Up into the hills

We discovered yesterday that St. Chinian can be a bustling little place. The market of course drew lots of outsiders and parking was at a premium. We've found a patisserie that has some pretty fabulous desserts, but with two markets a week, we should be able to get most of our food there.
Today was overcast and cool but at least dry. We opted to do a fairly local drive up into the foothills of the Montagne de L'Espinouse. Just outside St. Chinian, the terroir becomes very rugged and as you drive into the river valleys - aka gorges - the scenery is quite breathtaking.

The first village on our itinerary for today was Cessenon sur Orb. Looking for a vantage point for the view of the ancient tower, we found ourselves driving up a cow path - one of Dawn's favourites. To quote: "This isn't a road. Turn around NOW!" Always a good way to start the day. Anyway, I got my picture, but not the one I anticipated. That one was at the bottom of the hill, in other words not from the cow path. Score: Dawn 1, Bill 0.

We now followed the path of the Orb River upstream and quickly came upon our next village, Roquebrun. This is another great wine town and it seems to me that many St. Chinian wine imports to Canada are from this village. If you wanted to do some water trips on the Orb, this is the place you'd set out from. Otherwise, it's another very pretty, perched village.


After winding up the Gorges d'LOrb from Roquebrun for another 30 minutes, we set out west into the Jaur River valley and finally to the Plus Beaux Village of Olargues. A well as the, now to be expected, twisting, narrow streets, Olargues also has an 11th century tower and a 13th century bridge.



The picture immediately above is the view of Olargues from the restaurant we chose for lunch, Fleurs d'Olargues, run by an ex-patriot Danish family. Clearly these guys have a pretty fabulous location! Here, we had our first haute cusiine of the area. Dawn started with rillettes of sanglier (wild boar) while I had a faux fillet (thin slices of beef) with a bearnaise sauce. Dawn's main was a stuffed turkey breast pinwheel while mine was slices of duck on divine mashed potatoes. Dawn had a chocolate cake for dessert, while I had a medley of 4 little bite sized desserts - cake, panacotta, creme brulee and cherries in port.
Back, safely and dryly ensconced at Aurelie, the rain started and the wine got opened and that's pretty much the end of the story for today.