‘Looking for ‘rock dolls’: Exploring some of France’s World Heritage sites’

“Just 10 minutes down the road,” he said, indicating walking time with his fingers. He came back minutes later and said, “Maybe 20.” Our waiter was very helpful, always trying to please with a wan smile on his face, but his command of English was about as good as mine is of French so sign language was often employed.

“Just follow the river,” he managed to blurt out. Excellent I thought, the chateau I sought was just down the road.

Next morning, with my adrenaline rushing, I stepped out into yet another crap day. There are only two kinds of weather in France, raining or windy … Actually, make that three, sometimes it’s windy and raining. Today was such a day.

I walked past the car a short distance and thought I might go part of the way with it so I returned and drove. I travelled a surprising distance until I got to a dirt, sorry, mud, carpark and pulled up.

There was a sign I’d dreamed of indicating Roquedols, the reported ruin of a chateau that I wanted to see. I looked down the road at a farm house, obviously not it, and turned onto the trail that led uphill, steeply uphill until I came to yet another carpark with a Roquedols sign and a road with a gateway that was open. I headed off, light of foot, checking the time.

In addition to our waiter, I’d also read somewhere that it was 40 minutes and had a picture in my mind of a zigzag road up a hill where many such buildings are located. This must be it; so I splashed on my way until I had to ford a stream that was running across the roadway. I was well over 10 minutes by now and carried on in the misty rain; carried on for another half hour, frightening some local deer before I finally reached the conclusion that maybe this wasn’t it after all.

I turned around, disconsolate at not having achieved my goal. Two thirds of the way back I stepped off onto a narrow well-worn side path that I thought might offer a photo opportunity or two. I had walked but a few hundred metres when there, almost hidden by the shroud of dampness, was the chateau. It transpired that the ‘farm house’ I’d seen earlier was an outhouse of the chateau and I had parked, unknowingly, just 300 metres from the front gate!

The chateau was built during the 16th and 17th centuries. Its two rectangular buildings are linked at right angles and adorned with three round towers. It was the Pourcarès fiefdom’s base in the 17th century and had a variety of different owners up to 1938. My guess is that because it’s out of the way in the Vallée du Bétuzon it’s been ignored, thus, on the whole it has been well-preserved and is on the heritage site inventory.

After breakfast I took the girls there before we climbed the road to Dargilan, a highly rated cave system not far from Meyrueis. Quite apart from what turned out to be a memorable limestone cave taking nearly 90 minutes to tour, the view from the site was also yet another fabulous vista down the Jonte Gorge.

The visit to the Dargilan Cave on the Causse Noir, one of a series of limestone plateaus in the Central Massif, and starts right in the vast Grande Salle du Chaos, where concretions are slowly building up. This is followed by the Salle de la Mosquée, containing a number of pearly-coloured stalagmites and an impressive 20m (66-foot) high column, the Salle Rose and the jaw opening Corridor of Petrified Waterfalls, in which there is magnificent calcite drapery over 100m (328ft) long and 40m (131ft) high.

Across the canyon was a mysterious ruin set beside a cave at the base of a sheer cliff. We imagined someone living there staying awake all night waiting for rocks to fall; extraordinary.

Then it was off to Peyreleau, quite the cleanest and well maintained village I’d seen in all of France. Every dwelling was spick and span and I took much joy wandering the narrow lanes that seemingly wanted to try all directions in a random manner; no doubt dictated by the solid rock they were built on.

Then it was time to drop Cheryl off on the train that looked remarkably like a bus and went on the road. Apparently the service to Montpellier isn’t that well patronised out of Millau.

Perhaps not surprisingly, no sooner had we waved goodbye than the weather started to improve. In fact it turned into the best afternoon all trip. Cloud breaking up, big patches of blue, it was almost like spring. Shame it had taken three weeks to happen. I knew we shouldn’t have had a Victorian along for the trip, they always bring their weather with them.

We drove home back along the Dourbie Gorge. All gorges are named after the river that cut them and they all flow into the Tarn making the system one of the most dramatic on the planet. The Dourbie was no exception and we never tired of seeing stunningly sited villages perched on cliffs or against sheer rock faces or raging rivers beneath us.

The prize winner though was a house built, literally, on the riverside. It even has its own place name, Le Moulin de Corp. We stood on an ancient stone bridge beside it (you have to walk through their backyard to get to the bridge) and marvelled at the volume of water constantly rushing past the foundation brickwork. Still can’t work out how they waterproof it.

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