Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Le Pont du Diable, Thueyts

Le Pont du Diable translates to mean The Devil's Bridge.

There are apparently more than 80 bridges in France with the same name. And legend has it that, due to the difficult terrain, most of these bridges could not be built by men so they made a pact with the devil to construct the bridge in exchange for the first soul to cross the bridge. Once the bridge is finished, they would then send over a cat (sorry my cat loving friends, Jim & Barb) or a donkey.


Last week, The Girl was getting bored cooped up at home all day so I thought it would be a good idea to check out our own version of The Devil's Bridge in Thueyts. I've brought guests there before but never had the time to walk around.


In fact the last time I was there, 2 summers ago shortly after I got my driving license, the car got stuck in soft mud. Thankfully I found some workers nearby who had a truck & tow cables to pull my car out of the mud. Driving in the countryside 101 - Never steer off the road after a few days of rain.

So you can imagine my trepidation at going back there again. While I was making the exact same turn, I noticed that they had widened the road & even put a bar at the spot where my car had been. I'm glad somebody did something about it.

The bridge itself is not very spectacular but the views from the bridge of the water below.....gorgeous. I'm going to guess that in the summer, lots of people must be swimming in the river.
It was of course too cold for us to even dip our toes but we had a nice walk along the river

The Girl decided to do a little impromptu posing session

More of that beautiful clear water I was talking about

This is the view from the bridge on the right

View on the left

And because we still had some time to spare before we picked up X from The Site, we visited the close by village of Meyras - a pretty village & it's church.

All in all, a wonderful day out
just mother & daughter
before she starts school again next week


5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi, thanks for another lovely post. It's "Thueyts" actually. Beautiful pictures. I agree that the bridge isn't much to look at from... the bridge itself. It's more impressive from a little distance at water level actually. And yes, the water is gorgeous to look at on a good day. I didn't notice any pictures of the "échelle du roi" walk, though, with its splendid "orgues de basalte" and panoramic views... did you perchance miss out on it? If so, I highly recommend it. It's not very long, but rather impressive, and you also get a nice view of the "via ferrata", which I really hope to try out some day.

petite fleur said...

Oops Corrected. I do know the right spelling but I keep typing it wrong. I have the same problem with "fluor".

What's this echelle du roi ? I must have missed it. Anyway it wasn't a very nice day so we didn't go very far cos I was afraid it would rain. Sounds good tho'.

Maybe we can go do the walk together one day ?

Anonymous said...

44°40'15.90"N 004°13'16.71"E is the Lat. and Long. of "Le Pont du Diable, Thueyts".

Google Maps here:-

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=+44%C2%B040'15.90%22N+++004%C2%B013'16.71%22E&sll=54.525961,15.255119&sspn=157.151024,360&g=Europe&ie=UTF8&z=17&iwloc=addr

Beau Lotus 涟 said...

That's what I love about France - such beautiful places everywhere...

petite fleur said...

HM-2009
Eer thanks

Lotus
I know I'm going to miss all these