The Pont d'Arc and the Gorges of the Ardèche

We started the day meeting up with old friends for lunch - as luck would have it, an old friend from school contacted me to ask if we would be home in mid June - no I said, we will be away! Typical! But we were able to find a meeting point as Sally and Jim were driving home after a stay in Tuscany and going back through France to England. The town of Vallon Pont d'Arc is a touristy spot but with many restaurants so this was a good place to meet up. Last time I saw Sally was when we were in Brittany; she and her family came to us not long after we moved there, I think it was about 2006. Before that, we'd drifted apart, as you do, in our late 20s! We had a lovely lunch and it was wonderful catching up and time went by way too quickly, as it always does.

After lunch we said our goodbyes and we had a bit of a wander around the town. One of the first shops I noticed was the Maison de la Lavande, the lavender farm from the day before! They have several shops with their products in towns around the south east of France.

We then headed to the nearby gorges and not far from the town is the famous Pont d'Arc - a natural stone bridge over the Ardèche river and a popular spot for tourists, whether just stopping to take photos or for swimming and canoeing.

We also bumped into Sally and Jim again!

My brother and I down at river level, sensibly wearing silly hats!

All the info about the bridge is here on these info boards, in English, so it saves me having to type it all out! 😀 Click on the image to view larger if you can't see it well enough to read.

A horseshoe bend in the river.

For a nice change, there were stopping places all the way along the gorge to stop and take photos, though K and my brother got bored and stayed in the moho after a while, or maybe it was just because of the aircon inside! Yes, it was another boiling hot day.

Now this is a really cropped photo as the mountain in the distance was a long way away. This is Mt Ventoux, which looks like it has snow on top. It's not though, it is light coloured limestone, and it's a really bizarre experience driving up there. You go through all the different flora levels until you get to a world of barren nothingness, just pale stones! This peak is 1,909m high and has been used as a stage in the Tour de France a number of times. It is really well worth visiting (which we did on a previous trip to Provence).

Coming to the end of the gorges, looking towards the valley of the Rhone.

After we hit the lowlands we headed south to a campsite very close to the Pont du Gard, which we visited the next day, and will be my next holiday post. 😀