It’s often on the Tour de France route and all kinds of legends are associated with it

It’s often on the Tour de France route and all kinds of legends are associated with it. The way French mountain roads are built, it’s quite easy for a moderately fit person to cycle up. In the 18th century, they discovered that a fully laden mule could manage a slope of about 8 per cent, so it’s unusual now to find a slope steeper. Once you get into a rhythm, you can get up there without sweating.

An old forge in St Marie has a plaque marking the spot where Eug? Christophe, a rider in the 1913 Tour de France, repaired his bike and then continued on. I also like Mont Ventoux, east of Avignon where there is a shrine to Tom Simpson, the British rider who died in the 1967 race.Amy Lam?TV presenterWest of Perpignan is a little village called Montner where the restaurant Auberge du Cellier (1 rue de Sainte Eug?e, 00 33 4 68 29 09 78) is really fabulous It has its own appellation there It’s out of this world. I would also recommend doing a tour of all the Cathar castles in the same region. It’s great exercise climbing to the tops, but also probably the best way to see the surrounding countryside because they are all perched on the most remote cliff tops Climbing Roque Fixade and Mont Segur is absolutely amazing.. How on earth can we forget about our own cash? We spend a huge part of our lives toiling to earn a living, so surely we wouldn’t mislay or overlook our well-deserved rewards?

How on earth can we forget about our own cash? We spend a huge part of our lives toiling to earn a living, so surely we wouldn’t mislay or overlook our well-deserved rewards?
Yet we do – lots of us do.

Some £15bn of unclaimed assets is sloshing around in the nation’s savings accounts, pension funds, endowment policies, shares, National Savings accounts and sundry other investment vehicles. Monsieur Royaux, the jovial owner of the Hotel St Hubert in St Saturnin les Apt – a traditional establishment, immaculately kept with spiral iron staircase and cosy, misshapen rooms, said it was the Iraq war “Americans – they don’t want to come to France,” he said And the rest? “Maybe they are afraid of the heat. She rushed to retrace the money and has since spent it.Her excuse – moving address and forgetting to let everyone know – is one of the most common reasons why banks have lost touch with their customers and such a huge national sum has built up over the years.Another ready source of this unwanted income is older people investing for their grandchildren, forgetting to tell their own children and then dying. Many also put money aside for others and go to the grave without making a will.Knowing where it comes from is one thing for the banks; what to do with it is quite another.For years, it’s been a case of relying on members of the public to come forward, unsure of what they may – or may not – have tucked away.But the public themselves now have help at hand. For example, the Unclaimed Assets Register, a commercial organisation that charges a fee, will scour old accounts for you across all financial bodies – life companies, share registers, banks and building societies.If it’s a long-lost pension, you can do your own search free of charge by contacting the Pension Service at institutions, such as National Savings & Investments and the banks themselves, will of course help you if approached.