Provence dawns are special and fantastic, every one a new feast
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The dawn came on fast up on the Route des Crêtes on Cap Canaille, this is 1000 km further south than my old pre-dawn ride to work in a breakfast television studio in London. Exchanged waves with a couple of bakers already at work and then alone on the road once I had left the houses. Provence is very beautiful early in the morning, the colours, the aromas and the noises of the insects and birds. The Mediterranean looked calm around the rocky calanques past the Baie de Cassis.
Riding on after sunrise and taking advantage of the relative cool but the low angle sun is tricky; a double coffee and croissants plus a welcome at a artisan boulangerie in Cuges-les-Pins while the commuters roar past towards Marseille. Back on the road, passing the race track at Le Castellet, Out of the cliffs and between the vines, another break in the village of La Roquebrussanne: no warm welcome, seems they don’t like bikers there. Return over Le Mont Sainte Baume with distracting views of the haze over all of Provence, and then yet again,, the redoubtable Col de L’Espigoulier (723 m.)