main road (in the direction of Gap) on the south side of the river, skip Mirabel that looks shut, to try our luck at Saillans – but get directed out of the town by the signage so successfully that we are disheartened, give it up and set off on our return leg back to Sablet, up into the autumn colours and fringing woods below the familiar (but not hitherto explored) Les Trois Beos, an alpine-style cliff end of a hill, visible for miles around. What need have we of victuals, when the eye is so satiated? Lovely roads, startling hairpins, autumn colouring up, sudden strands of white cloud, gone in seconds adorning this crag and that, stops and short walks to this view or that. Distant shadowy views of Alpine mountains glimpsed too: is that snow or dissipating cloud? Barely a car on the road either, what’s not to like?
Gradually we drop back down to the valleys and pastures, eventually passing through the small township of Bourdeaux. I had to sit out a lunch there once I recall, being rather ‘off-colour’ when we had penetrated the area thus far from Sablet on a previous foray… when was that? I must look it up… we pass the café in question – but drive on down to Dieulefit where we do stop at last to take coffee and cake in the warm almost hot main (pedestrianised) street sunshine. The sustenance sustains us. The picture below is over the roof tops of Bourdeaux back to that nick in the hills we've just come down through on the D156.
Quite a moderate sized town for up here in the hills, Dieulefit seems. We see the biggest iron ball-in-the-hand door knocker known to man, sadly not for sale as it is in place and in use: my quest for similar goes on… oh, and a charming gallery frontage, sort of childish trompe l’oeil. I snap it. Dieulefit suggests life, culture even. There might be decent provender on sale at times, as well.
Then by gradual degrees we motor on back to Valréas, having obtained perhaps a little better grasp of the associated hills behind Montagne de la Lance and the yet bigger ones beyond, visible to some extent from our terrace, or more so, from Rabais Sud (for example). We look forward to comparing our snaps of this Drôme day with those of the 2015 (er . . .no!) passage to Sablet.
Which is the problem. My mobile archive for Summer 2015 has no sign of such images. Madame Melling finds nothing in her records either. Our logs and Flickr accounts show zero. It was 11th July 2015 so where are the images?
So hardly surprising that we abandoned the interminable autoroute south to call in at Crest, a favourite town at the time, a good place to obtain Clairette-de-Die, etc. Except it was 11 July (nah). Busy. (usually is) And the bridge over the Drôme was closed (Route Barrée, [yes that was true at least]. So we skipped Crest and went on to Aoust to cross the river, or was it at Mirabel? Who cares, we were heading for Sablet, the last leg, and we decided to cut through the Drôme hills to lighten the spirits after the tedium of the A39. We got over the river somewhere and headed into those inviting hills (carry on we are with you, just about).
We found this lovely countryside, the startling Pertuis pass, Saou etc. Not entirely unknown to us of course – we get about a bit you know: we’d dipped a little into western parts of this area when we took a week extension holiday at Sauzet in 2001, after our two week scorcher in Tuchan. The area just south of the Drôme river is a breath of fresh air. Limestone crags, big wooded hills and sweeping plateaux of grasslands, sheep, lavender etc. They link up with the Baronnies in one direction and are part of the Pre-Alps in another.
So in 2015 (no, wrong again – it was 2019-ed) we’d resolved to come back at some time, take a day out we said . . .
On this occasion we go by a route of our own construction, as a tour, details of which I attach to the end of this post. But I need IGN maps. And I shall get. Michelin is good for roads but is not the best for hills and crags. Vague. Not forthcoming. Sticks names rather far from where they should be at.
Now, you understand that Drôme is the departmental name for the region we are negotiating here, the whole of which is a favourite of ours for food, landscapes, architecture and style. It is only just across the Eygues river from Sablet – it butts up with Vaucluse hereabouts, although one has to allow for the Enclave-des Pâpes, now attached as an outlier to Vaucluse and which extends as far as, and includes Valréas. Some Avignon pope or three wanted the enclave under their control as they fancied the wine from the region, or some such nonsense. Drôme the department, named after the area’s principle river you see? Anyway, it is a lovely day to be in Drôme. Shorts, me. Open toed aussi!
