D31

Cheval Blanc

Another warm sunny day greeted us for this stage of the journey, much of which would be on roads that we were familiar with from our 2005 tour of the Luberon, which had also included a visit to Aix.

D973 - D32

Mallemort

On the last visit we had used a rather contorted route to south of the Durance to avoid the fairly heavily-used D973 on the north side. But on this occasion we decided to use it to reach Mallemort, before joining the much quieter D23.

D23

Silvacane

We managed to stop at this lovely old monastery for our picnic lunch, sitting on the grassy bank outside to avoid paying for entry since we had already visited it in 2005.

D543 - minor - D14

Aix en Provence

Bouches du Rhone, 13

Our journey continued via the Bassin St Cristophe reservoir which serves Marseille and looks like another excellent picnic spot. Climbing continuously for 5 kilometres or so we reached the village of Rognes, where we stopped for a coffee at the café we had visited on Bastille day in 2005 before descending towards Aix, turning onto the minor road that passes through St. Jean le Grand and Puyricard to avoid joining the N7 for our entry to the city. After some false turns in the outskirts, we eventually found ourselves on the familar road that skirts the ancient traffic-free centre and managed to take the right turning for the Hotel le Manoir which we had found so charmingly secluded and old-fashioned on our previous visit. We weren't disappointed, parking the tandem in the cloisters at the rear of the hotel before cooling off with a shower in our comfortable room overlooking the front courtyard.