Prospect of Lyon

Sometimes a holiday picture is just perfect. Take a picturesque setting, ideally including a river, some trees, a hill and some attractive buildings, throw in a good camera and a lot of luck, and on rare occasions it comes out like this.

This is the River Rhone as it flows through Lyon in central France. Although it shows big, bustling city, it almost contrives to convey a placid ambience such as you might expect to find in a Constable painting of rural England.

Never mind that this particular photographer takes hundreds of shots in the attempt to get one that comes out like this. No artistic genius is being claimed.

It's just lovely when it all works out right.

Wines of the Northern Rhone

Let's face it folks, if you sign up for a mass wine tasting the odds are you will not get to taste anything better than a reasonable economy standard; somewhere in the region drinkable to half decent is about the best you can expect; very ordinary to mediocre will be the fare if you are unlucky. 

Firstly you are obviously a tourist and not expected to know any better. Secondly you are probably travelling by air and can't carry much anyway.

I am pleased to report that the tasting organised for us in Tournon was much better than that. Whilst the presenters naturally did not include the local celebrity wines, they did present us with an attractive selection. Obviously not a scientific survey, but it did enable us to gain some sort of idea of the differences between the wine of the left bank (left) of the Rhone, known as Crozes-Hermitage and the right bank (below right)  called St-Joseph. I shall leave the discussion of Hermitage itself to those who can afford it and who are therefore in a position to know better.

This is the region of the Shiraz (Syrah) grape and it so happened that the majority of our party were Australians who know a thing or two about this variety. They were not shy about testifying to the merits of Australian labels and interested to sample the French competition. Some we encountered were promptly condemned.

Not so Crozes-Hermitage and Saint-Joseph. They approved and I would not be turning up my nose at either of these should anyone care to donate a case or three to a good cause, though if pressed I would say the St Joseph is somewhat smoother and more to my own taste.

What is the link between Hermitage and my recent posts about religious mysteries of Southern France? Well, it so happens that the region takes its name from Seigneur Gaspard de Stérimberg who, wounded during the Albigesian Crusade, came here to recuperate and subsequently live as a hermit. Quite why he did so is a puzzle, since in common with the other north Rhone wine areas it has a continental rather than a Mediteranean climate, which means it has wet winters.

On the other side of the river, Saint-Joseph, named for its origins in a Jesuit winery, uses the same grapes but has a different exposure and other differences that produce subtle distinctions from its close relative. The last photograph shows Tournon on the right and Tain on the left, which are the centres of the respective areas.

The Ardèche Gorge - where we touch prehistory

North of Avignon, the Ardèche River, which gives its name to the whole region, finally reaches the Rhone.  Before it does so it carves its way through limestone crags up to 1,000 feet high, forming the largest natural canyon in Europe (left).

On another day I might have liked to join those brave members of our group who took on the challenge of canoeing down the gorge.  It may or may not be the case that the 'other day' referred to was a score or more years ago.


I contented myself with the slightly less strenuous task of descending (and of course subsequently ascending again) the innumerable steps that form the path down to Grottes de St-Marcel d’Ardèche.  This is not the famous Grotte Chauvet, discovered in 1994, where the walls are home to the art of our distant ancestors of thirty millennia ago.  For obvious reasons that is not open to the public. Nor is St Marcel the recently opened replica cave.  It does however, for the truly desperate, include a reproduction cave painting (right).




Far more impressive is the remarkable natural architecture of the caverns themselves.  Rimstone pools, stalagmites, stalactites and imaginatively titled sculptures created over centuries by the action of water upon the living rock.


Even amid a heatwave, the underground chambers are cool and relatively quiet, although for those who like that sort of thing you can enjoy a son-et-lumière show at the rock waterfall (above).

The most famous natural landmark of the Ardèche Gorge is Vallon Pont d’Arc where the river has undercut the cliff forming a great natural bridge. Sadly there are things that you simply cannot do on a day trip, except perhaps in the mind's eye.

Sous le Pont d'Avignon

The Bridge at Avignon (above) is famous because of a popular song, but in olden times it was important for far more serious reasons.

The only fixed bridge over the Rhone south of Lyons, in the early Middle Ages Avignon Bridge marked the boundary between the Papal State (Comtat Venaissin) and France. From 1309 to 1377 Avignon was the official residence of the Pope and a great palace (right and bottom) was built there. (This period should not be confused with the Schism of 1378 after which there were two men claiming to be pope, one of whom resided at Avignon and the other in Rome.)

Relations with France were not necessarily friendly in the early years of the Avignon Papacy.   Later French influence grew. The Bridge was guarded and fortified by both sides, though at some stage apparently song and dance parties were held on an island which formed the base of some of the bridge's great stone piers. What appears to be the far bank of the Rhone in the photograph below left is actually a large island; there is a further channel beyond which is not visible.  So the song has it wrong, the dancing was sous and not sur le pont.

The papal era bridge had 22 stone arches, but was vulnerable to damage by the Rhone's powerful floods which would sweep away some sections. It appears temporary patches were made with wood, but after being finally abandoned in the 17th century much of the bridge was demolished or swept away, so that now only four arches remain, into one of which the Chapel of St Nicholas is built.

Modern archaeology has discovered Roman foundations and radiocarbon dating suggests that a Gallo-Roman bridge may have existed for a time between 290 and 530 AD.

The canonised shepherd boy Saint Bénézet inspired the building of a bridge in the 12th century by miraculously lifting a huge stone. He was originally interred in the St Nicholas Chapel on the bridge itself. After the abandonment of the bridge, his relics were removed to the Hôpital du Pont on the Avignon side. Saint Bénézet's original bridge was destroyed during the Albigensian Crusade, when the Cathar Heresy (so-called) was extirpated in Provence.

 

White Horses of The Camargue

Many of us dream of visiting the Rhone delta, the sparsely populated area of southern France known as The Camargue. Like many other dreamers,  I imagined I was going to take lots of photographs of lovely white horses running out of the surf.

Truth to tell, that sort of picture has to be staged for the photographers by the traditional cowboys of The Camargue. The horses do not actually spend their time playing on the beach. Why would they?

So unless you're very lucky, you have to make do with a misty photograph of grazing horses taken through the window of a tour bus. A bit like the one on the left.

The most important town of the region, Les Saintes Maries de la Mer, of which I hope to write more later, has an off season population of below 3,000 but a summer population of 50,000.  There see to be innumerable  trekking establishments where you can ride the white horses amongst the salt marshes, winding your way between the many lakes and observing the fascinating wildlife.

To a person from northern latitudes, egrets and flamingos count as exotic, so it is astonishing to see the wild birds that flock to the reserve at Pont de Gau. I hope to write at greater length about that wonderful place too.

For now, however, I have still my dreams about what Camargue might have been like, if only I had been on my own and not surrounded by a crowd of other tourists such as myself!