Les trésors du Royans (S1 – E2)

Pour cette première émission, j’ai voulu me rendre dans un lieu exceptionnel du Dauphiné, avec au programme des routes et des paysages grandioses, un site d’exception et une spécialité culinaire locale. Toute la philosophie de “Roue Libre by Alan”.

Hello everyone and welcome aboard RoueLibre by Alan; so Alan is me. First of all, if you want to know more about my channel I invite you to watch the previous show which will tell you everything. So for this first show I wanted it to be in XXL format, that is to say that I chose a fairly unique route, in truly magnificent landscapes ; if you have seen the previous show you also know that in each show there are two sections, a “we are going to taste” section and a “we are going to discover” section and all that is on the program for this day. So a little word to tell you where I am, I am on the road which goes from Grenoble to Valence, but we are not going to go to Valence we will take an other road a few kilometers from here. On this beautiful road along the Isère river, we cross fields of walnut trees as far as the eye can see. In fact, we are in the land of the Grenoble walnut and you see the walnut brings life to this entire valley from Grenoble to Valence. We are leaving the Valence road and we are going to enter in the Royans land. The landscapes are really beautiful and the Royans Land is located between the Isère valley and the Vercors mountain which you can see now. So we left the road which led to Valence and we entered straight into the Royans land. The small village in which we are is Pont en Royans and this village of Pont en Royans has an absolutely unique particularity. Now we are going to discover this nugget of Royans. To see this special place, first of all you must go to the edge of this beautiful river called the Bourne and from here we must then cross this small passage on which I am to get to the other side on the other bank. So we have just cross the river and on this side of the river we can admire the real architectural curiosity of Pont en Royans, these are the “Hanging Houses” above the river and which are only visible from outside the village where I am currently. Look at this architecture, it is truly unique; the houses are ocher, yellow, pink in color, they were all built on the rock with projections above the water and wooden supports. So I learned that these dwellings had been built in the 16th century to promote the timber trade and the Vercors wood went down the river to arrive right there at Pont en Royans, where the Bourne calms down and in fact these “Hanging Houses” made it possible to save space in a narrow way, where the gorges finish here and therefore it allowed to build these houses in an improbable place We are now in the main street and the houses on the left are those that we saw on the other side from the river. In this country of Royans, we have a culinary specialty which is the Raviole du Dauphiné. You understood, we are going to taste and we are going to taste this typical dish of the region and in a restaurant which has made it its specialty, the Hôtel du Royans For those who don’t know the Dauphiné raviole, it is a bit like small, flat ravioli; it is made up of a wheat flour paste which surrounds a stuffing made from Comté cheese and parsley. It is sometimes even Vercors blue cheese instead of Comté cheese, chives and with butter. so now we are leaving the village of Pont en Royans and we will begin to take the gorge road which leads from Pont en Royans to the Vercors plateau. This road was built in the last century; it was opened to traffic in 1872 and it took nearly 11 years of titanic work to complete it so obviously we will climb gradually : from an altitude of 210 m to more than 1000 m which is the average altitude on the Vercors plateau and all this in barely 24 km, following the river below. So this will be the only stop on the road that I will make because like most people who take this road we all stop here and for good reason you see the canyon which is in front of you it is more than 900 m deep and it’s the most grandiose and impressive landscape of these gorges of the Bourne Come on, we’re leaving now and we’re going to enter the most spectacular part of the road; it is here that man built the most extravagant part of this road; we will sometimes pass on portions of the road which are completely above the void and in other places we will pass under very narrow passages, tunnels which are dug into the rock. Come on, now it’s time for the spectacle of this fabulous road and we’ll meet after on the Vercors plateau at the finish ! The show stops here on the magnificent Vercors plateau; I hope you enjoyed this RoueLibre by Alan show; if yes don’t hesitate to click on the little thumb on the left of the screen and if you wish to discover other places, other routes don’t hesitate, subscribe and you will be notified as soon as a new broadcast will be announced Now I am leaving you with these beautiful images of the Vercors plateau and I thank you again for following me. I’ll see you very soon on RoueLibre by Alan. Ciao