Le Pouzin is actually quite close to Privas... maybe 10 miles but when you don't have a car everything seems far away. In addition, its pretty much impossible to walk/hike to nearby towns because the highways/roads are very narrowly cut into the ravines and mountains making it impossible to walk along them. So far we haven't managed to find any backroads to even get us to the next town over Coux, which is less than 3 miles away.
So we dragged ourselves out of bed early on Sunday and got ourselves to Le Pouzin around 9 a.m. It was quite fortunate that we got up early becuase we were treated to a beautiful view of the Ouveze river, and an old roman bridge which goes over it cloaked in fog. This provided many great pictures:
As we were searching for our trail we walked to the other side of river and got some nice pictures of the bridge as the sun came out:
I should note that we really did have to search for our trail. The French system of trails is quite different than in the U.S. They don't have such things as trail parking lots or trailheads and trails usually wander through town, through peoples back yards,and through peoples property. To find the trail you have to keep a lookout for yellow and white marked rocks/telephone poles, trees. Sometimes the trail goes off in random directions and its almost like your on a weird treasure hunt for the yellow and white signs.
We finally found our trail after getting lost a few times, and hiked up a steep incline. We got high up above the city and were treated to a beautiful view of the fog covering the Rhone. The hike was nice up until the point where we started hearing the jingle of bells and saw a hunter. Remember how I said French trails often go through private property? Well this trail, which I might add is advertised by the local tourist offices, runs right through the Le Pouzin local hunting club lands. We initially thought it was just a sole hunter, but quickly discovered about 10 hunters with what seemed like 20 dogs roaming all through our hike. Lets just say these conditions made us a little paranoid and somewhat hampered our ability to enjoy the surroundings. Luckily we made it down without getting shot and or losing the path.
As we returned to Le Pouzin we were looking forward to some French fast food (Kebab). Kebab shops (middle eastern food) are usually about the only food places open on Sundays. On Sundays in France almost all restaurants, shops and markets are closed. So looking forward to a nice hot lunch, we discovered that the shop in Le Pouzin was closed, for that day only.
Then we discovered that both due to the fact that it was Sunday and a new transportation schedule was posted because of the strike we would have to wait at least 2 hours and possibly as long as 5 hours to get back to Privas, only 10 miles away! Luckily the buses were running on a normal Sunday schedule again and it only took two hours.
So to put it mildly, we had quite an interesting day away from Privas. Next week I think we're going to try and explore Aubenas, a town in the opposite direction.
2 comments:
Great pictures of a great adventure! I am glad no hunters mistook you for a whatever it is they hunt out there. Matt would be proud... I tried a bleu cheese on our cruise and really enjoyed it, much to my surprise! Except it probably was too mild for his taste. Hey, I'm learning! Hope this second try version of my comment works!
Luckily it seemed that they were probably hunting for game, i.e. small birds like pheasants or quail. I suspect this because all the dogs had bells on their collars I'm assuming to scare up birds. It was all very odd.
I'm glad you liked the blue cheese! I've become an addict.
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