Chez Mielitz Crangle

This is a four story home opening to two different roads on two different levels. It boasts an age of about 900 years. At one time there was a cave on the lowest floor which would have lead its way up to the chateau where the residents could seek safety in the event of an atack on the village. It has been completely refurbished and offers all the comforts of a modern home although the layout is quite unique given that it is vertically higer than it is wide or deep. The main floor has a fully modern kitch adjacent to a dining room furnished with 17th century pieces. If you leave the kitchen window open, a neighbourhood cat is likely to jump through the window, run upstairs and start meowing to be let out the back door off the stair steps just a few steps above the 3rd floor leading onto a higher road immediately behind the house. The bottom floor appears to be shorter and less deep than the upper floors giving the impressionthat the house is somewhat rhombic in shape along the vertical axis. Despite the high temperatures outside, the first floor maintains a fairly cool demeanour because of the thick stone walls as long as you keep the doors, windows and shutters closed. The top floor is not as cool as the bottom floor, but it is definitely better than outside.

The Road to Sault

We drove from Pernes towards Sault on the scenic route and circled back through Murs on the other side of the Gorge. It was a beautiful road on which we saw abandoned homes in the vicinity of what looks like grottos in the cliff sides high above the road. The panoramas were gorgeous, and we were treated to the sweet fragrance of lavender which was blooming in many fields near Sault. The roads wre fairly narrow and always winding, but because there was so few cars on the road, the drive was very pleasant. We saw lots of cyclists who were all in fantastic shape considering the speeds they were maintaining. One cyclist who ultimately took our picture at a summit near Sault had passed us three time when we had stopped to take photos.

Pernes Les Fontaines

The nearest town with full commercial activity is Pernes Les Fontaines. It is another medieval town. The main nave of the eglise Notre Dame de Nazareth dates back to the 11th century and structurally it was augmented ove the next 500 years. Pernes was a hotspot for Les Hospitaliers of the Knight of St John, and we visited Le Tour Ferrande which was used as a library and meeting place for the knights. [There are some impressive frescoes on the walls depicting the life of Charles d'Anjou and Guillaume d'Orange (although our guide told us that, in fact, the reference to Guillaume d'Orange was a secondary reference because the frescoes were predominantly commissioned to honour the life of a knight who was about to become the owner's father-in-law). The frescoes are remarkably well preserved. The roads of cobblestone are typically winding and rolling, but what stands out here more than I can recall elsewhere is the homogenous use of stones on walls and roads which provides a rather neat character to the town. It is very quiet here being mor or less off the beaten track, but a few tourists like oursleves could be spotted here and there. The Tourist Bureau is staffed by some of the most friendly people you will ever meet and they even give 30 minutes free wi-fi and a table to work on should you wish to use it. It has been extremely hot here, and the rain we had on Friday came as a great and refreshing relief.

La Roque Sur Pernes

Rose at 05:30, and after a quick glass of juice and cup of coffee, we departed the peaceful Terre de Blade at 06:00. Dropped Michele and the bags off at the Sarlat train station at 06:30, and redelivered the car to the Hertz agent. It wasn't evident to me, but the agent noted immediately that the front right head lamp was cracked. Indeed. I definitely had no accident, but it is possible that someone may have backed into me in a parking area one day while we were in Sarlat or I missed it when we did the initial inspection. Caveat Emptor. Anyway, I had purchased full insurance coverage including the deductible, so it should be covered. The 07:30 train from Sarlat to Bordeaux maintained its schedule fairly well down the line, and we arrived in Bordeaux around 10:30 and awaited our 12:38 departure for Nimes. This train left on time, but lost about 2 hours enroute because an accident somewhere near Nimes where we discovered that all trains were delayed. There was quite a crowd waiting there when we arrived. We managed to arrive in Avignon a little after 20:00 and took the shuttle to the TGV station where we picked up our reserved car within 30 minutes of the rental agent's closing time. We finally managed to reserve a "small" car and thank goodness for that considering the crazy size of the roads in La Roque sur Pernes. We left the TGV station a few minutes after 21:00 hours which meant that it was just a little too late to buy provisions for our week here. So, when we pulled into La Roque with the incredibly useful help of our GPS unit, the night air was approaching darkness and we raided the cupboards for a can of kernal corn which we heated in the microwave and a delicious warm cup-of-soup. Afterwards we crawled up to bed and slept like the dead. La Roque is a medieval town. There's a small monument in town which refers to some Vatican Council of 1370, but we understand that the town is actually quite a bit older than this. The house in which we are staying, Chex Mielitz Crangle, boasts an impressive age of 900 healthy years. The town, like most medieval towns we have seen is built upon a steep rocky hill. The roads are crazy narrow and twisting. Three times I have had to use reverse when negotiating turns...which is why I never intend to drive down rue Portail Haut again. So, we park on the main road below the town square. The church is very near the top of the town, but, according to a woman we encountered departing the mayor's office, mass is no longer celebrated here except on high feast days such as Christmas and Easter. Nevertheless, the mayor told us to come back on Monday and we could pick up the key if we wanted to visit it. So we will. Immediately above the church and commanding a view over the town and the olive orchards on the other side of the valley is Le chateau de Roque, a small but impressive structure which appears, now to be a highly exclusive hotel. We learned of an interesting cultural note of the population of La Roque sur Pernes when we returned to e Mayor's office for the key to the church. There are about 400 people living here many of whom descend from the part of Banatais people who settled here about 50 years ago after the war to infuse some life back into a dying village. The Banatais like to keep a very low profile partly because of their tragic history and mostly because they want to be identified primarily as French citizens. As it turns out, the children who were born here of the original settlers are still here, and the very first child born to the Banatais in La Roque in 1951 is now the mayor of the village. Our final excursion from La Roque brought us to the 60 million old Grotto of Thouzon in which there are some very interesting stalactites and rock formations...also saw a fosilised bat about 5000 years old, and perhaps, most interesting of all, roots from oak trees which had reached through 25 meters of rock.