027 - Crossing the International Roof-Tile Line
7th November 2004
Bonjour encore une fois nos ami(e)s,
So it was we set off South West from Steve and Sheila's, replete from a delicious lunch they'd cooked us, towards the coast. We wanted to see Mont St. Michel on our way down through France, since we were so near and since it's one of those heritage treasures that shouldn't be missed. Wow! What a place. We arrived in the latish afternoon of a sunny Friday and took the scenic route towards the abbey. There's a long stretch of road over the flat, salty marshes from which there's a magnificent, uninterrupted view of the Mont. (Incidentalement, we were told that if carnivores eat local lamb in the restaurants in the area, they should expect it to be naturally very salty, since there are flocks of grazing sheep all over the meadows close to the sea there! Does that mean, we wondered, that you'd end up with a crisp, pre-salted jumper from local fleeces?)
For Camping Car-istes, the form at Mont St. Michel is to pay your 7 euro parking fee (unless you arrive very late after the attendant has gone off duty, in which case … gratuit!) and go into the area specially reserved for Camping Cars. You're allowed to park overnight there which of course means a spectacular 'View From Bedroom/Lounge Window' - especially as darkness falls and the whole Mont is floodlit. So we had a good late afternoon meander through the streets, alleyways and round the abbey when we arrived - fascinating, and amazing views out over the sands for kilometres around.
We were there when the tide was right out - apparently you have to check the tides before parking in certain areas of the car park as the sea races right across the sands. Naturally, this bit of information enabled Jeni to have a little Worry that we might wake up the next morning to find that The Lorry had turned amphibious! That seems like a minor fret, though, compared to those faced by medieval pilgrims to the Abbey. Apparently, it was once known at the 'Mount in Peril from the Sea' as so many pilgrims drowned or were sucked under by quicksand whilst trying to cross the bay to the 80 metre high rocky outcrop.
Then back to have our supper in our ringside seats - there was something completely magical about having an unobstructed view of this huge, ancient place only a few hundred metres away.
As the evening drew in and the lights went on, we just sat, mesmerised. Until, that is, another Camping Car drew up rather too close to us, necessitating some contortions, or retiring to the bedroom and peering out the higher window, to keep the whole in view! By the time we woke in the morning to watch the Mont emerging from the early mist, the little Camping Car enclave had at least 25 motorhomes in it - clearly a popular spot. And those who'd arrived late and had a free night's parking zipped off before about 8.30 a.m. when the attendants returned, thus ensuring they didn't have to pay. (We'll charge just 20% commission for that Handy Hot Wild Camping Tip, fellow Camping Car-istes! Or perhaps it should be Handy Hot Semi-Sauvage Camping Tip, since it was at least permitted to overnight there!)
Southward Ho!
By the time we'd had a brisk rub down with the baby wipes and had our breakfast, the picturesque early morning mist had turned to fog and solid rain, so we decided not to hang around. Thus, we turned The Lorry to face south and set off again through varied terrain - vast flat agricultural areas around Poitiers through gently undulating countryside and hillier areas with pretty river valleys.
Has anyone else noticed that phenomenon of the International Roof-Tile Line? It seems to be drawn somewhere along the latitude of Poitiers. Around that area the roof tiles begin to change from the predominately grey or black slate of further north, to the familiar red clay tile roofs which are more characteristic of Southern Europe. Of course, it'll be to do with local materials and heat levels, but any erudite readers who might like to enlighten us further on this, please feel free!
Visit Alert!
Our next mission was a visit to some friends we'd made earlier in the year down in southern Spain. They live in a picturesque but real-life village down in the Vienne Departmente, near Montmorrillon, South of Chauvigny, close to the Mont de Blond hills. Gordon describes the area as rather like a Northumberland-without-the-coast, but with better weather - very much a pastoral landscape, mostly undramatic but satisfyingly lovely.
Kath and Gordon made us very welcome. Not only did we park up outside their house and plug in to their electric, but they repeatedly fed us - deliciously - and did a great tour-guide bit with us. We visited a couple of exquisite villages, Mortemart and Montrol-Senard, just a bit south of Bellac. Montrol-Senard has some fascinating historical sites ... it's almost a museum village (though it's real and lived in), with about a dozen buildings preserved as they were in the early 1900s. There's a little clog-maker/shoe-makers, a forge, a cafe, the school-room (which was in use until 1950, and we met a guy who went to school there), a barn, a 'typical' house and a huge room where the women of the area processed the sheep fleeces into wool, span and wove or knitted it.
