Last up, downhill from here. Honest.

Longest stay of the journey so far. Arrived Wednesday and left on Sunday.

Met and chatted to a couple of English teachers on a walking holiday who gave us some info about the area which we made good use of and then a couple of very experienced cycle tourists from the Black Country (another teacher) on their way from Geneva to Marseilles. They had beautiful hand made custom titanium bikes with all the extras and intend to cycle the world in a couple of years. Interesting to share experiences with them.
Walked on Thursday, combined cycle tour and shopping on Friday and a vineyard self guided tour on Saturday, all very, very pleasant.
Forecast for temperatures in the 100's for Sunday and quite a way to go. So an early start.
Up at 6 and away by 7.30, no tea just a swig of orange juice and a small pain au choc.
62km and 560m of climbing. Probably didn't reach 100 deg but it was well into the 90's and it made the last couple of hours fairly hard work.
Crossed a col south of Rians where there was a ceremony about to start. The road was closed but the dignitary waved us through to an ovation from the crowd as we passed the summit.
Turned out to be a liberation day celebration which was in full swing as we reached the town.
Arrived in St Maximin la Ste Baume at 1pm.
I was very overheated so we quickly grabbed some food, Sue's hunger outranked my heat, and then into the pool. Felt much better after.
The nights are very hot and sticky, I would sleep outside except we are still both suffering from nasty insect bites. It seems you don't get immune to them.

Just one stop and two days riding to go if everything stays on plan Although our original route has been very much altered over the past few weeks our destination towns have stayed pretty much as planned.