Where very few Americans ever go

Vissec, France

As Greg and April prepared to return to the United States, we mentioned to a few people that Mel and I were heading next for a region west of Nimes.  We were not sure of the name of the region but it was just south of the Gorges of the Tarn River.  Their response was, “Oh, that is very wild and mountainous country and very few Americans ever go there.”

We met up with our old friends, Fay and Tom Cook from Northwestern who were on a year’s leave working at Sciences Po University in Paris.  Tom had a former graduate student who had married a British woman, Alison, (who was living, at the time, in Canada), and they had relocated to this “wild and mountainous” area of France.  Alison’s sister had a home for rent in the little town of Vissec, which is where we headed.  Burt (the former student) had assured us that the roads into Vissec were drop-dead gorgeous but that we should travel by daylight since they often had steep drop-offs.  He was right.  They were drop-dead gorgeous and some were a little scary.

Vissec is located in a valley surrounded by mountains.  Actually, they are not a circle of individual mountains but it is as if a huge valley were carved out of one mountain and Vissec dropped into the bowl of the valley.  Thus, there is a 360 degree view of mountains from the village.  The valley was undoubtedly carved by the River Vis, which is very strange.  For most of its distance it is above ground.  However, through this valley, it runs underground.  The name of town,Vissec, comes from the word “Vis” (the name of the river) and the word “sec” which means dry.

Burt refers to Vissec as a village of 14 homes.  Actually, it appears to really have about 24, all clustered together.  They are made of stone.  The home we are renting is approximately 400 years old.  Formerly, it was three, one room houses.  Each home had a basement (for which the French word is “cave.”)  The caves have stone floors (not “laid” stone but sort of bedrock stone; very uneven.  The ceilings are also stone, in the form of arches.  In the old days, the basements were not accessible from the upper floors.

Two of the rooms have old wooden support beams and dark wooden ceilings.  The stone walls have been plastered but many of the ancient features have been left in place, such as fireplaces (no longer working), wooden shelves set into the stone walls and clay or stone washbasins also set into the walls.  The floors of these rooms are  stone but “laid” stones, not bedrock, and very uneven.  When they first came to Vissec, Burt and Alison owned this house.  They interconnected them, added a loft in one of them and broke through to the “cave,”  They added electricity, running water and built two bathrooms in the basement.  So, it now contains a kitchen in the center room with a loft above it, a bedroom off the kitchen and a living/dining room off the kitchen across from the bedroom.

We have visited Burt’s home, which is new and built from the ground up.  Alison has created, in just four short years, a vegetable garden that is large enough to be commercial and from which she prepared us an elegant dinner.  She has surrounded their home with an English garden including a little stream and pond.

This morning, we hiked with Alison.  Actually, this morning and this afternoon we hiked with Alison.  It was described as a three and a half hour hike to the place where the River Vis bursts out of the ground after being underground for several miles.  I guess I wasn’t listening carefully enough to the description of the hike when Burt and Alison first provided it.  The first half hour or so was uphill, at a 45 degree angle, over loose rocks.  The next half hour or so was also uphill, but at a slightly lesser grade, until we reached the ridge of the mountains.  For about an hour, we walked across the ridge.  Then, we descended to the river source.  The final part was steep and involved scrambling over boulders.  There, we saw the river gushing out of the ground and two restored mills that were 900 years old.  Then, we climbed back out of the gorge and up  other side of the gorge to return home (finishing the circle).  Parts of the hike were through pine woods, parts through Alpine meadows and part through very arid country where desert-type vegetation flourished.  Part was along the rocks of the dry river bed.  I must admit, I was the caboose for the whole trip which took four and a half hours.  Fortunately, it had rained yesterday, cooling the air for today, and a nice breeze was blowing.  The sky was a brilliant blue and, in spite of the muscle aches that I know I will feel tomorrow, it was a glorious day.

I am voting for a more sedentary activity tomorrow!
Love,
Janet