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Wednesday, 7 May 2014

Day 19: From Carcassone to Uzes

We had a few hours of driving ahead of us today so it was decided to break it up a bit by visiting a couple of small towns along the way, and keeping off the motorways where ever possible.  This meant driving through country lanes narrower than those in the Cotswolds, with the beautiful scenery typical of southern France: streets lined with plane trees, fields of cherry trees, olive trees, vineyards and flame red poppies everywhere we looked.


We passed over a beautiful canal, crossed a train line and then parked on the outskirts of a small medieval town called Bram.
Not only is Bram a medieval village, but it is a circular medieval village with all of the streets laid out as concentric circles with the church near the centre.  The town is quite small, and we only crossed a few streets before we were in the centre, and you guessed it; a market was on.
We meandered our way through the market, which had basically overtaken most of the town.  I was loving the little stalls, and the provinciality of it all.  I practiced my poor French and bought some fromage: a Brie de meaux Donge and Divers Bleue Chèvre which were both really nice, as well as some jamon, baguettes, some grapes and the best tasting tomatoes still on the vine.

We drove back to the canal hoping to find a nice place for our picnic, but there really wasn’t anywhere suitable, nor was there at a few other places along the roadside so we kept our picnic on hold till we arrived at the beautiful hilltop village of Aragon.
Aragon is a beautiful little village perched atop a rocky outcrop between the confluence of two rivers.  Stone houses, cobblestoned streets, old rock walls, were crowned with a 14th century church, at the town's highest point.
We sat beside a little stream in a park at the bottom of the village and had our picnic in some welcome shade, after climbing through the streets of Aragon on what was actually a quite hot day.
Back in the car we continued on through those gorgeous French country lanes with huge mountains off in the distance, then made it back onto the motorways.
I thought it would be nice to break the long motorway leg up by driving into Montpellier, with an icecream somewere down by the ocean or river side. A lot easier said than done, however.  Nice trams, but we couldn’t find anything worth seeing quickly, and we ended up in this dirty back area of the city where the tourist office looked like an abandoned concrete shack.  To make things worse, as my lane was merging, and I still not fully used to this left hand driving business I must have wandered a little too close to the car on my left; I was called some name in French, which I'm sure was not flattering.
Oh well, I refuelled and we made our way back onto the freeway. The scenery as we approached Uzès became more mountainous, the roads windier and the green forest thicker.  The road started heading downhill as it hugged the hills, with low stone walls protecting us from what looked like sheer drops to the valley below.
We came around a corner and before us was a very narrow stone bridge spanning high over a crystal clear aquamarine river below.  It was a real shame that the road and bridge were so narrow, as there was just nowhere to stop and take any photographs.
Uzès is a labyrinth of narrow cobblestoned streets lined with tall rendered houses, and a boulevard surrounding the town following the path of the old city walls.  A town very easy to get lost in, but small enough to always find your way eventually to where you wanted to get to.  I am really loving these beautiful old towns.
We settled our stuff into our apartment, which is this 4 story tall beautiful apartment in an old building.  The ground floor being the entry, laundry and shower, the first floor a sitting and lounge area with TV, the third floor is the bedroom and the top floor, or loggia is the kitchen and dining room, with views across the roofs of the nearby houses.
The stairs separating each floor were really steep.  In fact I think it’s pushing the definition of what is a stair, as these were borderline ladders.  I mean if it’s a toss-up whether to go down stairs forwards or backwards, then yes, they are steep.
We went for an exploratory walk around town and got lost, then came out at Place aux Herbes.
After checking out the restaurants here, we decided on Resto Burger.  The burgers weren’t too bad, but the onion rings were awesome.  I also tried Kir for the first time and really liked.
The rest of the evening was spent deciding amongst the many beautiful places to visit over our coming 5 day stay in Provence and Luangdoc.

And here are the obligatory additional Uzès photos.

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