Gorge de Loup

We embarked on a little adventure today, leaving our lovely accommodation. We were headed for Pont-du-Loup to start with, which should have only been 10 minutes away, but somehow I accidentally added an additional stop to the journey which meant we left Le Bar-sur-Loup, did a windy loop for about 15 minutes on a narrow road only fit for a bicycle with some of the signs showing a 25% incline, only to end back up in Le Bar-sur-Loup before I realised. The kids thought it was great. I was issued strict instructions by the husband to never do that to him again.

So, now we were on the road to Pont-du-Loup, looking for the turn-off to Gorge de Loup. We have discovered that signage is not a French forte. After a few terse words that saw us turning around on a stretch of road not fit for carriage for vehicles, we parked in Pont-du-Loup, wandered into the village and accidentally found ourselves on a path that followed the stream up through the gorge. It was magical.

We followed that to its natural conclusion (ie: someone had set up a sign that said "private property", which meant we could go no further). Rather than go back the way we came, we decided a river crossing was in order. Hmmm. Brain freeze after eating a Big Blue Meanie Slurpee from 7/11 does not even come close to describing what happened to our feet from putting them in the Icelandic waters of this stream. Poor Kate, who is smaller than all of us, had a higher proportion of her body in the water so took some time to recover from the cold. But, we did all Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy fans proud - we had our towel with us, so could at least dry our feet before putting our shoes back on! [To quote: A towel, [The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy] says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have.]

It was a pleasant few hours in the gorge. What is strikingly different over here is that these sorts of wonders are free from "nanny state" intervention. No guard rails, no signs dictating where you can and can't go (other than enterprising locals staking their claim on the land), no over-manicuring of the paths. It is quite refreshing, although even the kids are pointing out the non-compliant stair treads!Read more