Languadoc – My even older Holiday Weblog

Almost ready to move on – Languedoc #7

For the youngsters hereabouts, the challenge seemed to be attempting to kill themselves. The bridge over the river – Devil’s Bridge, was over the years, built at various levels. They would jump from the bridge, into the river, from various heights. Children would use the bridge foundations as a starting point but older kids would jump from the metal stanchions into the river. So far so good, but even older kids (all males btw, late teens, early twenties), would jump from the road bridge into the river. That had to be 60’ at best – they must have been mad. d65206c630bfc7ae72b026b923ef6cd8

Apparently, there ARE 3-4 fatalities every year from just this practice.

Higher up, to the west of where we are, there is a lake, which we also visited on another day. We didn’t stay as we couldn’t find a way to the water. There was a massive car park though, miles from anywhere but no sign of how to get anywhere from it. So, we left and went to the coast again.

This time we went along the strip of coats between Agde and Sete. There was mile after mile of lovely flat golden sand, with parking on the roadside, no more than a few yards from the sea. We thought that this was a marvellous beach. It had ‘proper’ sandcastle-building sand, was a safe depth for quite a way out and its only drawback was its distance from St. Jean de Fos! Oh, and, the traffic. Well, we were ok, as we knew the back roads, so we only had to circumnavigate Agde, and we were away. Others however, queued and queued. It was windy however – I guess that this is an aspect of the South of France. We had brought a good beach umbrella with us from Costco (Leeds) – and it was well worth the car-space. It screws into the sand, which gave it extra leverage – others just upped and blew away. Ours did not.

The day before we left, to move on to Saint Tropez, we visited the Grotte de Clamouse. This was an experience worth having. I’m sure that I would have enjoyed it even more if we hadn’t needed to avoid and step over all of the budding Steven Spielberg’s with their cameras and camcorders AND sheer ignorance of everyone else’s enjoyment of the caves. The sights inside were spectacular and colourful and the organised tour is well designed – but they really should limit the camera opportunities.

Image from https://www.minube.net/place/the-devils-bridge-pont-du-diable–a359681 with thanks.

Arrival in St. Jean de Fos – Languedoc #4

As soon as we arrived in Gignac, we went shopping, as once these shops have closed on Saturday, there’s nothing else until Monday morning, when the shops are usually rammed. We bought a pizza to cook in the oven that night. Nice and easy. Except, it turned out that there was no oven! (face palm)

The flat (Gîte) we were staying in was owned by the couple downstairs. They are English and had lived here in the village, for five years. They had been coming to the area for twenty years and have owned the property for eleven years – so they are almost locals. Their house was along a small lane just on the outskirts of St. Jean de Fos. The village itself is just off the main tourist route to Saint-Guilhem-le-Désert, and the Grotte de Clamouse. It hosts the Devil’s Bridge river beach, which turned out to be very convenient¹.

The owner Lynn, speaks fairly good French but her husband doesn’t – he simply plays boules very well. I thought boules only involved two balls each but here they use three – perhaps this is petanque? Who knows! They told us that the recent weather had been truly awful, much the same as it had been in England. They took great delight by trying to make me feel guilty that the cloud we had driven under all the way down, was the same cloud we had had back home. As it if was my fault! It did clear up eventually however.

The flat was nice, with a large living/eating/cooking area – with a window to the outside. Very cool and airy. A long, cool corridor then takes you to two large bedrooms and a well-equipped bathroom, with both bath and shower. The owners are converting the back of the house too and will soon be able to offer extended accommodation, or two separate lettings.

The only problem that we had with the set-up was that any outside activities such as barbecuing or simply sitting outside, was shared with the owners AND across the road and down a flight of steps. By the time I had cooked a meal, I couldn’t be bothered to carry everything down two flights of stairs and across the road. Besides, we often had two or three courses which would each have to be fetched when ready. Barbecues are ok, but I’m not one for lighting one just to cook a couple of pieces of meat – I’d rather do that for a larger group.

Next – we venture out.

1 – The sea was about 30 miles away.

Tarn Gorge – Languedoc #3

As we moved off and away from the hotel we had stayed in last night, it was windy and slightly overcast. The road was wet from overnight rain, but the sun did eventually start to break through. We had elected for long trousers and trainers today – it was not hot.

