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Category: Barging Through France

Tags: Travel, tourism, France, french, canals, barges, rivers, Ardeche, millers, milling, mills, Rhone, River, farming, terracing, chestnuts, raspberries, coco, be

In this episode of the video series about barging through France, host Richard Goodwin visits Ardeche. Ardeche, lies on the west bank of the Rhone about halfway down the river. It is a very wild woolly place perched mostly on the side of hills. In a forgotten valley I meet Raul whose family have owned the water rights and the mill for 400 years. Raul told me about his mill and he said he could mill chestnuts, wheat and barley for animals. Millers mill anything but flour millers only mill flour. He told me that anyone who had water rights before the French Revolution (1789) had them in perpetuity. I asked him how he coped with rats. He said he'd solved his problem by mixing barley with poison and Pastis which is a favourite French aperitif.

Terracing was the only way the peasants could eek out a living off the land. They were often paid for their day's work in earth which they put on their terrace. I went to see the beautiful Agnes who has formed an eco museum to preserve the art of terracing. She runs courses for building dry stone walls. She says that building dry stone walls is a complex three dimensional puzzle. It is so absorbing it stops you thinking about anything else and therefore very therapeutic. I went to watch Christian and Jack build a serious wall nearby.

Jack took me to an unusual café on the first floor of an old noble's house where the woman who runs the establishment has a pourer's dead eye. She lives in her kitchen just off her café.

Jean Paul is a successful potato farmer but his potatoes are called rattes which are like small new potatoes and taste really delicious. We have chestnuts, raspberries, vines enough for the family's wine, coco beans and cherries. We get the early sun on the terraces at 08.10 in the morning and the little terraces get warmed and that's how we get the early crops. There was one chestnut tree that is alleged to be over 1000 years old.

Antreges is a pretty village in the heart of the Ardeche. I stayed at the village's only hotel the Angel and was introduced at once to the owners two chickens, Rosa and Maise. A very quiet little place with a few attractive guests.

The soil in the valleys around is very acid so blue hydrangeas abound. On a lonely mountain road a strange little group came round the bend. He told me that he couldn't ride the horse till its is four years old and now he has load only 10 kgs because it strengthens the back of the horse. The goat is to keep the horse company because otherwise the horse gets restless and bored.

Deeper into the Ardeche I watch Roland fix a local roof with the traditional loze, large thick flat slates. Each loze is nailed into place. He says the roof on this house would weigh upwards of two hundred tons. Nearby Ros, a pert little red head has taken on a large semi ruined house which she hopes to turn into a bed and breakfast. I asked her why there was so much moss in her attic. She said it was the old way of insulating the roof and in her opinion is much better that rockwool. Some others use clay.

At the top of a remote lies the tiny village of Tine. The Church is the jewel of the village. The stones were carried from 20 kms away. The church is constructed using the Golden Number, 1.618. Everything in the church is a multiple of 1.618.

The gorges in Ardeche are truly gorgeous. St Menton is a village in the south of Ardeche . Mrs Holt explains the village herb garden that she tends.

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