Relaxing in the Ardeche region

Wednesday 14th June

A slow start to the day – we are relaxing. 

Market day today in the village of Joyeuse (next village along, just across the river). This was a huge market. Lots of stalls, lots of people, and their dogs.  We just shopped for the usual market provisions – cherries, strawberries, tomatoes (label says ancienne, and coeur de boeuf which I think is ox heart tomatoes), Chinese spring rolls and samosas, roast chicken and duck, roast pork – and nougat! The nougat is super expensive 60euro a kilo and you think that small slice won’t be too much, but then they weigh it and 22euro please! Oops! Enjoyed a coffee in the market as we watched all the people.

Garlic.

Puppy grooming at the market.

Beautiful tomato varieties - that really tasted like tomato.

Ancienne varieties of tomatoes including ox heart that we have had at home.

An old Citroen.

Spent our afternoon just sitting back enjoying the lovely weather. Storms here yesterday afternoon, but today is just a pleasant 30 ish day. 

Thursday 15th June

Headed out today to view the Grotte Chauvet 2. This is a series of caves with cave paintings dated back 36,000 years. The caves were discovered by 3 cavers in 1994 and immediately it was decided that these  caves would never be open to the public. Back in 2014 we visited the Lascaux caves (19,000 years old) which originally had been open to the public but they found that the cave paintings were degrading so they closed the cave and instead built a replica, complete with the original cave paintings. They straight away decided to do the same with these caves to preserve the works. 

This is an excellent tourist place – wide open paths, well laid out, and disability friendly. Half a dozen buses already there at 10 am though thankfully with such a large site there was no sense of crowding. Several groups of schoolkids there also – how wonderful to be able to experience this sort of history ‘in the flesh’ so to speak. No photos allowed inside the caves so I’ll have to find some to download. The only problem we had was the audio guide did not keep up with the tour guide and the lights went out on probably the main cavern before we were half way through the dialogue describing the paintings.

Photos below downloaded from the site.

There was another part to the exhibition where they have life sized animals of the prehistoric period and information about them. This was also an excellent display.

A view across the lower Ardeche region.

Woolly rhinoceros.

Cave lion.

Woolly mammoth.

Reindeer. The antlers could measure 3m across.

Our drive back towards our accommodation took us past the lavender farm – lots of cars and tour buses here. We decided to just keep going.

Drove back via the Ardeche gorges. These are pretty impressive, and the Ardeche river looks very inviting. Lots of people out enjoying the drive, and a lot canoeing, kayaking, and swimming along the river. We are obviously not the only ones on holiday. 

Looking across the Ardeche gorges.

The Ardeche River. 

Been for a swim. Lots of people and dogs settled in alongside the river enjoying the sun and a swim.

Pont d'Arc on the Ardeche River. Carved away by the water thousands of years ago. One thing we learned at the caves was that maybe 21,000 years ago there was some sort of cataclysmic event that closed the straits of Gibraltar and led to the Mediterranean almost drying up. Useless fact of the day for everyone. 

Today and the next 3 days there is a cycling event on in the Ardeche region. Lots of cyclists on the road everywhere we went today – passing them on these narrow twisty roads is tricky. Thankfully most of the French drivers seem to be prepared for this sort of eventuality.