Bike Trip Day 3

Day 3 – Wed June 6

Fascinating day – down the right bank again.  Got a bit off track at Montelimar, a small city, when I turned left instead of right at a crossroads.  Had an unplanned tour of the town before finally getting back onto the island in the Rhone where we wanted to be.  We detoured slightly into the town of Le Teil for lunch where Tony checked in at the railroad station to find out where he could catch a train the next day, as he had an appointment in Lyon.  Another nice lunch for about 17 Euros each.  This time we had beer instead of wine in order to up our water consumption – the weather was warming up to about 80F during the day.

Path Section Along the Rhone

Back to the island in the Rhone.  This is, I think where I lost Roger and Tony for a bit.  I had been in the lead and as the route was clearly marked, had not looked back for a while.  After a sharp right turn on a country road, I looked right so I could see back along our route for a kilometer or so.  No Roger or Tony!!  I stopped and decided I would wait a few minutes and see whether they appeared.  Still no one, so I turned around and started to retrace my route.  After a few hundred yards, they appeared, coming towards me.  Seems the cherry trees we had passed awhile back, with a few ripe cherries still on them, had proved irresistible.  They had stopped to sample a few of the cherries that remained after the harvest and pronounced them ‘great’.

We had planned to stop for the night at a hotel in Chateauneuf-du-Rhone, but did not find a hotel in the center of the village.  Before turning towards the village on the left bank, we had noticed that the village across the river, Vivier, had a magnificent cathedral on the hill.  Tony used his cell phone to find a hotel in that town, but got only an answering machine when he called.  After finding nothing in Chateauneuf-du-Rhone, he tried the hotel in Vivier again and was rewarded with an answer and the news that they had rooms available.  And so we lucked into our most enjoyable stay of the trip, at the Relais de Vivarais.

Late 19th Century Photo of the Vivier Cathedral

Not only did we have new stand-alone rooms by the pool, away from the main road, but Madame was a delightful person, who laughed at our jokes, provided efficient, courteous service, and also was our guide when making menu and wine selections.  We had a bottle of local Rose by the pool while we waited for our rooms to be made up.  Roger and Tony went swimming and I sat with my legs in the water and sipped my wine.  That evening we had a wonderful dinner with a bottle of Clairette de Die, a local sparkling wine made from muscat grapes – very refreshing as we ate under the arbor and trees outside the old main building.  I had a wonderful white fish dish with a sort of sweet vegetable relish; Tony and Roger had pigeon with a great sauce.  For desert, we had a sort of red fruit dish with a half-bottle of local red wine, as I believe, a Cote-du-Rhone Villages.

David's Plat - Both the Presentation and the Taste were Fabulous

Distance ridden by the maps: about 55km.