Ceze Valley

Tuesday 27^th September, 2011

Well it was another early start even though we didn’t really need to today but it was a warm night and we had to battle the mozzie’s again!! Damn nuisance but we only have one more night here to worry about them. We want to start by thanking Eddie for your suggestions. We had been given the same recommendations by others and seen some pamphlets also but had decided that as there didn’t seem too much else besides those particular things in each destination and that we’d probably seen the best of those types of things in Italy that we’d pass. But thanks for thinking of us especially as you are familiar with the area.

Today we set off on a round trip in the local area. We had about 5 towns to visit and didn’t expect it to take too long but as it turned out we left at 8:15am and didn’t arrive home until 4:30pm. It was another glorious day peaking at about 33 degrees, hopefully it follows us into the north.

We started the day by going to Lussan which is another town set high on the hill surrounded by a wall and had fantastic views of the surrounding area. Every where we go the bells start chiming, sometimes frightening the bejeezers out of us but it is hard to go anywhere without that happening seeing that there is at least one church in every single town, large or small.  Next stop was Montclus which according to the brochure has castle ruins with a unique keep still standing which it does. It also said that a walk through it’s narrow alleys is the best way to appreciate all the charm of the picturesque village with a note to say ‘it does not take long’ and it certainly didn’t.

From Montclus we then moved onto Cornillon, another village perched atop a rocky outcrop and is listed as a protected site. It has a wonderful view of the Ceze valley and the remains of an ancient feudal castle to roam around.  

Jane in the ruins at Cornillon

Then we headed to Goudargues which we’d seen on a postcard that looked pretty. It was also in the suggestions from our accommodation. We thought we’d probably stop there for lunch but as it turned out we were a little bit early for lunch and it seemed that the postcard showed all that Goudargues had to offer which was nice but made for a quick look around. The main street had a waterway down the centre cooled on either side by plane-trees and was quite pretty. There were a couple of restaurants that we could see but not a lot of choice. We had a coffee there and although the man didn’t speak English we managed to get what we wanted. As we were sitting outside drinking our coffee he walked past and spoke to us in French, we smiled and laughed as did he but it always amazes us that although these people know we don’t speak their language they continue to have a conversation with us. Not sure, but the same thing used to happen in Italy!! Maybe our happy smiling faces attract them.

We then decided to confuse Ruby and make a detour into Uzes for lunch as we knew it wouldn’t be too far away and as we’d been there for market day on Saturday knew what a nice place it was with lots to offer in the restaurant options. We found a place to eat, at the correct time, and sat down to a very enjoyable lunch. Kim had a jambon & fromage (ham & cheese) omelette and I had a nicoise salad which could have fed a family. We wandered around again to walk off lunch before heading to a patisserie that we visited on Saturday to pick up a little something to have with our coffee tonight.

After leaving Uzes we reset Ruby to take us to La Rogue sur Ceze. It is only accessible by foot so we parked the car and is the case with most of these villages they are on top of a hill, so up we went! Nice views once again and it also contained a medieval castle. Down the bottom is the Charles Martel bridge which is listed as an historical monument but nobody knows why it is so named. We then walked along the path to the Sautadet waterfalls which are more like cascades and documented as 5 million years old. How do they know that??? Not the best we’ve seen, especially having been to Tassie but not bad.

La Roque Sur Ceze

Back home as I said at 4:30 to relax with a drink and get ready to pack up for leaving tomorrow.  The last couple of days had been thoroughly enjoyable and have restored our faith in the area.

Au revoir, see you in La Rochelle. Hopefully with better wi-fi we can start adding some photo’s again as it has been too damned slow here to wait for them to load.

Back again as when we went to the top of the stairs (the only place to sit and use the internet) we couldn’t get on. James the owner insisted all was ok in their place and that was that. Try as I might though I couldn’t get connected so this blog is being posted late. We also told James that we were leaving a day early to which he replied ‘I’m sorry to hear that’ and followed up with ‘be sure to tell all your friends about us’. As we walked off Kim mumbled under her breath ‘don’t worry we will’. The funny thing is the first day we arrived there we asked him about Nimes and he said ‘oh Nimes is good but there are plenty of really nice towns right here in this area, we’ll sit down and have a chat’. Then he never came near us. Also when we first looked at this place and booked it we kept getting confused as they had different names for each accommodation, eg. The Rose House, The Apartment and ours which was The Bakehouse. Kim mistakenly kept calling it The Barn whenever we referred to it, that should’ve been our first sign but we are a bit slow on the uptake!