Goudarques, France

Goudarques

Some time ago I posted a picture of Goudarques, France. This picture was taken in 2007 when I visited Goudarques again after a long time together with my wife and kids. I wanted to show them the place I have been almost all of my youth hollidays. It was a bit of an anti-climax because the village has lost a bit of his charmes, but that was mostly because we were growing older and I still hold on to the great time we had when we were in our teenage years.

Goudarques is a village in the Gard department and is near Bagnols sur Ceze. It is a small, cozy village with a small part of the river 'deCeze' floating trough the middle of the village. At both sides of the river there are cafés with nice terrasses so you can have a great sit at dat as well as night. There are several campings in and around Goudarques.

When I was in my teenage years we would go to Goudarques almost every year on holiday. We were staying at "Camping Municipale la Gambione". A local camping with few facilities, just 4 showers and two toilets, but that didn't bother us a bit. It was next to the river 'de ceze' so we could swim, and that was the most important. There were a lot of local french people at that camping because the most tourists wouldn't be on that camping because it was to primitive. It didn't make any difference for us, the centre of the village was 2 minute walking, so every night we'd go to the village to have a drink and have a good time. Because we came at Goudarques for several years we got friendswith a lot of kids who where comming there also multiple times. Even the owner of 'Cafe du France' got to know us. So it was almost like comming home every year again.

Around Goudarques there were several small villages too, and every night there was surely something to do in one of those villages, so we always did go to some kind of party with a big group youngsters. That was always great.

Each summer you had a lot of festivities called "fete Fotive" , in every village there was for several day's al kinds of thing to do, like a carnival, street parades and of course disco on the streets. You can imaging the party we had with the group on those festivities. We'd always go to the other villages by foot and we would see how we got back, we never had to wait for the trip back to the camping because there were always some people, for example from Cafe Du france, who had to go back and took us with them. Than the next day we were getting fit again at the water, relaxing in the sun and swimming a bit.

One time we were hanging out with some french locals and discussed footbal (soccer). Before we knew it they arrangeda match between France locals and dutch tourist on the local soccer field.It was an big happening and we enjoyed it very much.

around Goudarques you have a lot of great things to see, like Cornillion. It is an small village build against the mountain which is greatly lighted at night. Just walking trough the streets of Cornillion makes you feel like angient times.

If you want to swim in and around a great surrounding you have to visit La roque sur ceze. It is an small village with only 179 residents but with a great rocks in the water.

In the winter the rocks are beneath the water level, but in summertime the water is low so you can see al the great rocks and waterfalls and swim in it. although I don'nt know if that is still possible because there did drown several people due lack of security meassures.

Some 40 km from Goudarques you can go to Avignon (indeed from "Sur la pont, dávignon"). Every summer there is this great festival where there are a lot of artists performing in the streets of Avignon. and don't forget the "Palais du Pape" of course, the palace of the pope.

we have always had a great time in Goudarques, memories of which I still cherish them. to bad that the magic is gone when I visited it later on, but memories will stay forever :)..

If you are in the neighbourhood some time, have a visit at Goudarques,you won't regret it and when you're there, pay a visit to Chateau St Nabor, just outside Goudarques,they have the greatest wines you can imagine...

Thank you very much for reading, I hoped you liked it and got a bit enthusiastic for Goudarques.

Have a greaat evening,

Peter