Most beautiful villages

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Another nice day - 30 degrees and no humidity. The sun here has a certain quality. It might be the crystal blue skies with no orange band of pollution as in Toronto. Everything sparkles. We started off in Mirmande which is on the list of the most beautiful villages in France. And it was gorgeous. It was built into the side of a mountain and the cobblestone roads and pedestrian walkways wound their way back and forth across the side of the mountain till they eventually reached the top where we found a church, l'eglise St. Foy, built in the 1100s. The few residents of this village are artists (potters, sculptors, painters) and there are also a few restaurants. We made our way to the top to take in the view (even Lori!).

Then we were not decided where to go next....so we drove to nearby Loriol and found not too much but the drive was really nice. We managed to find the Grignan edition of le Dauphiné hoping to find Lori's post-run picture, but no such luck. May have hit the editing room floor. Then we decided to head over to Montélimar where we had gone the very first week here (for nougat). The first time we went there, we only went to the Nougat/Candy Museum and we suspected the town had to have more. Today, we found a huge gorgeous park where we had our lunch and the kids played for a while. Then we walked the streets for a bit, enjoying the beautiful weather and sunshine, ice cream cone in hand.

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Photos

View of Mirmande from afar
This is the view before you get there.

Ruins
These are some ruins on the way up to the church in Mirmande.

Narrow passageways
These wouldn't even fit a car, maybe a horse?

One view from the top
This is one view from almost the top. You can see more mountains across the way.

Really cool tree in Montelimar park
Look at this cool windy tree!

Another view of Crussols
A prior blog mentioned Nigel went to Crussols castle in St-Peray. This is is from another angle.