May 14, 2015 Hiking in the Dentelles

Dave's been waiting for the kids to arrive to do a hike in the Dentelles de Montmirail which has quite a bit of vertical (623 feet). So today's a perfect day for it. Good weather. It's always a slow start getting ready with the grand kids, so that fit perfectly with taking Janis and Clark to the train station in Avignon early in the morning.

Lunches packed, the crew got on the road to Gigondas by about 11 am. Since I didn't go with them, Dave's telling me the details. All I know is they came back happy and chattery about the day's adventure.

The start in Gigondas is a "gentle" climb

there are vineyards high on the hill side

the terrain full of limestone rocks, but still flowers manage to grow

As the hikers got higher, the views began to open up

getting up the last 50 meters is rough. Luckily Randy is part mountain goat

views from the top were fantastic

Those are vineyards below

You can see Mont Ventoux from everywhere

lunch - Katie and Penny - these picnic tables were just below the point

these are the dentelles - sharp tooth-like rocks poking out of the top of the mountain

view of Dentelles and vineyards

that bare looking patch in the upper left is vineyards

back down to lower ground with the Dentelles de Montmirail behind them

Penny wants to touch the water coming out of this spring. 

more vineyards

back down to Gigondas' castle (ruin) at the top of  the town

Evie stayed back with me - she didn't want to hike. Instead she made signs to post on the door and practiced writing in her activity books. She also ran around outside and invented a lot of games.

Since the crew got back early in the afternoon, we had time to go to Vacqueyras to taste wine at the coop. This is a child friendly place as they have a play area and one parent can watch the little'uns while the others taste. That's quite a feat since there are toddler height displays of wine bottles everywhere, but the kids were happy to stay in the play area.

Sonna playing at the Vacqueyras wine coop with her mom.

Of course we bought some wine to increase our supply. And home again. We've got a busy day planned for tomorrow - back to the Camargue.