Valley walk!

We went to see Sue off and take some photos at her lovely apartment. She left on the 9.55 bus to Nîmes, and was on time to catch the 10.30 airport bus (they don’t go very often). Which is what we'll be doing next week.

After seeing her off, we wandered into town and bought a couple of wee tarts for later, and a couple of pastries for sooner, and we tried a new coffee shop, which is now my favourite. It's right on the Place aux Herbes, has a shop full of delicious things, and a helpful waitress. When I was unclear what kind of coffee I wanted (haven’t had the one I wanted yet!), she announced 'noisette allongée'. THAT'S what I should be ordering. I have been asking for a 'café au lait' or 'café crême' and generally get a cappuccino, which I don’t particularly want. They also provided blankets outside, as it's turned colder today.

We decided to walk to the next village. Only 4km or so - I reckoned I could manage that. So we set off down into the valley. Well, the path was quite hard going, and was more like a dried up river bed, not easy going at all. And it was all steeply down hill, so of course, I was worrying that the return would be all UPHILL.

We came to several wee crossroads, all signposted to various villages. There were lots of big private villas and even a chateau in behind the high walls and large gates. But then we came to a fork with no signs. One was a road uphill, and one was a track downhill. We set off on the road. I kept wondering (aloud) if it could be the road to a private house and gate... and yes it was. We walked back to the other track, downhill. But lo and behold, it ended in a big gate too!!! But a man in a car going in to the big flash house, cheerfully gave us directions - I don’t think he realised I was about to bawl! We had to walk all the way back to a signpost.

I was getting frantic by this time - wasting energy going nowhere! But we soldiered on back to the track, and chose the correct one, which was an easier ascent than the one we come down, it being a proper road and wended gently up the hill. But I was fair puggled! Imagine my deep joy when we came back into village on the road right next to our place! (Only 6.1km; 9,231 steps, but seemed longer).

We had our reward of the two wee tarts and a small glass of rosé. The tarts are pissaladière with caramelised onions and anchovies, and tomato, olives and anchovies. Yum yum.

Planning our day for tomorrow. Arles, where we last visited when our Combi van, Eric, broke down and we had to be towed there and hang about all day while they patched him up. We had quite a few tomber en panne incidents...

The weather isn’t looking too good this week.