2 July 2012 - Bauduen

I don't think I explained much about the house we are staying in.  It is the 3rd house when entering the village (great as it is close to a parking area) and the front door opens directly onto the road in normal French style.  We were first faced with an wrought iron grille locked with a padlock.  The came solid wooden shutters, again locked, then french doors locked with a standard lock and a separate deadlock.  This just to get in the front door!  The first room is a small lounge leading through to the kitchen/dining room with a toilet tocked in beside the sink.  Stairs lead downstairs into a loung/rumpus room/office/overflow bedroom created out of a vaulted basment with a door leading into a small garden.  Upstairs from the entrance level are 2 bedrooms, a modern bathroom and toilet, then the attic above has been converted into a master bedroom and terrace overlooking the lake.  I have no idea how old the house is, but it could be 100 or 400 years - things haven't changed much over the years.  What strikes us is that the entire house is only one room wide and that is standard for most of the house around here.

The house from the lakefront - the one with light green shutters

View from the terrace

Yesterday we relaxed in the heat.  As it was Sunday there was a great village market.  At our end there were vegetable and produce stalls, then cheese and meats with the rest varying between trinkets, jewellry and clothes.  The guy at one of the cheese stalls sold us on one of his cheeses with a sample and then cup us a slice off the round.  The variety of cheeses here is immense and most of them are very good.  The cheese guy ahd a dog sitting in a pile of boxes behind him that took great interest in the deals.  The stalls would never meet NZ OSH standards with unrefigrerated cheese and sausages that were a target for flies.  Gillian was taken with a couple of tops that will be seen in future photos.

 Cheese seller with dog

 I took a walk up a road behind the village, then wandered through the back streets.  The village is obvious ancient with 4 layers up from the lake.  Some of the roads are 2m wide with steps jutting out into the passageway.  I can see the tracks where cars have passed, but I can't imagine having the accuracy required to drive a zigzag course between the steps.

 Street in Bauduen

 Gillian made a Quiche Lorraine from a local recipe for dinner - never believe that the French are cholesterol aware as the short pastry alone was 33% butter, let alone the bacon and cheese.

The village is proving very complete with a good general store, 3 restaraunts, a creperie and several other eating houses of varying descriptions.

Today we drove up to see the Canyon du Verdon.  10 minutes after leaving the house I discovered I'd left my camera - an excellent move as there is no way to capture the grandeur and scale of the scenery.  While the weather has been less than perfect (a few showers) the scenery is breathtaking and, according to Gillian, so are the roads and my driving.  The French do not believe in making roads that are wider than required for 2 goats to pass.  When you meet a tour bus on a blind corner and stop with 1" to spare and then have to squeeze through a gap between the bus and a rock wall with the mirrors scraping in a 90km/hr zone you understand that driving here requires PRECISION.

The scale of the canyon is difficult to convey - we were at 1200m up one wall looking down 600m to the river directly below with 300m cliffs above us.  The road on the opposite side on the canyon goes higher and looks even more scary than the one we were on.  Much of the canyon walls are vertical and are reminiscent of photos I've seen of the Grand Canyon in the US.  The canyon runs for some 40 km, but we chickened out after half that distance.

When we returned to Bauduen, I walked out past the yacht club to the end of the unsealed road passing several really nice beaches which we will laze on tomorrow.  The only issue with the beaches is that they have been created with sharp gravel and you do need reef shoes to swim comfortably.  The water has been a deep green most of the day due to the clouds, but about 5pm the sun shone through and the lake returned to its unbelieveably vibrant blue.

A pale rendition of the colour of the lake this evening