Exploring around Chateau Arnoux

Sunday, June 20th, I had a day to kill before Betty could be examined by a mechanic. After being dropped off by Ahmed, I decided to go and explore the local area. As we were driving back into Chateau Arnoux, I noticed a some ruins up on a hill and asked Ahmed about them. They were a couple of ruined towers and they weren’t terribly far from where crippled Betty was so I decided to head in that direction. I crossed a modern looking bridge and found a small park on the other side and then continued on. The town I entered was called Volonne and parts of it contained buildings clustered closely together. It’s definitely something that you don’t find in North America. I worked my way towards the ruined towers and didn’t find it too difficult to get up to them. The view was fantastic and I enjoyed checking out the surrounding towns and countryside. I had heard some boys playing among the narrow streets on my way up and from my new vantage point I saw tht they were playing war as they all carried around fake guns. I also noticed a few guys playing some sort of version of volleyball over a rectangle dark blue patch in their backyard and after they errantly lost the ball on the matt once or twice, I could tell that it was just a covering for their swimming pool.

Where Betty and I were stranded for a few days:


The remnants of the towers were impressive in their thickness of their walls and just the plain fact of who would bother building such structures up on a rocky hill. One sported a clock which actually seemed to be working. I looked in the door opening and could see that there were a few ladders to platforms but I was deterred from entering by the covered floor of bird droppings and at least four bird carcasses. Descending the hill I passed by an aqueduct from the 16th century which now merely served as a bridge and access to a few people’s backyards.

The view from the towers:

The aqueduct:

I worked my way back into Chateau Arnoux and then proceeded to find a forested park on a hill behind where the fair was that I had gone to with Ahmed and his family. There was a map that really wasn’t much help at all. It had a “Vous etes ici” (You are here) but no corresponding dot for your location. It also had no legend for scale nor a compass rose. It did show me that most of it was forested trails and somewhere hidden in there was a “Boulodrome”. Well, I must find that! I knew that it would just be a flat area where avid boules or petanque players would fight it out. Boules is essentially the same as the Italian game bocce which my friends back in Canada and I love to play. They take this game quite seriously here. I eventually found it and was surprised that no one was playing yet I had seen 4-5 games going on around the restaurant at which I had met Ahmed the night before. While hiking on forested trails, I couldn't help but wonder at these wooden posts I'd come across that didn't seem to provide any help to a hiker. They would seemingly be randomly placed (not necessarily at a fork in the trail) and would just show a picture of a squirrel and point in both directions...I guess the same person probably made the map at the entrance to the park....

The confusing and useless sign:

I returned to Betty, tired after walking for nearly three hours. Later, after a simple meal, I ventured to the restaurant again to watch Brazil play Sierra Leone in the World Cup. Not too surprisingly I ran into Ahmed again. We had some lively conversations (some of which repeated from the night before...for some reason he really likes Winnipeg!) and a friend of his joined us with the hopes of practicing his English. I did retire to Betty this night as I didn’t want to impose on his wife again, he had to work in the morning and I didn’t feel like fending off flies in the early morning. It was a fun evening nonetheless.