A house high above Apt sounds scenic, romantic and private.  And while it is all of those things, it makes for an extremely strenuous last mile to every bike ride.  If you don’t climb, you don’t get the views, and our reward is a beautiful view of Apt below.   As a bonus, we get several villages in the area (that we have been riding to so we can sample from their patisseries) including Roussillon, where we saw a balloon descending one morning.

This rental was described as an apartment at the foot of the Luberon,  It’s neither!  The last mile is daunting and features a stretch of several tenths of a mile with a grade of 9-16%, so the part where it “flattens” out to 7% is a relief!  And the last tenth of a mile or so is well over 16%, and that’s the part where we are walking the bike to the house while in a light-headed state and trying to breathe.

The apartment description had us thinking “small”. Wrong! We are spending our down time in a two story, very roomy, beautifully furnished and appointed townhouse.

Come up the stairs and right into the bright, open, and large eat-in kitchen with lots of counter space and a terrific view while at the sink.

The great room features a (second) dining area and a comfy couch for watching the end of the Tour de France every afternoon.

There are TWO bathrooms with lovely tile DOUBLE sinks and real stand-up showers. And two water closets with regular standard toilet seats, so there is no reason to photograph them!

There is a loft upstairs over the kitchen and then we go down the stairs to find 2 bedrooms and the second full bathroom and water closet.

We also have a downstairs entrance/exit way which is large enough to store the bike when it’s not in use.

Oh, I almost forgot one very important feature at this house – climatesse!

This small unit, mounted near the ceiling in the family room cools the entire house. It can make it down right chilly in here even when it’s 97 degrees outside. This almost makes up for the only thing missing at this beautiful location, a pool!

We are making due with the comforts of climatesse!

Oh, and there is one more benefit to being up high, we have a great view of the sunset each evening.  We can see it from our windows, from our small balcony or as we saw this one, just a few steps down the street.

Coming up: French bike paths–who designs these things?