I've been to the Ardèche Valley

During my boarding school time I joined the canoe group and went at Easter Vacation 1974 to the South of France to stay for 12 days at the campground in Vallon Pont d'Arc, next to the Ardèche river and the bridge leading to the town of Vallon Pont d'Arc.

It's a very beautiful and unspoiled landscape. Usually only visited by people who love white water canoe trips.
The stretch of river between Vallon Pont d'Arc and St. Martin d'Ardèche takes between 7 to 8 hours of being on the water and there are not too many spots where you can take a break.
One is right behind the ancient arch (Pont d'Arc is a natural stone bridge, check this out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pont_d'Arc) on the right side. There is a small beach.

At Rocher Charlemagne things are getting pretty difficult as there is only one way to get around the big rock. If your canoe gets pulled towards the left, it will hit the rock and you might end up falling out of the canoe like it happened to me.
My only thought when I reached the water surface again was:'How do I get the paddles back?'
But I did swim after them and finally caught them when the water became more calm again.
Shortly before St. Martin d'Ardeche there are old caves on the left side in the high cliff. Way back in 1974, hippies used to live in these caves and they waved to us while we were floating by in our canoes (we were a group of 10 or 11 students).

I had no clue that there was a huge cave hidden by rubble that fell from the cliff and closed the entrance of the cave for many thousand years. It has been discovered in 1995.

Werner Herzog claims in the documentary that the wall paintings inside the cave would be twice as old as any other cave paintings world wide, but he must have forgotten about the famous Lascaux cave in the Dordogne, France, with wall paintings of animals painted some 17,300 years ago.

I enjoyed watching this very special documentary and it was quite a treat to see my old stomping grounds again :).