Sharon – My even older Holiday Weblog

Flat Battery – Languadoc #5

The village of St. Jean de Fos is very old and its occupants are very sociable. People kept stopping to say ‘hello’. For such a small place, the village centre always seemed to be buzzing. I spent the first day here lounging about and getting some rest after our long drive down, but then, on Monday morning I was up early and out for a walk – as I did each morning afterwards.

Our first visit to the (sea) beach took some time to organise as I woke up to a flat battery.

The week before we set off on holiday, I had had a new radio fitted in the car and was told it was connected to the battery but not to the ignition – this would help to remind me to remove the radio each evening and NOT get it stolen¹. Well, the day we arrived, I did forget to remove the radio and although it was ‘off’ it still managed to drain the battery. Luckily, Jim (Lynn’s husband) had a friend in the village with jump-leads. Imagine that, jump-leads in the very south of France. Still, they worked for us and we set off for Agde. It wasn’t the nicest of beaches, but we were glad to get there after almost an hour’s drive. I was longing to take a dip in the Mediterranean, it is always so warm. Not today though, because of the recent bad weather, the sea was still fairly chilly. Still – it wasn’t Scarborough eh?

The drive to and from Cap Agde was stunning. Of the full thirty or so miles there, roughly eighteen of them were down an avenue of Plane Trees which kept the by now very hot, sun off you while driving. And, this was not the main road: That was full of traffic trying to get to Montpellier or Beziers. This was just a local (D) road that went in the right direction. Despite being such a road, we were able to maintain speeds close to the national limit, which in my car at the time, kept fuel consumption to a minimum².

That night, I set the habit for the rest of the week and played boules outside – with the locals. I really enjoyed that, but it was not what Sharon had come to do, so she sat and read. During this first evening, I was intrigued to find that the village clock chimes the hour twice, just before the hour and just after³. It also strikes just once on the half hour. However, at first, I wasn’t aware of this and at 22:30pm when it ‘bonged’ once, I thought it was 01:00am and declined another game (I thought they were just playing late). I went upstairs to the flat, told Sharon what time it was and off we went to bed.

She did tell me later that she knew the correct time, she simply didn’t want to embarrass me.

Coming up – the mountains, the lake and the gorgeous beaches of Sete.

1 – Cars in those days were notorious for having radios stolen. These days, perhaps not as much.

2 – I then wrote a paragraph about the taxation of fuel that we have to bear in the UK – nothing changes eh? At the time, French petrol was up to 14p per litre cheaper than at home.

3 – I’ve been to Languedoc and experienced this many times since, but this was my first experience.

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.