Laundry Lad Has a Thrill
Dave, who as many of you will remember has a particular penchant for doing the laundry (!yes!), got rather over-excited about the public wash-pool, the lavoir. This had lots of the old original accoutrements round it, like the scrubbers (no not those ones!), washing stones and baskets. We just wandered round, in and out of these places, all for free. Fascinating. And the fact that we seemed to be the only visitors of the sunny October morning made it an even more pleasant experience.
We found a wonderful café full of lunching French people in Mortemart - a really small village that just had this one bar / café in the middle opposite the ancient seminary and chateau-ette. Excellent.
Pause for Reflection
As a contrast we then went to Oradour-sur-Glane. It's a village that was destroyed by the Nazis in reprisal against the French Resistance in June 1944. The Nazis massacred 642 people - 500 of them women and children whom they had herded into a church. There was a very harrowing exhibition and explanation of all that went on, including Nazi film footage of some of the actual events. Then we went over to the remains of the village which has been preserved in its ruined state, as the Nazis left it after burning, pillaging and bombing some of the buildings. It was sobering to say the least. Looking through the shattered window frame of a house and seeing a cooking pot, or the twisted burned 'corpse' of a bicycle, sewing machine or pram was too poignant for words.
It was pretty heavy-duty, but both of us were really glad we went. Gave such an insight into some of the brutality which ordinary French people experienced, even inside what was supposed to be 'free' France (it was just on the border of the occupied territory) and we both learned a lot about the role of the French Resistance. There was a darkened, semi-circular room at the end of the exhibition area. Its walls were entirely made of mirrors with seats all round the edge and peace quotes lit up on the floor. It was called the reflection room - aptly, because all you could really do after learning about those events was to ponder and reflect. Deep stuff.
Back to the Seaside
After a couple of fun and sociable days with Kath and Gordon, we continued South West. This time it was down to the coast where we'd planned to meet with 'Les Jeunes' - Sean, Daisy, Gypsy and the rather less 'jeune' Rusty Campervan - at Fouras, after Sean had finished the floor-laying with which he'd been engaged at Pouzauges.
Fouras, as you may know from your own travels or the relevant maps, is a small coastal town some way South of everybody's favourite La Rochelle, and just north of Rochefort. Sleepy, yes. Jolly nice, yes, that too. A short walk from our Camping into the town proper. Nice fish market (this is of course Big Shellfish, especially oyster, Country with the oyster catching pontoons a feature of the coast), an indoor vegetable market and a little main street with all you could want really, but no excesses. The 17th century Fort Vauban is on part of the front, and there's kilometres and kilometres of flat walking on the finger-like peninsula which sticks out into the sea from the town centre to one of the three port areas.
We'd hoped to take the ferry out to the nearby Île de Aix, where Napoleon spent his last days in Europe, but as the weather was decidedly changeable while we were there, we didn't make it this time. Dave's keen on all that Napoleonic-era history and would have liked to have 'done' some of the related sights, but instead had to content himself with guide book and local pamphlet accounts, and put down a marker for a return visit.
We spent our few days at Fouras humming our own adaptation of that old Alan Sherman song about the kids' summer camp: 'Wait a minute, it's stopped raining, campers are swimming, campers are sailing ...' ! The weather was extraordinarily varied - really hot sunshine for an hour or two, then Big Winds, dramatic skies and - whoosh! Torrential rain for the next half hour (or 'trenchalls' as we were texting Steve and Sheila in Normandy, who were experiencing their own extended trenchalls!).
Fishy Goings On
Jeni has really started to get back into her socialising and language practice in the washing up room since this return to the Campings. She'd been feeling pleased about how well her French was holding up - well, actually improving, thanks to listening to local radio stations, poring over the dictionary and avidly studying food packaging, which she commends to all as an excellent way of extending the vocab! (Cereal packets a speciality!) It may also have something to do with Dave thrusting her forward in all public situations, saying 'Go on! You can ask / tell them / get the information ' etc. etc. All very character-building, he reckons, not to mention language-education-enhancing. That's his excuse!
One day Jeni dashed between trenchalls to the washing up room on the Camping, to find a row of six French men at the clothes washing sinks. 'Gosh! Must call Dave - a gathering of laundry fetishists!', she thought, until she realised they were all not-so-furtively cleaning their oysters! (In public too!)
Jeni's face must have been a picture, as one of them said (in French, naturellement), 'Don't be afraid!'. He must have seen her do a double-take! She managed to chat with them quite a bit whilst doing the washing up, and of course didn't neglect to wish them 'Bon Appetit!' when they left. She saw a couple of them on the Camping later and asked if they'd enjoyed their oysters and exchanged further pleasantries with them (though naturally didn't understand everything that came back by way of reply - that's the trouble with these semi-rehearsed comments, isn't it, when people respond verbosely, usually with pronounced regional accent?!)
