France

Had a lovely drive today, through the countryside between the Pyrenees to Toulouse and heading for Agde and Montpellier. Particularly the D11, which runs from Carcassone towards Beziers, with the Canal du Midi, boating and cycling, running alongside and within the vineyards and hills of the Minervois – lots of beautiful villages, stopping places, along the route.

It was a Monday holiday as part of the French Pentecost long weekend, so the roads in my direction were quiet, and the temperature started to rise to reach 21.5deg in the sunny afternoon although all of France is experiencing unusually low temperatures for this time in June and not going to be much warmer over the next few days until Sunday.

I realised that my search for LPG could actually be fulfilled by the same garage at Carcassone where I was eventually successful the last time I was in this area at the beginning of April. With my memory augmented by mylpg.eu I was able to find the establishment again, and it was open and ‘quiet’; lets do this; french adaptor duly applied, connected the nozzle – pump motor started, pressed the green button, and the gauge showed gas being pumped???!!! Piece of …….. Completely straightforward and I now have a full gas tank once again. Cost 0.9eu per litre which is really cheap compared to buying and swapping bottles.

Notwithstanding my new-found arrogance about LPG-filling (did I really only write the article about the travails of the same yesterday?), I did note a certain ‘carefreeness’ re the drive – Monte’s been running like a dream, ok with satnav and roads, even the possibility of doing a Cock of the Aire and stopping unexpectedly because a particular aire in a village looked attractive, and hey why not …

I veered off into the village of Capestang because it looked attractive and had an aire sign-posted. Discovered that the village had created a municipal campsite, because it didn’t necessarily want motorhomes parked alongside the Canal, so decided to stay here, and possibly do a short bike ride tomorrow before moving on. My immediate neighbours here are a Swedish couple who’ve just retired, sold up in Sweden and are about to complete and get the key for their new home they’ve purchased in a village closer to Beziers. Wanting to live in a warm and sunny place while they are able to make such a move.

From San Sebastian, drove to Bagneres de Luchon in the Pyrenees which my son’s youth brass band visited a few years ago now, – we weren’t part of that trip so it had been on my radar, with my decision to visit confirmed when Sharon and John recommended it.

Stayed a couple of days on a really nice campsite about 1km from the centre, for the price of 9eu per night for me and Monte, no electricity, and took advantage of the Thermal Spa to have a massage and visit, according to the town’s claims, the only naturally-occuring ‘Hammam’ – its Vaporarium – in Europe, discovered by the Romans. I’d describe it as a sauna space – humid and steamy, like a mining tunnel in the hillside.

There’s a small ski-resort here but unfortunately I was there just before the running of the cable cars in the Summer period and as I didn’t want to cycle upto the resort at 1700, nor move the van, decided just to do some bike exploring on the valley roads. Really beautiful, quiet, understated …… Quite alot of hotels/restaurants for sale in the town – in some respects conveys a ‘faded/former glory’ feel as many of the buildings are grand and beautiful, but perhaps the town could do with investment in some of these. The last 3 photos are from a nearby hamlet, with one showing the cable car route up to the ski resort at the top of the hill.

Had one or two conversations with Will, the only other Brit on the campsite who was on his own – see separate post under ‘Meetings.