Ten Days in the French Countryside

Privas

Our second stop in France was Privas. Where you may ask? It is a small (8,000 people) village in the Ardech region near the Rhone river, north of Provence. Does that give you an idea? Well, we had to look it up on the map too. How did we come to stay here? We had the incredible fortune of having a Monarch family, (one of my former students family's) offer us a house to stay in here for ten days for free. Who could pass that up? Did I mention it is a medieval house, in the medieval town center? The place was very charming. We stayed for ten days.

The house is the one with the wicker fence around the patio

Tunnel leading to the front door of the house

History, Market and Countryside

We did several walks around Privas taking in the history and architecture. It was the site of a siege during the Catholic Protestant wars in the 1600s. There is a sign on one of the bridges and in a small town next door commemorating youth who died as part of the resistance there during the Nazi occupation in WW2. There are many old homes some of which you are amazed people still live in. One of my favorite things was the twice weekly market. We had a kitchen and never ate dinner out because there was wonderful fresh, local food available at the market. We could get home made pasta, veggies, cheeses, meats everything almost at the outdoor markets. The other cool thing was a farmers cooperative store. Fifteen farmers take turns running the place. It is only open when they have stuff and only sells whats in season, all very local of course. The area is famous for chestnut products and one that we got at this shop was vanilla chestnut spread, yummy. We also got an introduction to area cheeses, more yummy.

One of two famous bridges in Privas

Farmers Market

Good veggies

Town hall with dancers in traditional dress in front. They were performing folk dances to help celebrate a bike race.

Our walks took us past many historic buildings. We couldn't read the signs that well so we only have a foggy of idea of what some of them were. My Spanish helped but not enough. There is a very cute town right across a stone bridge that we really like to walk through, Petite Turnon. We were amazed at the way people had gardens and homes in on the steep sides of the river gorges.

Petite Turnon is on the left, Privas is on the right.

Petite Turnon from the bridge

Terraced gardens on the sides of the river gorge

Houses in the gorge

Medievel towns Bauchatel and Chalencon, Cruas, and Balazuk

Over the course of the ten days we were there we visited many Medieval towns. Some were more restored than others. Some had people living in them, others not too many. My favorite was the one where a cat gave us a tour leading us to the highest point and then back down almost to our car.

The cat who gave us a tour of Beauchatel

View from the top of Bauchatel

Anika and our feline tour guide take a rest

Dave on a typical street in Bauchatel

Chalencon

Chalencon is high up between two mountains. It looks down on both sides to different valleys. It is what looks like rocks in the middle here.

Cruas Abby

Cruas Castle

Balazuk

Gorges, Rivers, Caves

This area is full of natural beauty. The river gorges are fantastic. The forests reminded me of Pennsylvania a bit because the plants and trees are similar. Its very green and humid, at least right now. The rock along the rivers in limestone so there is interesting erosion and many caves. Near here is the recently found cave with paintings. Many remains of early humans have been found as well. We visited a cave that was fantastic, beautiful and other worldly, very different form the cave we visited in Greece because there was little water in it at this point. they have a music and light show at one part that was good. We went to another river gorge where Dave took a dip, it was too cold for Anika and I.

Ardech river gorge, one of the many

It i very hard to take a photo in a cave that shows its real beauty

Cave light show

Ponte De Diablo bridge gorge

In he goes!

Chateau de Vouge
One of my favorite trips was to chateau de Vouge, a castle that has been completely restored. Parts are just the room sin the castle with history of their use. Several rooms are now an art gallery and there was an interesting exhibit of portraits by a group of French artists. It has a "hanging" garden overlooking the river that runs past.

Chateau de Vouge

Anika trying to escape from the dungeon

After our ten days in Privas and the Ardeche region it was on to Paris.