If it's July, we must be in France!: Day 5, Thursday 7/9/26

I started the day with a bike ride. With the temps hovering around 100° most of the day, the only time to ride is early, so I was on the road at 6:56 AM. This is a gorgeous area for cycling, the scenery is spectacular, there's minimal traffic, and at this hour there's often a hot air balloon or two, and today was no exception.

If you look closely in the center of this photo you can see the blue balloon!

Despite the heat, this area produces amazing fruits, vegetables, and of course wines.

At the end of the driveway of one of the homes along my route was this sign. When I stopped to take a picture, the owner came out, I told him I loved his sign, and we proceeded to have a very friendly conversation.

If you do the math you can tell I wasn't exactly flying up and down the roads. The hills are tough; these roads are not flat like the bike paths on Cape Cod.

Our first breakfast at Le Mas Perréal was good as it always has been, if not better. Freshly squeezed OJ, watermelon with yogurt, assorted pastries, and cheese and herbs omelets.

After breakfast we headed to the town of L'Isle-Sur-la-Sorgue, which is best known worldwide for its Sunday antiques market. Being Wednesday, the market focused on clothes.

The town is dominated by the crystal clear Sorgue River whose source is nearby in Fontaine-de -Vaucluse. In the 1950's Jacque Cousteau unsuccessfully used a submersible to determine the depth of the source which is believed to exceed 1000 ft. It is believed that all the rainwater from the Luberon and other surrounding mountains comes out of this one source, and consequently the flow of the river is always strong, making for great kayaking.

Parking is always challenging on village market days, and since it was too hot, we didn't want to have too long a walk to get near the market area. After looping up and down the main street for quite a while we finally found a paid parking spot. We passed on touring the market stalls, with the temp pushing 100°, and decided we'd find a spot for light lunch since we were both still full from breakfast.

Joni, as always, had several lunch possibilities to explore, so we chose Suzette's, which overlooked the river, but due to the heat, we sat inside. They had AC!

We both chose the Paulette, it was delicious!

On the way back to our car we passed several funky shops and art installations for which L'Isle-sur-la-Sorgue is known.

Grandsons Billy and Jack would enjoy these pedal cars, but I don't think they'd fit in my luggage.

This is just plain creepy!

After lunch, we drove to the town of Cavaillon, famous for its melons, but we were in search of their Decathlon store which is a French version of Dick's Sporting Goods. We needed to purchase a camping table and chairs for our two days watching stages 13 & 14 of the Tour. Usually we spend 8 hours or more waiting along the road for the cyclists to pass, so a good set of chairs and a table make that a much easier task.

I also bought a bathing suit at Decathlon, I forgot to pack mine.

On the way back to our B&B we stopped in the city of Coustellet where we bought a couple of gelatos to cleanse our palates and cool our throats. They were delicious.

We were back at our B&B by 4 pm, and napped until around 6:30 when we got ready for dinner in the hilltop town of Gordes.

This is the entrance to our restaurant for this night, "L'Outsider". According to our B&B host, Kevin, at one point in France, the titles of all restaurants had to be in the French language, so this one is unusual.

This meal was a 10 in every way: setting, atmosphere, quality of food, staff. One of the best meals we've had in France!