The ideal p(a)lace...

Tuesday 4 December

Just a quick update with a few pictures.  Monday doesn't rate as an interesting day, so not much to tell.  Most of the day was spent chatting with my sister-in-law, reading and working on my bobbin lace.  I have to be careful with that, because at the rate I am going I will be running out of thread before long...

Tuesday however is an improvement although the day starts with rain and the last vestiges of the snow have disappeared.  All of a sudden the sky clears to a bright blue and the sun shines brightly.  That wakes us up!  We decide on the spot to get the car and go for a drive.  As geocaching is always a nice reason to go places I try and find another cache close by.  I succeed and surprise, surprise, it is near a place we wanted to visit anyway, so we can combine the two.

We're not going far from home today.  Hauterives, our destination, is only 12 km from Montfalcon.  First we visit the local market and I am surprised at the pretty, very modern, jumpers that are for sale in a little town like this.  A very friendly woman tries to sell me some footwear for 'the snow', but I need good hikers and these are a tad bit uncomfortable, so no sale!  She's very friendly though and we manage our communication half in French on my part and half in English on her part.

Next we visit the Palais Idéal the goal of our little trip. I leave it to you if you want to read up on this piece of art, a work of some 30 years, designed and completed by a French postman.  Just follow this link.

 

It's probably not at the scale of Gaudi or Hundertwasser, but truly a wonderfully detailed piece of art and architecture worth examining from close by.

At the market place we discovered a large wooden carving of the postman Cheval and his wheelbarrow:

And as an aside a clever way of clipping an ivy bush:

After the visit to the Palace we used the GPS to find the geocache that we had our eyes on.  This was an easy find, only a short walk and not too difficult to spot.  After we had logged our find we felt a bit hungry and since it was just about lunch time we made our way back home where we had a quick bite to eat:

Real bread.  Real cheese.  Heaven!

After the morning rain, while we were walking around Hauterives, the sky had cleared again so we went for another short drive in the area.  We passed through Montfalcon (a few houses only) and Tersanne via very narrow winding roads to Châteauneuf-de-Galaure.  It was a very scenic drive:

In Châteauneuf-de-Galaure we walked around and climbed to the very top of the town before we made our way back home:

We had meant to find a geocache here as well, but I had forgotten that the map on my mobile phone doesn't work overseas and had not prepared the paperwork.  Driving a distance on a compass only doesn't work, so we skipped this one.  Plenty others in the area, so maybe we will go back another day.