Day 21 Pont de Monvert to Florac Trois Rivières

May 8, 2023

The Balancing Act

Twenty-one km (with a round up), downhill. Then we chilled out in Florac.

Nice. Sunny days are here again!

The 21 km’s were incredibly beautiful riding down the Tarn and seeing the landscape incrementally change, becoming more beautiful and dramatic at each turn. It was reminiscent of our day riding the Gorges du Nan, it’s fantastic and we haven’t even entered the part that warrants the official ‘Gorge Sign’. That comes tomorrow.

We’re still going to gorge today though ‘mais à la table … pas à velo’. Film at 11!

Another ultra short post for verbiage, but another aunt Betty photo slog, most taken as we just explored this very lovely village. Luckily, this is a tourist driven town (hikers, bikers dominate) and as a result, on a Monday most of the town is alive and kicking.

Had we pushed on yesterday for the final 20 km’s, all of this would have been lost on us as we would have been little more than zombies. That might even be cruel to zombies.

The hotel we booked (last night when we saw rain the forecast for today), The Gorges du Tarn, has a very highly rated restaurant, so after checking out the village, and documenting most of it in photos 🙄, we retired to our room, blogged away and then went downstairs for another fantastic ‘local’ meal. Not a piece of macaroni in sight!

So, here’s our route for the day … and the photo album.

It’s all downhill from here.

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Patrick Parnonow that's a proper elevation change!
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11 months ago

Kirsten KaarsooTo Patrick ParnoIt definitely beat the day before. It was a fun rest day.
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11 months ago

SOTD - Till It’s Gone by Birds do Chicago. A song that just fits today, and a little more emotionally uplifting than yesterday’s ditty, featuring the amazing vocals of Alison Russel.

After the brief rain last night, we’re back to sunny mornings!

The view across the Tarn in Pont de Montvert, a lively village full of hikers and climbers

Looking back to Pont de Montvert and the upper reaches of the Tarn. It all starts here.

The same spot looking west, hard to imagine that in a few km’s this will be another huge gorge!

Not sure what this is but’s growing everywhere and reminds us of the gorse in the Scottish highlands

Moderate downhill through a beautiful valley - with brand new super smooth pavement!

we could really enjoy the ride this morning

Beautiful morning light in the stunning and varied landscape

The Tarn is still pretty small here and the valley lush and green

There were a few farms, but the countryside was pretty much open with few signs of human habitation, and then we came upon this interesting fortified house. The main part still appeared to be occupied.

Approaching Florac, the valley starts to open up and take on some canyon features

Crossing the now much bigger tarn, again … this is going to be a common feature

Beautiful church at Bédoues, about 3 km east of Florac

And then we were done riding for the day. We were lucky to be able to stash our bikes and bags at the hotel (we arrived at just after 11) and then set out to explore the town … and have lunch.

The following photo dump will give you a feel for the town … no need, ot time for captions!

Waiting for Godot … again. Or maybe just waiting for LT to finish taking pictures of geese.

Elfs were spotted in this magical place!

…. And here is today’s gorging at Restaurant l’Adonis …well worth a visit if you’re in Florac. The guy who let us into the bike storage to drop stuff off when we arrived at 11:15 AM turned out to be the super friendly host / maître d’ / hotel multi-tool!

Great bottle of northern Rhone St Joseph, an amuse bouche of carrot mouse with truffle oil and then four great courses of traditional and expertly prepared local fare.

Susan taught us that this is what the bread that accompanies every French meal is for!

So that’s a wrap of today’s issue of ‘Gorging in France’. Tomorrows course is a classic … the Tarn. Bon nuit!

Today's ride: 21 km (13 miles)
Total: 900 km (559 miles)

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