Then we thread our way through Le Pertuis (gap) on the D136. It is a tight fit for a road. No pictures taken as we have them already from the 2015 (2019 actually) visit. Ditto the gallery stretch of road further down the hill which I think is called the Pas-de-Lauzens, the route hollowed out of the hillside limestone. And on to our destination lunch stop at Aouste . . .
Gradually we drop back down to the valleys and pastures, eventually passing through the small township of Bourdeaux. I had to sit out a lunch there once I recall, being rather ‘off-colour’ when we had penetrated the area thus far from Sablet on a previous foray… when was that? I must look it up… we pass the café in question – but drive on down to Dieulefit where we do stop at last to take coffee and cake in the warm almost hot main (pedestrianised) street sunshine. The sustenance sustains us. The picture below is over the roof tops of Bourdeaux back to that nick in the hills we've just come down through on the D156.
Quite a moderate sized town for up here in the hills, Dieulefit seems. We see the biggest iron ball-in-the-hand door knocker known to man, sadly not for sale as it is in place and in use: my quest for similar goes on… oh, and a charming gallery frontage, sort of childish trompe l’oeil. I snap it. Dieulefit suggests life, culture even. There might be decent provender on sale at times, as well.
Then by gradual degrees we motor on back to Valréas, having obtained perhaps a little better grasp of the associated hills behind Montagne de la Lance and the yet bigger ones beyond, visible to some extent from our terrace, or more so, from Rabais Sud (for example). We look forward to comparing our snaps of this Drôme day with those of the 2015 (er . . .no!) passage to Sablet.
(… by now we can all join the chorus, "because you nutter your came through here in 2019 NOT 2015, you've been looking in the wrong section of your archive, you plonker!).
This is worrying. I can only conclude that a file of photos I most certainly took, in and around Le Pertuis for example, are still extant on The Bodlien Bullsmead’s master computer, in a misplaced folder perhaps. I am itching to retrieve them! On this post therefore I must make do with what I have. And so must you. Sorry about that. (and so say all of us!).
I may add additional images as and when the 2015 set comes to light… And I may not.
This is worrying. I can only conclude that a file of photos I most certainly took, in and around Le Pertuis for example, are still extant on The Bodlien Bullsmead’s master computer, in a misplaced folder perhaps. I am itching to retrieve them! On this post therefore I must make do with what I have. And so must you. Sorry about that. (and so say all of us!).
I may add additional images as and when the 2015 set comes to light… And I may not.
(deep sigh…… whatever!)
The excursion has been 116 miles in extent. Mme Melling now discovers that there is a national dispute running in France involving delivery drivers and fuel refineries . . . strikes etc, unpleasantness, none distribution, you know the sort of thing. We don’t exactly have an excess of petroleum distillate now; after two subsequent attempts to add to our stocks having resulted in failure, if you discount the 0.6 litre I obtained yesterday from a pump that said “no”.
So we must now endeavour to stay local until the dispute is settled and/or the supermarkets once more make the E5 or E10 available to one and all. We are not totally without you understand, we have enough to fetch the shopping a few times, but that is about it, just now. Thank you for your concern, but there is nothing you can do at this time to ameliorate our plight, you’ll be thankful to hear. It will teach us to go out on gas-guzzling jollies won’t it? Or invest in an electric motor, there’s always that. Nevertheless, we intend to explore the region further, if we are spared, next visit, sometime, and subject to resources being back on tap, and still in our price-range.
So we must now endeavour to stay local until the dispute is settled and/or the supermarkets once more make the E5 or E10 available to one and all. We are not totally without you understand, we have enough to fetch the shopping a few times, but that is about it, just now. Thank you for your concern, but there is nothing you can do at this time to ameliorate our plight, you’ll be thankful to hear. It will teach us to go out on gas-guzzling jollies won’t it? Or invest in an electric motor, there’s always that. Nevertheless, we intend to explore the region further, if we are spared, next visit, sometime, and subject to resources being back on tap, and still in our price-range.
Of course, if we want better views of der Alpes one could motor over there if fuel stocks allow, but that's not going to happen is it? Best kept at arm's length, them Alpes…
