Vaison La Romaine, we should have guessed by the name.

I am sitting here typing this at 9.30pm. It’s still over 30c in Zagan and mozzies are being systematically swatted outside by Jay. I have a love/hate relationship with the little critters – I hate them, and they love me – so I’m sweltering inside the van caked in repellent and with citronella in the oil burner.

We knew coming down from the high altitude fun we’d had on the Col du Lautaret, Puy St Vincent and Mont Ventoux would plunge us into hot weather. We know we don’t cope well in heat, so we picked a town close to Mont Ventoux with a campsite that had shady pitches. We arrived at Camping Du Theatre Romain in Vaison La Romaine just before reception closed for lunch. They had two pitches left, so we grabbed one.

We’re now out of high season here in France. The ACSI (off-peak) discount card is being accepted at more and more sites, and the price for this campsite dropped for our second night as we moved into mid-season pricing. Even the pedestrianised roads in the town start taking road traffic at the end of August. Lots of campsites are shut by mid-September. When the season ends, it ends abruptly.

We chose Vaison La Romaine because it wasn’t a huge drive to reach it, and because it had two stars on our Michelin ‘France Tourist and Motoring Atlas’. We’ve used their ‘star’ system in the past to choose places, and once again it proved a winner.

Armed with a map of the town from the campsite reception, we walked the couple of hundred metres from the campsite entrance to a roundabout. As we’d approached the campsite, we’d had to drive all the way around it because the exit we needed was too tight to turn straight into. We were so busy watching traffic and reading signs that we didn’t spot the huge Roman theater right on the roundabout.

It was around this point we twigged with the town’s name. Those two stars are partly because Vaison La Romaine has ‘the largest roman ruins in France that are open to the public’. We’ve no idea where there is a bigger one is that isn’t open to the public, but that was clearly a caveat the tourist office felt it needed. We also suspect that quite a lot of the shops and cafes are sitting on more ruins as they run straight between the two main sites.

It was at this point that we agreed not to pay to visit the ruins. It was baking hot, they had no shade, but mainly because we’ve seen sooooo many Roman ruins on our travels. We probably haven’t got around quite a much as the Romans did, but we’ve seen evidence of them in – Antequera and Tarragona in Spain, Bulla Regia and Monastir in Tunisia, Pula in Croatia, Conimbriga in Portugal, all across Italy including Casale in Sicily and of course Rome itself. So rather than needing an audio guide or to read the information boards, we wandered around the outside of the site saw plenty through the fence.

Instead of reliving Roman times, we turned our focus onto the ‘upper town’ a medieval fortified town built on a cliff on the opposite side of the Ouveze river. Crossing the river on the Roman bridge we spotted signs showing the level of the water during a flood in 1992. The bridge was build on the rocks that form a bottleneck for the river, so when its in flood it really gushes through.

We read up about it later. In September 1992 a storm caused so much water to fall that the level peaked even higher than the bridge. Several people lost their lives when the nearby municipal campsite was swept away, and we’ve seen horrific video footage of caravans being smashed into the bridge by the water.

Thankfully this weekend it was so hot (did I mentioned it’s hot?!) that the river is nothing more than a green trickle with a surprising number of fish, frogs and even a water snake.

The tall houses and narrow streets of the upper town provided shade and when a gust of wind blew, it may have been as warm as a hairdryer, but it still brought welcome relief.

The upper town was picture perfect, although I think you’d need a drone to capture any of the images seen on postcards.

After a good couple of hours it was time to retreat to the campsite. On our way back we treated ourselves to ice creams, but they were melting faster than we could eat them – don’t worry, I didn’t spill a drop.

We’ve been around the town several times over the couple of days we’ve been here, there is certainly plenty to keep you occupied. Now that the school holidays are over here we expected the campsite to be quiet, but the receptionist told me they have regulars who visit out of season and I can see why. The campsite offers evening meals, Friday night was pizzas and wine tasting, Saturday was ‘roti’ night – spit roast chicken and meat.

Before eating it’s petanque time, and before that the swimming pool is full. There hardly a child to be seen though, just lots of pensioners swimming, chatting and enjoying having the place to themselves. From the registrations and languages being spoken, most folks here are from Holland and seem to know each other. It seems like there is quite a community here.

For us though it’s time to move on. We’ve a week until our ferry and could blast across the country in a day or two, but we need to get away from this heat. Our plan is to drive a few hours north on Sunday as the roads will be less busy (HGVs aren’t allowed to drive between 10pm on Saturday and 10pm on Sunday), and see where that takes us. Then we’ll see what’s around us and what the weather is doing.

I suspect I’ll have to finally put on my jeans and long sleeve tops soon, and maybe even one of the coats that are shoved in the back of the wardrobe which make me shudder at the thought when I touch them. I’m so glad we came down to this part of France, it really is beautiful and there is still so much more of it to explore. We do always say that you have to leave something for next time, hopefully next time won’t be far away.

Ju x