Gorgeous? No, gorges!!!

Saturday 7th June 

Moving day today.  We've enjoyed our few days in Grenoble. We will be happy to get away from the treacherous stairs in the apartment, although otherwise the aparment was ok, and certainly in a good location for us. We were even able to walk to the laverie last night - the first one the dryers weren't working but it was only a 5 minute walk to the next laverie.

So leaving Grenoble this morning was interesting. We were headed for the gorges to the south of Grenoble, but Dora took us a long way north before turning south. We worked out that there is really only one road in from north and one road out to south; and the road to the south took us down the wrong side of the mountain range. So up and around we went. We were headed for the Gorges de la Bourne. We eventually headed over to the east, across the motorway, across the river, then into the village of Saint Gervais. Facing us was a mountain - surely we're not going up that I said. Well it turns out yes we were. To get us to the village at one end of the Gorges du Bourne, Dora took us through the Gorges du Nan, up over Col de Romeyere (1402m) and through another gorge. The road up out of the village was very narrow and very steep, thankfully we appeared to be the only traffic on the road on the way up (apparently used by the TdeF in 1954). From the top and down the other side there were a lot of motor bikes - so glad we didn't meet these on the way up. 

Some truly amazing gorges in this part of the country. Sheer rock faces, carved away rock for roads to pass under, tunnels, narrow passing bays - pretty spectacular stuff. Unfortunately no photos as there was really no opportunity to stop safely. Once we got on to the last gorge road, it was like a super highway and seemed like everyone had decided a gorge drive was the thing for a Saturday. 

The gorge drive ended in the village of Pont en Royans. This village's claim to fame is houses suspended over the river, 3 or 4 stories high. They don't look to be terribly stable but they have been there hundreds of years (16th century). Guess they're not going anywhere in a hurry. We enjoyed a walk around town and lunch before moving on.

Dogs of the day - out for a stroll in Pont en Royans.

A brocante shop in the village -
I really don't need to bring anyone else's treasures home.

The suspended houses.

More street art in the village. 

This beautiful pool would be a highlight for the kids in summer. 

How many thousands of feet have worn these steps down?

Leaving the village of Pont en Royans and coming down out of the mountains we started to drive through more open and rolling hill type country. The major 'crop' growing here was walnuts - thousands of trees. Really beautiful to look at. We moved on to Hauterives, and the Palais Ideal. In the photos we saw this looked to be very Asian or even Gaudi-ish. This was one man's folly - it took him 93,000 hours, 33 years to build this. Why? 

The girls checked it out.

I guess it's really just like a fairy tale castle.
The guy who built it (a postman) said he was inspired by a beautiful rock he saw,
then went on from there. 

All sorts of weird sculptures - he had a meaning to a lot of them.

After a long day we finally arrived at the town of La Talaudiere, just outside St Etienne. Thank goodness for mobile phones and google - supermarket near me? Fuel near me? We are in a tiny apartment, with a balcony, and enjoyed sitting on the balcony last night, Rob with oysters and a glass of Alsace wine.