We drove up Mont Ventoux, the giant limestone mountain that towers over Provence. The summit, 1909m., has a radio communications tower which is an inaccessible military installation painted red and white like a lighthouse. The television signal broadcast from there went fully-digital in July 2011, which made useless a generation of French television receivers.
The view is truly panoramic with 360° visibility over all of Provence laid out below like the folds of a crumpled tablecloth: the delta of the Rhône river and the Carmarge, the Étang de Berre and over to the Garrigues of Nîmes. Also the massif of the Vercors, The view of the Alps includes Mont Pelvoux and the massif of the Ecrins, Mont Blanc several hundred kilometres away and Mont Visio, itself a couple of hundred kilometres away, on the border with Italy.
The sky seems almost as dark blue as the view from earth orbit!
Our hired Audi A1 was good fun to drive the roads that once were a famous motor racing hill climb course (Course-de-Côte du Mont-Ventoux) but are now more renowned with the pedal cyclists.