Bed, breakfast and the Beast of Provence

Caroline Shearing combines pedalling with pampering at the sumptuous Crillon-le-Brave

The giant crocodile slumbering menacingly nearby seemed to take on a mocking air as a pair of bronzed male cyclists rose out of the saddle in perfect unison to overtake me with a swanlike grace. I continued to pedal furiously up the steep incline as my Lycra-clad nemeses disappeared over the brow of the hill. Momentarily defeated, I screeched to a halt only to hear another bike approaching from the rear. My heart sank as I turned to see a man of advanced years taking the slope effortlessly. This Gallic gent, who had shunned look-at-me Lycra in favour of shorts and T-shirt, surveyed my slumped shoulders and raising a fist to the sky urged: “Courage!”.

I had travelled to the south of France and the hilltop village of Crillon-le-Brave, 40km north east of Avignon, to the luxury hotel of the same name for a weekend that had promised a combination of pedalling and pampering. The hotel, a cluster of sun-bleached stone houses, soars high above a bucolic landscape of rolling hills carpeted in vineyards. But it also lurks in the shadow of an unforgiving beast: Mont Ventoux (6,273ft). This fearsome mountain, with a thigh-busting climb that’s the stuff of Tour de France legend, takes the form of a crocodile when viewed from the foothills on its southern slope – its long spine hugging the horizon before rearing into a distinctive head complete with elongated snout.

I had not come to make an attempt on its limestone-topped summit, which looms tantalisingly close in views from the hotel, but to challenge myself on its not-so-modest foothills. Spurred on by the cycling successes of the likes of Victoria Pendleton and Laura Trott and by my weekly spin class back home in London, the foothills of Mont Ventoux would, I hoped, instead set the scene for personal sporting glory in a test of endurance against my husband, a proficient road cyclist.

Equipped with bikes and maps from the hotel, we set out after a leisurely breakfast but my reputation on the, ahem, mountain was soon in tatters when it became apparent that a map reading mix-up on my part had added 4km to our 26km route. The winding route to the village of Bédoin, which marks the start of the climb to Ventoux proper, soon lured us in though as we wove through a dense forest offering glimpses of rust-coloured cliffs. I inhaled a lungful of pine-sweet air and with the clatter of cicadas applauding us on we followed a gently (mostly) undulating route to Bédoin.

On arriving we stopped briefly at a pavement-side café on its tree-lined main street for refreshments. And then watched with increasing alarm as a succession of amateur cyclists in full Tour de France-style garb tore through the village, with little concern for Non!”

The hilltop village of Crillon-leBrave, above