Day 4, Exploring the Ardeche

The day after the party, we explored the Ardeche a bit, driving from St. Christol to Le Cheylard, a cute little town nestled at the bottom of some mountains. It was quaint, and we couldn't go into many shops because it was Sunday and most things were closed, but I liked just walking around any way.



On the way, we stopped and took pictures here and there, including this one, a sign-post, because I love European sign-posts.



It was kind of exciting to drive on the mountain roads because not only were they beautiful, but many of them were on the route of the Tour de France, which would be passing through that region later in the week. Actually, most of our trip followed closely the bike route, which is neat, even though we didn't see any riding ourselves.

We eventually wound up in some little town, I have no idea what it was called, to go swimming in a mountain river pool in a popular bathing area. There is a calm pool area with a small beach that many people go to, or you can be more adventurous like we were and hike a bit into the woods and up to the cliff diving rocks. I didn't dive myself, but I did go swimming, and boy was that water cold!



The Adreche was a nice, quiet, relaxed area and it was refreshing to see some European countryside and take it easy for a few days before we hit the big cities. Coming next - our two days in Paris!