A Short Tour of the Lozere

First of all, I want to be clear that I took almost 70 pictures this past Thursday, when Patrick took me on a somewhat impromptu tour of our area of the Lozere. However, when I got home and transferred those pictures from my camera to my computer, I somehow managed to lose about half of them, so that the photo album I published on Facebook only goes through our first two stops on the "tour". I sometimes despair at my obvious lack of technological skill. It's frustrating. So, I'll do my best to tell you about it.

First stop after leaving home was the above rock formation, which is pretty much literally right outside our village. It's called Sabot de Gargantua (I think), which means someting along the lines of "Giant's Shoe" or "Giant's Clog". I personally don't really see the shoe part - I thought it looked more like a dump truck froma distance, but hey - whatever. It lets you get a good look over the lower part of our valley, and people actually rock climb down the face of the cliff at its base - scary!

Many wind-y roads later, past quiet fields with cows, horses, and even sheep, we climbed to a place called Point Sublime, which is a touristy little overlook (complete with snack bar and those weird coin-operated viewer thingies) that sits at one end of les Gorges du Tarn, which is France's answer to the Grand Canyon. This lookout point is breathtaking - waaaaaayyyy at the bottom, you see the Tarn River snaking along the valley floor, and around it rise the green and craggy sides of the gorge. It's not quite the scale of the Grand Canyon, but much more verdant, and impressive even so. From Point Sublime you can see for miles and miles - the rolling landscape seems to go on forever. You look at all the crags of grey rock pushing up out of the hillsides, making shadows and hidey-holes in the green hills, and you can immediately understand why this area of the country was such a haven to members of the Resistance during WWII. If you were a native, who could find you here?

We pushed on next to La Malene, which is one of the "anchors" of the Gorges due Tarn. It's a pleasant little tourist town that obviously trades all year on its summer business. Many of the buildings spring right out of the cliff sides here, and there are multiple companies offering canoe rentals, boat rides, river tours, etc. Patrick and I enjoyed a quick coffee on a sunny cafe balcony, and enjoyed the quiet. There were some early tourists from Germany prowling about, but we were the only patrons of the cafe, and watching the river roll by in the sun was relaxing.

Now, on to the portion of the trip for which the pictures mysteriously disappeared. We were hungry, and Patrick thought we would go on to another "hot spot" for Gorges tourism, a very small village called St. Chely due Tarn. The road to get there was very narrow, and curved all over the place, following the cliff sides of the gorge. There were numerous small tunnels cut through the rocks - which just make me laugh out loud - I like them enormously, though I couldn't say just why. And the curving tunnel right before you go into St. Chely has a traffic light - because only one car can go through at a time, due to visibility, ditto for the bridge over the Tarn and into town, which will only accommodate one car, width-wise.

St. Chely is, like La Malene, mostly built into the cliff sides, but it's much smaller. A dear little path leads you to broad stone steps that end on the gravel beach underneath the bridge I mentioned above, next to the fairly swift-moving Tarn. A couple of other families were there before us that day, eating lunch and skipping stones on the river. The "gravel" beach turned out to be all sorts of river rocks - I wish I knew more geology so that I could describe the variety - with plenty of flat ones perfect for skipping. Patrick and I ate our sandwiches from home, then demolished a small round of goat cheese and a pear with the remainder of the bread. Occasionally people in canoes or kayaks rowed by, and to our left, just past the bridge, one of the older houses has an actual waterfall pouring out from under it into the river. Damn, I wish I still had the picture.

Somewhat full of food and sights, we stopped briefly on the side of the road to view a town maybe 15 minutes down the road called ... well, I have no idea. I took a picture of the sign, so I wouldn't HAVE to remember, you see. But the interesting thing about this small village is that it is on the far side of the Tarn, but has only a footbridge going across to it. No cars, motorbikes, or mopeds are allowed. They have a steel cable rope/pulley system used to send over building materials, large grocery orders - anything too large oor heavy to carry over by hand. People live here! Seriously! It looked like a very nice place, in fact, but I can't imagine it must be fun in wintertime.

We did stop once more before we went home, but truthfully the town didn't make a lot of impression on me, other than the fact that it had an abnormal amount of souvenir shops, so I am guessing it gets pretty busy in summer. Lots of items with "Gorges du Tarn" emblazoned front and center - it actually put me in mind of St. Thomas, U.S.V.I., with its tall stone buildings and winding alleyways (although, of course, far less tropical). We saw what was purportedly a "genuine" Lozere (Lozere is the region of the country we are in, in case I didn't mention that) hand-cured sheepskin, selling for the magnificent amount of 129 Euros!!!! Are you kidding? For 129 Euros, I want the whole damn sheep. I'd keep it in my kitchen and take it out for walks in the afternoons. Anyway, the day was winding down and I was ready for home.

So, there you have it. Erin's first foray into the larger area outside her village. It's all so picturesque that it's hard to believe we LIVE here. I kept expecting to see Julie Andrews stride into view, skirts spread out, singing, "The hills are alive ..." It is really just that beautiful - like a Technicolor movie that you've somehow

unwittingly stepped into. If you've looked at the Facebook photo album, you can plainly see that I was indeed bewitched by the colors of the day - I was ridiculously compelled to take pictures of just about every wildflower we encountered. The Florida girl forgot the enchantment of northern wildflowers. Especially poppies - I haven't seen those since I was a very little girl in northern Michigan.

I can't wait until some of you come to visit - I will have such a good time showing these places to you, as Patrick is enjoying sharing them with me. And, just to pass along the joy, I will scare the bejesus out of you with my driving as we traverse the twisty-turny mountain roads. Come on over, it'll be fun!