Scarcely has dawn broken over the small village of Cocurès when it becomes plainly clear to me that the day will be magnificent. A beautiful round moon still stands out against the blue sky as my table neighbor and I finish breakfast - a most pleasant companion.
It is impossible to set off with the windbreaker on my shoulders; by nine o’clock it is already too hot. All the more so as the day begins with a long ascent toward an uncertain summit, doubtless unknown to maps.
No sooner have I overcome this first difficulty than I tumble into another valley, deep and enclosed, at the bottom of which lies: Pont-de-Montvert. Ah, what a bittersweet memory that of this beautiful village, which I visited while ill last April. Today I have all the leisure to contemplate it under the autumn sun, while the market peacefully sets up. There is no question of lingering too long, however; the road is long today.
Once again, yet another superfluous climb, as the Cévennes have many. These small valleys do indeed seem very difficult to link together, and very often it is by dint of all sorts of climbs and descents that one passes from one to the next.
Fortunately for me, the reward awaiting me far exceeds the difficulty of this passage. On the other side, I discover a new landscape, open, immense; clusters of small villages on the hillsides brighten the pine and chestnut forests, and the air carries the acrid smell of burning resin.
The steep road winds through this scrubland, and I quickly understand that it is carrying me irrevocably out of the Cévennes, toward the wide Rhône valley. The emotion is such, under the white sun, intoxicated by these grove aromas, that I let a few tears of pleasure escape. I race toward the bottom of the valley, before remembering that a simple riding error could send me to see the pebbles of the Lueche or the Cèze a little too close up.
Once at the bottom and after a good lunch, a brief slump until Vallon-Pont-d’Arc. A terrible headwind pins me in place, and the road is busy, ugly, and monotonous.
Fortunately, as soon as the banks of the Ardèche come into view, everything changes for the better. The climb leading to the panoramic road is terrible, but at the top, what a thrill! All those views of the river’s meanders that we know so well, just a pedal stroke away!
The road and its panoramas lull me peacefully, and I reach my stopping point, Saint-Martin-d’Ardèche, almost without realizing it. Charming though the village is, it nonetheless remains almost empty, dead, outside the tourist season. Apart from the hotel and a seedy fast-food place, nothing stirs; time hangs on the river’s steady gurgling.
Only one thing to do, then: take out a book, treat myself to a beer, and enjoy the silence of the falling night.
