Mont Ventoux, whose outline repeatedly appears from the Rhone and Durance valleys, rises some 20km east of Vaison La Romaine. The barren pebbles on the uppermost 300 m glisten like snow in the sun. The wind can reach 250km per hour at the top. Mont Ventoux is often one of the stages in the Tour de France, and is infamous for the death of British cyclist Tommy Simpson, on one of the hottest days ever recorded in the race.