Just around the corner, we found the hotel that the receptionist in St. Flour must have mentioned. The Hotel Garabit is a fairly gothic sort of structure, something you might expect the Count of Monte Cristo to be staying in. It overlooks a vast and truly delightful lake, the likes of which I hadn’t seen since I went to Oz. It reminded me of Berowra Waters, just north of Hornsby (just north of Sydney). The road we were on, which up until now, perhaps five minutes from the hotel, had been pretty mundane, wound its way down to the lakeside and along it for several miles. There were hotels here by the score – something to remember for the future¹.

The road wound through various types of kind-to-the-eye countryside until it reached the motorway again – just a couple of exits from where we had left it last night. We decided that, as our road was empty, and we were getting these visual treats, we would stay on the ‘B’ road (D road in France) for as long as we could. The map we were using suggested that there might be hold-ups on the motorway, close to a couple of towns en-route, so it would be good to miss those.

After meandering for about an hour, Betony became bored and we began to play a game that involved us getting points for things that we saw along the way. We made up the rules as we went along: 1 point for a poppy, 5 points for a sheep (until we realised that we were in sheep country), 2 points for a church, 2 points for a cyclist (but 10 points for a female cyclist – much rarer), 50 points for an elephant, and so on. Much later, we gave this game up, but as we approached St. Tropez the following week, we saw quite a few elephants!

We eventually (fairly soon) rounded bend and there in front of us was the most wonderful sight. We had come out above the Tarn Gorge. None of our maps had suggested that we were this close. Once again, this beautiful area reminded me of my time in Oz, especially, because of our elevated position, the Blue Mountains. The drop down the side of the gorge was quite frightening but when we reached the bottom it was like a fairy grotto for several miles along the riverside. All the villages were geared up for tourists and we found it hard to park. In fact, we decided to have lunch on an outcrop of rock overlooking the gorge from the bottom end. It rained slightly as we sat on our picnic rug, wrapped in waterproof coats.

The route we were now on looked like it might take us to our ultimate destination via the D roads. All we had to do was find the correct turning – with no clues². So, we turn back to the Autoroute and ended up dropping down another yet mountain into Millau³ – where we had missed the first lot of traffic jams.

We made good progress for several miles before becoming becalmed on the motorway, for no apparent reason.

From here onwards, the countryside that the road wound through was truly magnificent. Almost all the way down to Gignac the scenery was terrific and would certainly be a lovely journey at another, quieter time of year.

^{TBC – we arrive}

1 – How I can have written this and not mentioned the Garabit Viaduct, I cannot imagine. Much in this area has changed over the intervening years but not the viaduct. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garabit_viaduct

Garabit

2 – The sign-posting at this point was abysmal and although we could see that we had to pass through ‘Vieux de Montpellier’ we were not prepared to pay. Apparently (although I can find no reference to this form of words today – 2019), this is a national park and if you want to pass though, you are charged per occupant. There was no saying that the road actually went to the town we wanted either.

3 – Millau has changed beyond all recognition in the intervening years. See https://flic.kr/p/frdkzs

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En-Route – Languedoc #2

As I said previously, my assumptions that central France would be devoid of traffic, were completely unfounded. First of all, there was nowhere to stay in Clermont-Ferrand. We must have visited at least twenty hotels only to be told that they were full, or to see ‘Hôtel Complet’ signs on their doors. Every time we stopped we were either just behind or just in front of some people asking exactly the same question: “vous avez un chamber pour ce soir?”. This became very frustrating. The weather was clouding over and night was drawing quickly in – we had to find somewhere. We even phoned and asked the lady we had booked our gîte with to see if she knew of anywhere, maybe in her village, we would have driven all the way if we had to. No such luck.

We drove further on, to a town called Issoire. This was a much smaller town, obviously thriving as it had quite a number of hotels. All full.

We drove on still further into the gloom towards small town called St. Flour. This was a pretty town in a (hilly) Harrogate sort of way – well equipped with hotels – all full. However, one receptionist did suggest that such-and-such a hotel about five miles down the road (and into the countryside) would probably have some rooms. As before – all full.

