The Gorges de l’Ardeche

Today I woke up late. The previous night I had enjoyed attending a typically French marriage in a chateau just outside of Grignan and surrounded by lavender fields.

My hosts offered me yet another excellent breakfast, and then it was time to hit the road again to spend a couple of nights in the area of the Gorges de l’Ardeche. First, I made a small detour to visit yet another pretty village – Le Poët-Laval. This place was quieter than many others I had visited, and had only one restaurant, which didn’t want to serve me a coffee unless I ate lunch.

From Le Poët-Laval, I headed southwest to Saint-Martin-D’Ardeche, where I got a first glimpse of the famous river as I crossed over to its right bank. Shortly afterwards I made a stop at Aigueze, reputedly one of the prettiest villages in France and found what I was looking for – a café with a large shady terrace, which was quite happy to serve me a double expresso and some delicious ice cream (two of the local flavours I particularly liked were lavender and verbena). Refreshed, I made a short tour of the village, which apart from the usual ruined castle and church, had great views of the Ardeche river.

Although I would have liked to, I didn’t have time to dawdle in Aigueze since I had booked a mid-afternoon tour of the famous caves, Aven d’Orgnac. The Ardeche region is mostly made of limestone, and as a result has many caves, some of which have spectacular mineral formations, and some of which were inhabited by stone age people. Aven d’Organic is technically a sink hole rather than cave, since the entrance is from the roof of the complex. It was first explored by the great French speleologist Robert de Joly in 1935. Over many years a series of galleries stretching 6km were discovered, of which the first three are open to tourists for a one-hour guided visit.

I was led down a series of steps into the first gallery, called La Salle de Joly, a vast space decorated with spectacular stalagmites.

The tour continued down to the second gallery, La Salle de Chaos, which was even prettier, with red and orange colours. Our guide pointed out small urn nestling in the middle of a rock formation resembling an organ. This contained the ashes of de Joly, who asked to be buried underground in the cave he had discovered. Not a bad place to spend eternity!

The visit ending in Salle Rouge (Red Chamber), where we watched a sound and light show before taking a lift back up to the surface. When the lift doors opened I was hit by the baking heat of the Provence afternoon sun, and was very glad I had spent an hour in the cool of the cave complex.

I hurried to reach my car and its air conditioning, before continuing my road to Vallon-Pont-d’Arc and then south east along the panoramic D290 road that follows the river gorge. The first stop along this scenic road is perhaps the most famous – the Pont d’Arc, huge natural rock bridge spanning the Ardeche River. It was so popular that the nearest car park was full, and I had to drive down to a second parking area and walk back in the baking sun to admire the magnificent spectacle.

Just after Pont d’Arc the most spectacular part of the D290 begins. Eleven scenic belvederes have been built along the road at the places offering the very best views. I was lucky that the full tourist season had not yet started, and it was relatively easy to park and admire the views (not always the case apparently in July/August).

Since I returned to this road the next day, I will show just one of the photos I took here – more pictures coming tomorrow! After being blown away by the splendour of the Ardeche Gorges, in the early evening I reached my destination for the next two nights, the fascinating Saint-Montan. This was not only just another beautiful village, since in addition it had a very unusual history which I will also cover in my next post.

Next Post: Saint-Montan, Balazuc and the Ardeche Gorges

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