This is a quick post about our weekend trip to Vienne (Isère) to Joan Baez’s farewell tour concert “Fare Thee Well”. We bought the ticket well in advance, but decided on the last minute — we had contemplated the idea before, though — that it would be a great bicycle tour destination. Ha ha.
And it was, kind of. The distance from Grenoble is only about 90 kilometers, but we did not quite foresee how hilly the route was — at least Google maps wanted us to follow, not the fastest longer route, but the hilliest and the slowest route. Another thing we could not foresee was that we were entering another canicule. So, we started riding early on Saturday morning, at 7am., and enjoyed nice morning coolness for a couple of hours. Just when we started climbing the hills, the temperature also took a hike.
As can be seen in the above pictures, we started in a flat agricultural landscape. Only after Moirans we found the first hills. The sky also got gradually cloudier and cloudier, and we got some drizzle before reaching Vienne at 4pm. after 100.6km and seven hours of riding (D+ 926m, D- 982). All we could think about then was the shower, supermarket, dinner, and sleep.
Next morning we were up early and feeling fresh. The concert (the warming act) only started at 8pm. so we had a lot of time to explore this ancient Roman town before it. First we walked to the river Rhône, which was quite unimpressive. After a longish visit to (air-conditioned) Tourism Office to check information on ViaRhôna we climbed to the Roman Theater (Théâtre Antique de Vienne), where the concert was to be held. It was built in the 1st century AD, and was one of the largest in Roman world, with the capacity of 11,000 spectators. From the 4th to early 20th century the theater was abandoned. In 1922 works began to clear the building from under the soil and vegetation. In 1938 it was re-inaugurated.
Despite the heat we started to get hungry. Nothing really was open in the town, but a couple of kebab and pizza restaurants, so we took a risk and walked directly to the Museum and Archaeological site of Saint-Roman-en-Gal hoping the museum would have a cafe. And yes, it had a very nice restaurant! We had Salade Estivale and salmon tartar with fries before visiting the museum. The museum exhibition was rather impressive collection of miniature models of Vienne in Roman era, but mostly wall paintings and reconstructed mosaic works found in the area. One piece had taken 15 months to put together. I wonder who had labeled all the tiny mosaic pieces … It was too hot outside to visit the archaeological site so we skipped it.
We were quite exhausted from the hot day and a lot of walking (13km!), but enjoyed the concert of this lovely lady in the perfect Summer evening, sipping beer and wine. The audience profile was quite “mature” or at least middle-aged, but we were happy to see some younger families who had brought their kids with them.
Next morning after the concert we woke up early and hit the ViaRhôna just after 7am. We started riding through agricultural land but later joined the river Rhône, and followed it all the way to Valence. The route was brilliantly marked so there were practically zero opportunities to get lost; we were riding in the river valley, so we could not have gotten far off the route anyway. Another nice thing about riding a route following a river as big as this one is that the path is relatively flat. We had few climbs from the river but they were short and gentle.
In Valence we took the first train to Grenoble which left in ten minutes and reached the destination an hour and fifteen minutes later. We rode the total of 199.5 kilometers in this tour. So we have still about 600 more kilometers to cover on ViaRhôna.
It is about the time to buy new shoes, I think. I felt funny when walking my bike to the train, but only there I noticed that the sole was completely off. This has happened to many sport shoes I have bought in either Bloomington or Singapore and then brought to drier climate: my Irish hard shoes, hiking boots, sandals, and now MTB shoes. Bummer! These were still good.