However, the receptionist at this off-the-beaten-track hotel was on the phone to another hotel asking for rooms for the man who was in front of me (and being told that they too were ‘complet’). So, we knew now to bypass that particular hotel, and what’s more, the man at the counter was now behind us!

We eventually found a hotel at Garabit. This, at the time, meant nothing to us but they did have a room for three people (their last) and we were able to finally stop for the night, after twelve hours on the road. The meals here were interesting. We asked for a well-cooked burger for Betony (which came bleeding – I had to pretend it was ketchup). Sharon had a turkey drumstick, cooked like a confit of duck and I had POUNTI, which I had never seen or heard of before. It was like a hot slab of pate de terrine.

Altogether, the evening there was delightful, if a little cold. Our room was so cold that we had to bring in our quilt from the car – we would need this at Stephen’s place.

Our travel-luck changed the next day, because as the sun came up after we departed the hotel, we were in for a surprise. Despite some fairly bleak countryside outside the hotel itself we were soon to see some really beautiful sights.

Another trip to France – #1

We set off on Thursday 13^th July (probably 2000). We¹ drove beneath the permanent summer cloud to Dover. Here, it brightened a bit as we boarded the ferry. I though that this was a good omen. We had booked a room in Boulogne and, driving down the new AutoRoute I reflected that the last time I had driven down this way was with Roger Forsey. He and I (both recently divorced at that time) had decided to drive to Dieppe for a few days, for no other reason than to go there – and to buy some booze on the way back. That time, it was absolutely sheeting down with rain and one lane of the then new motorway was blocked off because of the high winds. My reflection was that this time there was a strong sunlight and everything looked rosy. Another happy omen.

It was good to be in France.

Friday 14^th was Bastille Day and because it was Friday this year the whole of France had decided to have a long weekend. This was both good and bad. Good because it meant that there were no lorries on the road and bad because – well, read on.

It had rained during the night, which made the morning fairly cold. We decided upon shorts and sandals, hoping that the weather would clear up a few miles down the road. We were heading for Languedoc – specifically for St. Jean de Fos, near Gignac. This meant that our route was unfamiliar and that we would have to somehow circumnavigate Paris. This, in itself is enough to make you give up all hope and to continue with the holidaying in Blackpool. However, Sharon had taken our map and photocopied the western part of Paris – blown it up to A3 and marked our proposed route with highlighter pen². We were confident.

However, we missed the first major turning that we needed. There was just the one tiny signpost quite easily seen as you PASS the exit!

So, we ended up following the much ‘traffic-lighted’ road right in to the heart of Paris – at one stage we were hurtling towards the very centre, but I managed to turn back onto the periferique, where I was able to keep up a steady 85mph (!!) because that was what everyone else (and perhaps because there was very little traffic) was doing. The exit we now wanted was at the exact opposite side of Paris to where Sharon’s now useless photocopies wanted us to be. Still, we managed to get to the area where an exit was marked on our map, but we couldn’t find it exactly.

Who knew that there were two periferiques? – SEE.

We were on the ‘interior’ but the exit we needed was on the ‘exterior’. All of those Parisians heading out to the coast had by now blocked the road we wanted anyway, so after a time where we were just tootling around the back streets of southern Paris, we found a road that was going in roughly our direction. The traffic lights however, thought that it was still a normal work day and spent a good hour teasing us to spending more time in southern Paris than we really needed to.

We were heading for Clermont-Ferrand and in my ignorance and grossly inflated overconfidence (not to mention arrogance) – we had not booked an overnight stay. I had been advised to do so, it being Bastille Day etc. but no – I thought that as the route took us through central France it must surly be quieter there. After all, I hadn’t been to this area of France before, so why should it be busy! The motorways out of Paris towards Bordeaux and the west coast resorts were full of traffic, but ours was not. It was patently obvious that I was correct, as when we did eventually reach the motorway south, it was clear and empty (and toll-free incidentally). We had a terrific ride down, despite the cloud, on a very empty road.

To say that ultimately, I was wrong in all of my assumptions, would be a massive understatement. Tbc (soon).

1 – This time I was travelling with my new girlfriend Sharon, (now my wife), and her daughter Betony. Although we had camped in the south of France the previous year, some of the venues we visit on this journey are new to her but much travelled by me.

2 – Remember, no SatNavs back then.