Day 31 Touring around St Izaire

 Day 31 Touring around St Izaire

Le Grande Combe - our accommodation in St Izaire

Last night and this morning the weather was mild but particularly blustery and gusty winds.  We headed out in the direction of Roquefort - the blue cheese capital of the world!

We decided to take a different route along minor roads which twisted up and down picturesque valleys and along mountain tops. We did startled a couple of young deer on one bend as they clearly did not see many cars on this road.

 

12/50's on the road to Roquefort

As in the past we arrived at lunch time and found almost everything closed with a large number of tourists wandering around looking for lunch!  What a killing could be made for one enterprising individual. Roquefort as a city seems quite drab and comes across as a seemingly unfriendly town.  It could really have something special but misses the mark at the moment.

Impromptu lunch in car park at Roquefort

View of Roquefort township.

The tour of the cheese caves, which covers an 11 story complex built inside a collapsed mountain, was most informative. The tour guide spoke fluent French, Spanish and enough English to entertain everyone in the group - very well done. One room we went through had 27,000 cheeses maturing, our guide apologized as it was the end of the season and the cellars where mostly empty!! 

Cheeses maturing in the cheese cave.

The cellars are have natural ventilation from the many cracks and tunnels in the collapsed mountain (Fleurines) which keep the cheeses at 8-10C and 95% humidity. This is regulated by the cheese makers using doors and windows in some of the tunnels. The other unpredicted impact of using the caves for maturing cheese, now that electric lights are used and left on all the time, there is enough light for lichen’s and ferns to grow in the lit area’s, and some of them are quite spectacular growing in near complete darkness except for the glow from their own private light globe on 24/7.

Mini fernery growing as a result of 24/7 lighting in the cheese caves.

After the tour a cheese tasting was available. The 3 types of cheese available were a bit sharp for our taste but the visit was definitely worth it.

After the cheese factory we went to look at the fortified Templar village of St Jean Alycius. This was built in the 14^th century and the village was quite interesting.

Our trip back was a bit confusing as although most of the major roads are well marked, the minor roads are not ....and the numbering system can be very confusing,.  The D200 seemed to be everywhere and going in several different directions.  Eventually we found our way back to Le Grande Combe and another delightful dinner.