The man who cycled 870 miles for a croissant

(CNN) — Albert Van Limbergen set off by bike on June 28 from his home just outside of Liège, Belgium, in search of a croissant.

But rather than heading around the corner to a local shop, he was en route to southern France. Two weeks later, on July 12, he reached his destination: Boulangerie Roy Le Capitole, artisan baker Frédéric Roy’s unassuming neighborhood bakery one street back from the Mediterranean Sea in Nice.

Albert arrived mid-afternoon to applause from a small crowd including Frédéric and his wife, Katia. He was still dressed in the cycling gear he’d worn for the last leg of his journey: a red hat, a yellow polo shirt and black bike shorts, the colors of the Belgian flag. And he didn’t wait long to taste what he had cycled more than 1,400 kilometers (870 miles) across two countries for: one of Frédéric’s signature croissants made using lavender grown on a wide limestone plateau high up in the Côte d’Azur hinterland.

Admiring the faint violet hue (all that remains once a layer of bright food coloring cooks off in the oven), Albert took a bite through the flaky crust and into the feather-like layers of buttery pastry inside, remarking upon the subtle but distinct herb flavor — the result of lavender-infused water that is kneaded into the dough mixture before baking.

Frédéric said his bakery is the only one he knows of to sell such a flavored viennoiserie, the French term for the group of sweet baked pastries such as croissants, pains au chocolat and pains aux raisins.

And when Albert, flicking through TV channels at home one day, stumbled upon a segment on the news about a Nice baker and his lavender croissants, the seed for his two-wheel adventure was sown.

For someone who admits to adoring everything about lavender “from the smell to the taste and the fields of blue, green and violet,” Albert found himself galvanized.

The trip wasn’t the first time the retired transport professional had based his travels around his favorite plant.

“If I had a few days off from work, I’d sometimes drive to the Ardèche in France to eat lavender ice cream at Vallon-Pont-d’Arc,” he says.

Nor was it the first time that he’d cycled great distances for pleasure. Previously, he’d reached Perpignan, toward the Spanish border on France’s western Mediterranean coast.

It was, however,…