Friday, May 18, 2007

Geography lesson

In this blog, I often refer to the nearby village of Pont-en-Royans, which is famous for its houses clinging to the vertical cliff above the River Bourne. The French word pont means "bridge". So, the name of the village means "Royans bridge", where Royans is the region in which we are located.

In this photo, you see the old stone bridge, called the Pont Picard, high above the waters of the Bourne. For centuries, this bridge was one of the rare access points between the Isère valley (to the left in the photo, a dozen kilometers below the village) and the rugged Vercors mountains, which start as soon as you cross over the bridge. If you stand on the bridge and look upstream, you see the chilly waters of the Bourne tumbling down from the Vercors range.

Towards the top of this photo, there's a rocky plateau. My property, Gamone, is located on the lower slopes of that mountain.

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