Sometimes you have luck on your side. on Day 2 I had luck, or rather gravity, firmly with me! Here’s a mistake I almost made, after the Gite owner recommended an alternative route to the top part of the gorge ride I had planned. I rode up the hill about 200 meters and then turned around, learning from yesterday’s mistake by realizing early enough my dwindling physical limits…but who cares, the ride today was enormously satisfying! But first, the almost-made mistake.

So instead of a few hundred meters straight up, I had a gentle downhill ride through the amazing Gorges du Tarn. Some pictures of the top part, before it gets ‘gorgey’.

As the early morning progressed, the gorge cut deeper.

I stopped for a coffee and water fill-up in the very pretty village of Sainte Enimie.

Then a little further down I passed this little gem of a place. Remember the ‘water theme’ of this trip…

And visited a most bizarrely situated chapel.

Then passed this tiny village, with no bridge and no roads leading into it. They had little boats on the shore, as well as a pulley system for deliveries I suppose. People live in some whacked-out places, that’s all I can say.

Here’s the same village…all 3 levels of it, if you can make them out.

After another hour or so of coasting down the river I hit La Malene, where I stocked up on supplies…

…and ate them here, contorting my neck in unnatural ways to watch these rock climbers.

After a leisurely lunch I rolled down the gorge, while it slowly turned itself into just a river again.

Here’s a little game I like to call ‘find the house’. I saw lots of these Find Waldo type dwellings along the way.

Then, all of a sudden I was out in the open again, and nearly at my destination of Millau (NOT pronounced like the sound a cat makes…I found out the hard way).

amp;source=embed”>Les Cevennes in a larger map