Crossing the phantom bridge
We had an enjoyable few days in Fouras, despite the unpredictable weather. It's such lovely coastline in that part of France. Being right by the sea, and a beautiful coastal path, was a real treat. We caught up with some van chores, a bit of work for Jeni and loads of reading for Dave. Then Sean and Daisy arrived and we were off again.
Dare we mention that we got stuck in the glutinous mud on our pitch when we tried to leave? Not that it had anything to do with Dave trying to do one of his clever manouevres rather than back straight out onto the roadway - oh no!!! He maintains he couldn't reverse because of a tree and someone else's van too near. Oh yes? Never mind, borrowing a spade from Monsieur Le Camping and sacrificing our B&Q doormat for front wheel grip soon had us out - with only the loss of 2mm of tyre rubber. Funny, this seems to happen to us all too often in La Belle France!
Then it was Jeni's turn to make a bit of a boo-boo as she'd been route-planner-in-chief and decided to take us the scenic route down Côte d'Argent. Little realising we'd have to take a ferry from Royan across the Gironde estuary to the point of the next land bit of land. Bridge, Jeni?? No, we don't think so - half an hour's ferry ride would be an awfully big bridge! Oops! She's already having a hard job living that one down.
We debated the merits and demerits of making the detour back onto the main road (which would mean having to do the Bordeaux ring road and missing a scenic drive), but the collective decided we'd wait for the next ferry. This was fine, if a little pricey, and it gave us a couple of hours to have lunch, a play on the beach and a wander round. It also made Sean, Daisy and Dave feel at home as it was a bit like the Isle of Wight big-ferry from Southampton! We only had a minor Incident at the end of the journey, nearly holding up the whole boat-load of cars, camping cars and lorries up because we didn't realise we'd arrived at the other side. Jeni was in the loo (typical) and our Lorry was blocking everyone else's vehicle exit! Whoops!
It was worth it all, as it was a beautiful drive down through the pine forests, lakes and close to the dune-ful coast. As we'd lost a couple of hours waiting for the boat, we didn't have time to do the slight detour to experience the Dune du Pyla - at over 100 metres, it's Europe's highest sand dune.
Our route took us past an inordinate number of naturist Campings, but we felt that the world wasn't ready for Fruitbats au Naturels, so we stopped overnight just near Sanguinet on one of the wonderful lakes (Etang de Cazaux et de Sanguinet in case you're checking your maps!). Gorgeous. We were in a deep pine forest of extraordinary 12-15 metre high trees, with bare trunks and their foliage right at the top.
This interesting horticultural phenomenon had unfortunate consequences, however, as it rained during the night. Poor Dave was kept awake by the drip, drip, dripping of congregated water from the foliage high above. He reckoned the raindrops were gathering into communes then taking a collective leap down onto the van roof right above his head!
It was such a peaceful place. Jeni came eyeball to eyeball with a red squirrel in the morning on her way to the showers - it was beautiful.
Hot French Night
And thus on down towards St. Jean de Luz for our last night's stay in France before crossing over into España. The journey involved a quick sashay through Biarritz - not so easy in the narrow streets with the Lorry, but at least we can say we did it! Lots of leathery, tanned skin, gaudy garments and ostentatious jewellery. And that was just the canines! We arrived mid-afternoon in hot, hot sunshine, at our selected Camping right on the cliff top above a splendid beach, with a short walk down to the sands and a long coast path in front of the site which apparently lead right into St. Jean de Luz town. We could see along the rocky coast way round to Biarritz. Hey! Lovely and warm - 28 degrees - and a hot, hot night. (Passion-wise we're talking, of course, though the weather wasn't bad either and stayed at 24 degrees ... !)
The Truly Intrepid Traveller
During the time we'd been France, we'd been picking up emails from Jeni's brother, Ian, which were beginning to make us feel positive softies. Ian, who normally lives in Los Angeles, was over in Europe and having an eventful trip overland to China from Sofia in Bulgaria. Gosh! Our hearts were in our mouths as we read of his adventures, using all kinds of forms of public transport to get across Turkey, Pakistan, into and around China. Ian's always been a fearless traveller and his passion for studying folk music and dance takes him to the remotest corners of many countries and gets him into all kinds of scrapes. How, we kept wondering, does he find an internet facility in some of these wild, out of the way places? Remarkable! Compelling reading as his emails were, we decided not to attempt to retrace his journey in The Lorry - not just yet at least!
More soon, folks.
Keep well, keep fruity and keep in touch.
Hugs,
Dave et Jeni
xxx
Text Version