Minerve and its amazing river gorge Part 2

This is a continuation from Part 1 here.

Here we are looking where the River Briant - where I am standing on the left of the photo - meets the River Cesse coming in from the right side of the photo and it flows off towards where K is taking the photo behind me.

Photo credit: Keith Allen

We then went back down into the river bed to go and explore the tunnel where the water normally flows. I liked the view below where you can see the different architecture - old concrete blocks for the lower path with an interesting (!!) concrete block to hold it up, and a much more aesthetically pleasing dry stone wall for the upper path/top of village. As well as this you can see where the river has worn away at the rocks over time and the streaks where different minerals have stained the rocks are interesting too (unless it's all lichen, or both?) - in some parts of the path above (photo with K) there is water constantly dripping through the rocks - I hope that's not from someone's drains leaking! 😀 It must be a very old path as the stone floor is worn really smooth and shiny, like marble.  

The Candela tower seen through the viaduct bridge.

The tunnel known as the 'Pont Naturel'

Photo credit: Keith Allen

This stone stacking seems to be very popular everywhere we go, and in fact in Google Maps for this place there are tons of photos of stacked stones all over the dry river bed! Seems like nobody did that this year except for here on the bank.

Light at the end of the tunnel! We didn't walk all the way to the end as it was pretty rough under foot, but now I wish that we had done so, as I discovered from a footpath map that the river flows into another shorter tunnel, before it comes out and continues on as the Cesse gorge. There was a little bat flying around, though whether we had disturbed it or not, I don't know. 

Some people were walking into the tunnel just at the right time, for scale!

Looking back at the entrance to the Pont Naturel from the footpath.

It's worth looking up occasionally too, as I spotted these Prickly Pear cacti growing wild out of the rocks.

Another view of the Candela tower and the entrance to the village from the main car park.

We walked past this fun little garden full of interesting things, including the lovely 'driftwood' log and the colourful planted up teapot.

Back in the village at the War Memorial where the wilting flowers must be left from Remembrance Day. The sign on the left says, 'Please don't cut the flowers'. Bit of a shame to need to have a sign telling people that, as presumably some horrible people do.

Last photo! I don't think Minerve village itself is particularly attractive although it is one of the "Plus Belles Villages de France" (Most Beautiful Villages in France). I think that's because the whole place, scenery too, is so stunning. There are a few restaurants and cafes here but in winter it is generally very quiet, though good to know that this bookshop/cafe is open all year round. La Terrasse restaurant was open a couple of years ago when we visited before Xmas with my brother, but who knows what is still open after Covid has hit so hard?

This is a fabulous short aerial video of Minerve and the surrounding gorges which puts my walk into perspective - and as I haven't got any photos from further away up the gorges I can't show you it in all its magnificence that way. I don't seem to be able to make the video embed larger though so I hope you can view it bigger on your computer/phone/whatever. If not, this is the link on Youtube, although that seems to be a 26 min video, which must have been a TV programme. Enjoy. 😀