You see Mont Ventoux from half of Provence — a single pale mountain standing apart from any range, its summit a desert of white limestone scree so bright it looks snow-covered in high summer. At 1,909 metres it is the giant of the region, and its name says the rest: the ventoux, the windy one.
I. The bald white summit
The forest climbs the lower slopes and then simply stops, and the last kilometres to the top are bare broken stone, swept by a wind that has been clocked above three hundred kilometres an hour. From the observatory tower at the summit the view runs to the Alps, the Rhône and, on the clearest days, a far line of the sea.
“A mountain that wears no snow and looks white all summer — the wind keeps it bare.”
II. The mountain of the Tour
The Tour de France made the Ventoux a place of legend and once of tragedy — the English rider Tom Simpson died near the top in 1967, and his memorial still draws cyclists who leave a bottle or a cap as they pass. Three roads climb it, from Bédoin, Malaucène and Sault; riders come from all over the world to take on at least one.
III. Lavender at its feet
You do not have to climb it. The eastern approach through Sault crosses a high plateau that turns blue with lavender in July, the mountain always on the horizon; below to the west lie the vineyards of the Côtes du Ventoux and the perched villages of the Dentelles de Montmirail. The giant gives the whole country its backdrop.
