October 6, 2023
Tournon-sur-Rhone
..and Tain/l'Hermitage
Last night at dinner I asked the manager/owner about local wines, and which was the best to try. Her finger immediately slid to the bottom of the page and I expected a big price....17 euros. And it was great. You gotta love France.
This morning dawned a little chilly, so we looked up at the hills surrounding us and decided to climb up to the tower we saw last night. It was built as part of the outer wall surrounding the town for fortifications. Why climb up there?
On our way up, we see the vineyards planted in perfect rows, on such a steep angle that they would be getting a full dose of sunshine on a day like today. Whenever we heard a (micro) car chugging its way up, we dove for the sidelines. Not a lot of room on the road for pedestrians, but not much traffic either. Thank goodness we are not riding bikes up here.
You can see breaks in the walls to let the workers in to tend to the grapes. Nobody working today, and the grapes have all been harvested already.
Finally we reach the top, and see the great view. Notice that this place breaks my just-made observations of towns only on one side of the Rhone. Here you have Tournon on the one side, and Tain/l'Hermitage on the other. Tain is actually bigger and more touristic, so we decided to cross over and take a look.
This suspension bridge is only for pedestrians, cyclists (and now scooters).
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The center holds a banner reading "Welcome Home to 2 Sides of the Rhone".
The very first thing that struck us was the sheer number of hair places - coiffures. In this block there were 4 within about 50 meters. We saw many, many more as well. Either this place has a lot of beautiful people or....well, the opposite I guess!
After sitting along the river in the sun for a while, and warming up, we toured the lunch places and settle on this one. Nice outside patio, sheltered from the breeze that had picked up. Great food (salade chevre chaud) and the lady threw in French lessons. She talked with us for a while after lunch, and gave us ideas for places to see near Avignon where she had lived for 20 yr.
The narrow alleys looked intriguing, even though straight instead of winding. A well-kept town, clearly a month ago would be hopping, but now very quiet. We decided that we would much rather spend time in a place like this than in Lyon. I guess we are no longer city people, and see the charm in small places.
Heading back to our hotel to get ready for dinner and pack up for tomorrow. An earlier start since we have a little further to go tomorrow and it will be hot by the afternoon.
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