Spectacular Day. It’s not even 4pm, but it’s been such a great day that I thought I’d post it now. I don’t imagine we’ll be doing much else other than hanging out by the pool, and looking for the animals, once Liam wakes up. Apparently all of the guests from the gites will all meet up the trail near the Gite for an early evening apero. That should be lovely… they all seem very nice. No one with kids though.
We were up fairly early (8 am… although the donkeys started their braying at 5!!!) Had a lovely relaxed breakfast on the terrace, and then eventually hopped in the car to head back down to St Jean du Gard as we were told that their Tuesday morning market was great.
The town was indeed packed, and for such a sleepy little village it was suddenly bursting with energy and people — but the market for the most part was full of the same trinkets and trash that you find in the Italian markets. Other than a little wooden snake that we bought for Liam, there was nothing to interest us….
UNTIL WE FOUND THE FARMERS MARKET. Well. Spectacular. All locally grown or produced, and all delicious looking!!!! We are such foodies!!!
We bought more fresh eggs, some pizza slices for our picnic lunch, a Cepes pie (a local forest mushroom), 3 different kinds of saucisson (donkey, bull and fig), a packet of merengues, and a gorgeous loaf of crusty bread.
After that, we headed back in the direction of our Gite, and stopped off at the bottom of the mountain as we were told that there were some lovely cascades about a km in from the road. It was a bit of a tricky walk as the path was narrow, with a canal on one side, and a big drop off the other side. But we managed fine (Liam even managed to walk it himself on the way back… holding hands of course).
But once we got there… paradise!! Crystal clear water, super shallow in some places, and then some lovely natural pools of deeper water. We’d packed our swimsuits and water shoes (Liam was really excited to try them walking in the river!), and we spent the next hour or so playing in the water and warming up on the rocks. The water was pretty cold, as would be expected… but not as cold as we’d feared! In fact, Daddy swam all the way up to the cascades around the bend while Liam and I mucked about in the shallower water.
There were several other families and couples out there enjoying their day on the river, and Liam was very impressed with two older boys (about 7 or so) who were climbing up some of the rocks and jumping in to the deeper pools. Liam wanted to try! We had to tell him no… but if the weather is this good again we’ll def go back, and next time bring his water wings and his floating hippo so he can have a bit more of a play in the deeper water if he wants to.
The little dude is down for a nap (first one this trip) and should be in fine form later this evening, for the apero.
And I think I’ll put my feet up now, and maybe read a book. Or nap. Or both.
