The Ancient Path to Uzes

As most of you who know us well, we love to walk! When we got here is was quite chilly, and
rained off and on for the first ten days or so.  Now, the weather is a bit warmer (55 to 60), and
most days have been sunny!

One of the things that attracted us to the little village, in which we live is that it is
about 3 miles from our Village of St. Quintin la Poterie, (population of 3,200 people)
to the larger town of Uzes (12,400 people).  We had heard there was an ancient, Roman path
from St. Quintin to Uzes!  We were able to look it up on the google map, and follow it into town.
Now, it has become our thing!  Our walk into town takes just under an hour.  We have lunch, and walk back!  Very enjoyable country roads welcome us, as we walk out of our Village.

Every day, day by day, the trees, grass and fields are turning greener!  We see apricot, almond and cherry tree orchards, in bloom.  There are vineyards, olive orchards, and newly plowed fields.  Most days the ONE LANE road has some traffic, and there are tractors in the fields.  Dogs bark at us as we walk by, and morning doves coo at us from the trees!  Occasionally we have spotted a hawk!  Many of the houses are small farm houses, but there are several huge French country Maisons along way with long driveways, pools and terraces.  Many have orchards and fields that are plowed, as well.  Many of the fields are growing alfalfa, and every day it is an inch taller!

One of the gorgeous country Maisons had fields that had been plowed, and there were rows of white
plastic on top...we didn't think much of it, until on Friday before Easter, there were workers in the field.  We realized they were picking white asparagus!  They picked a huge field about the size of 3 football fields!  We think there may be more asparagus, in that they rip the sections open when they pick, and not all areas of the plastic was ripped!  The Marchés were filled with freshly picked white asparagus!..thick as a quarter, or thin as a dime...all fabulous!

One of the fun things we have discovered is a frog city!...NO, not a city of Frenchmen, real frogs!  Ribbit!  Ribbit!  Last week, we heard a frog jump into the drainage ditch as we walked by, so on the way back we stopped to really look at the area.  We realized there was a Mama, Papa and 2 baby frogs
right in front of us!  And...as we stood there, and made a little noise in the gravel, we saw about 5 more frogs...in fact there are 20 holes in the mud on the side of the hill, and we think they are frog houses! Very cool!

Walking suits us!  Check out the lovely stream, and the fig trees that are espaliered to the stone wall!