Heading off to Uzès next week

[jonathan]

It's the time of year when I take myself off for a solo trip to the south of France - last year, I posted about my week in the lavender fields of the Northern Luberon. This year, I'm staying in the apartment in Uzès where @Pauline stayed in May last year.

Pauline's trip report is, of course, very good on cafés & hiking - and she's lent me all her maps & guides, so I'm well set up for that, though I do realise that early August hikes need to be planned carefully to avoid the heat of the day! And I've copied @Roz 's super little photo-guide for walking to the Pont du Gard.

As ever, I'm interested in eating recommendations. Probably eating out mostly at lunch, to take advantage of the formule du midi bargains, and using the rather good-looking apartment kitchen to rustle something up in the evenings. The most recent Chowhound thread that I've found on the area has some lovely input from @Parigi - and if she, or anyone else, has anything to add here, I'll read it with pleasure!

I've decided to drive myself down there (and am hoping, slightly against hope, that the Eurotunnel situation has improved a bit by next week...) - staying for 2 nights in the Auvergne (by the Lac du Chambon), an area I haven't visited since we honeymooned there, back in 1981. I'm not sure that it's quite the weather for truffade and aligot, but I'm looking forward to tasting some of those wonderful cheesey-potatoey dishes again. So any eating recommendations for the St-Nectaire/Le Mont-Dore area will be gratefully received.

 

[Roz]

Jonathan, I know you'll have a great time in Uzès. The market, as I'm sure you know, is wonderful.

I hope my little walking guide is helpful to you. We did start from the little town (Vers Pont du Gard) where we were staying, and it was a nice walk. There isn't really much in the way of attractions in Vers, but it might be a safer place to leave a car than closer to the highway, and it is a pleasant walk.

We saw a lot of cars parked along the road closer to where the path crosses the highway (D 981) so I guess a lot of people like to arrive by that route, to walk through the woods to the Pont and avoid the parking fee. We are no longer very energetic hikers, but I think there probably are more hiking paths in that area as well, since there were other trail markers.
Mike wrote a blog entry about that walk, if you didn't see it: Strolling 2000 Years.

I don't have any fabulous restaurant finds to recommend, but you'll have lots of choices in Uzès. Have a wonderful trip!!

 

[jonathan]

Thanks for the extra info, Roz. I've enjoyed revisiting Mike's blog this morning - I did skip through it when it first came out, but the Uzès bits are all more pertinent now! I'm glad you enjoyed the canoe trip down the Gardon - that's also on my list; I imagine the water level will be rather lower than in May. That vineyard (La Gramière, run by Amy and her husband) was also on my list - my Uzès apartment owner's site links to theirs.

(And, thinking of an earlier stage in your tripartite trip of that year, Josephine Baker's Milandes chateau was one of our highlights, too.)

 

[Pauline]

We walked from Vers Pont du Gard as well (taking Roz's advice). It is a lovely walk. You see bits of the aqueduct beside the path.

I don't have any restaurant recommendations for Uzes but I had a favorite food shop. It is a fruit and vegetable shop, with some other things (some organic produce and organic grains, etc.), on the north-east corner of the center, where Blvd Charles Gide meets Rue Saint-Julien.

Our favorite place for coffee was on Place Aux Herbes at the narrow end - Au Suisse d'Alger - a nice place to sit at an outside table and watch the activity.

Big market on Saturday, but a smaller and nice market on Wednesday.

And don't forget to look for that green statue in the square in front of Bar Le Provencal - on the ring road. It is a Wallace Statue.

I like that huge standing stone that is north of Uzes - The La Lèque Standing Stone (Menhir de La Lèque). Here are my notes on the Pont du Gard which I really like a lot.

I know you have read my trip report from 2014. I have a lot of notes for Uzes there.

I made a quick Google Map. Let's see if I can insert it:

https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=zXGlj0_mO3hw.kXybGQfkNOpI&usp=sharing

> Didn't manage to embed it, but the link to it works.

 

[Parigi]

Last year Laidback and Mme Laidback took me to dinner at L'Artémise right outside Uzès for my birthday. The setting was enchanting, the food even better than the setting. I loved loved loved it.

 

[Roz]

Jonathan, it appears that the Chunnel situation is horrible. I hope you are able to get across and enjoy your vacation in France.

 

[Parigi]

580 km (360 miles) of traffic jam on France's freeways this morning. Yikes, bestof luck.
Par contre, it is so quiet outside my window, and I live in the center of Paris. Paris enters its quiet, slowed-down month of delight.

 

[jonathan]

Pauline, thanks for those extra notes. I remember reading about the Wallace fountain in your trip report - I hadn't realised that it was the Wallace Collection Wallace! Your favourite fruit & veg shop comes with lots of other recommendations, too: it's mentioned in Alex Lobrano's NYT article, and supplies Parigi's L'Artemise, so it must be good!

Parigi, thanks - yes, I'd read your and M Laidback's views on L'Artemise (and much else) in that Chowhound topic. Maybe, since the pound/euro rate is quite decent at the moment, I should splurge on one of their non-midi menus... And yes, the perfect storm of the 1st of August falling at a weekend has had predictable results on the autoroute network. Don't worry about me, though: (i) I'm not arriving until Tuesday, (ii) many, many years of summer driving in France has taught me the usefulness of consulting the Bison Futé calendar while planning journeys, and (iii) I'm taking a few days driving down to Uzès, keeping well away from Paris and the Autoroute du Sud! I'm not surprised that Paris is feeling peaceful at the moment - they're all down in Uzès, St-Rémy and the Luberon...

Roz, yes, it's been bad for quite a bit of the past week. Not too bad at the moment (see my post on the thread that Pauline started this morning), and hoping that it's still ok on Tue morning! I'll get across somehow, and if I'm delayed then I'm delayed - but my first night's stop (Dreux) isn't too far from Calais.