Places

Jun

2019

French ‘Durrells’ house via brief stop at Montpellier

Time gallops on as I realise it’s almost a week now since I drove to Courry, a small village on the edge of the Cevennes and Ardeche areas, to spend time at my Mum’s house with 2 of my offspring, their other halves, and a couple of friends. I spent about 45 mins driving round the uni area of Montpellier en route, looking to find a parking spot, from which to do a brief cycle tour of the city centre. I was almost deciding that Montpellier would have to be left for another time, when I found one at last, and enjoyed a bit of exploration, resulting in the conclusion that this city did warrant another more relaxed visit.

The drive from Montpellier up to a ‘town called Ales’ immediately brought home to me as ever, how fortunate we are to be able to stay in such a beautiful region. Mum’s house is not the luxury south of France villa that I always expect people to be thinking; it’s very quirky, hence my comparison with the house on the TV series the Durrells, (highly recommended for the script, which for me got better series by series, the acting, the scenery); its charm has grown on me over the years, particularly when only needing to clear all the dead insects :), dust and debris from the ‘the outside-in’ rooms, and not being responsible for its general upkeep:

On main street thru’ village
Downstairs living room
Downstairs dining room
Downstairs kitchen – note all original tiled floors
Various bedrooms ….
upstairs rooms interconnecting

Only ‘outside space’ – 1st floor terrace overlooking street
Practising being a french property owner! tempting
Outside-In 1st floor living room – Ruin 1
From Ruin 2 looking into Ruin 1
Must be Ruin 3

Not quite sure of it’s age, but it has served many different functions in addition to housing a village family – including a boulangerie and silk farm. In the heat of Summer, it’s really cool on the ground floor.

Here’s the matching car; get good exercise – not as far as legs running along through the floor, but for the arms, manually winding down the windows, and sauna effects in the non-air-conditioned atmosphere; informed a couple of weeks later that two wasp nests had taken residence inside the door; a true Herbie and never needs filling up

These are views from a chapel 3km away at 445m altitude from which on a clear day can be seen Mont Ventoux, the mountains of the Ardeche, and the Cevennes above 1500m:

Courry
Towards Barjac
Into the Cevennes
Across to St Paul Le Jeune

Jun

2019

Naturists R Not Me

Decided to stay on the Med at Marseillan Plage, next to Cap d’Agde for a few days of good weather forecast on the way to staying with extended family in the Cevennes/Ardeche area.

An ‘old friend’ was staying at a more expensive! campsite nearby, so decided to surprise them by walking along the beach to where they would be no doubt immediately taking advantage of the sunshine. I had to abandon the surprise as found myself, due to worsening eyesight having to draw near to single men lying on the beach which had become naturist as my walk progressed, to determine whether their likely ‘parts’ eg hair, or naked physionomy particularly including whitish buttocks, belonged to said person. There were at least 3 such candidates.

The 2nd day’s search to meet up on the beach was also abandoned, given that it was the afternoon, very busy and full of primarily middle-aged to elderly dangly bits everywhere, which I just didn’t want to be scrutinising, to try and find the needle in a haystack, even if from behind sunglasses! 🙂 Can see the benefits of naturism, and the Cap d’Agde Naturist Village is a real centre for practising such in all aspects of life, but unlike the gastronomy which I really feel I ought to develop an interest in actually trying out, baring ones all will never be me 🙂

The beach at Marseillan Plage is great – lovely sea and plenty of non-naturist-inhabited sand for me. Loads of campsites here, very busy in the Summer months, and I’ve got a very nice pitch on a small one for 16eu per night without electricity, but direct beach access.

Jun

2019

Stowaway Released

Whilst the ski boots and clothing did not make the final essential inventory, the body board had been biding all this time, knowing the Atlantic coasts were there, but needing the opportunity of a beachside location and the warmth of the Med to finally fulfill its destiny.

After all my practice with a selfie-stick, to enable me to record my battling with the waves, including even a video proving that the body board did catch the waves with me on it, I resorted to using the tried and tested solution of an old friend holding the camera.

If reading in conjunction with the previous post, those in the know will realise that the only friend of mine who, to my knowledge, enjoys sunbathing in the altogether is ones ex-husband, who is able to combine enjoyment of campervanning, France – at least the warm bits, and surprising the family for Father’s Day.

Jun

2019

Beautiful drive – D11 Pyrenees towards Med & LPG Success

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.

Luxury Canal du Midi cruising

Jun

2019

Bagneres de Luchon – Harrogate’s Twin Town

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.

Jun

2019

New entry at No 1?

For the aire – thanks to the city – its location in the university area within 3/4 mile of the city beaches via well-planned cycle lanes, the peace and quiet at night, the beautiful buildings and layout of its compact centre, the fantastic cycle lanes, the beautiful bay, sand, sea and surrounding green hills, the tapas or pintxos culture, and the conversations/time spent with fellow travellers – yes it’s my, in the end 3 night stay, at SAN SEBASTIAN.

I decided to visit here based on numerous recommendations, and stay at the city aire, despite a weather forecast of solid rain for a day – sacre bleu – the first for me in about 6 weeks. The first night the charge was 3.30, but for the next two it went up to the Summer parking charge of 7.60 per night.

After about a 190-mile drive from the Picos, managed to get the 2nd to last of the 30 or so places, and on this first evening, it poured down from about 6pm, all through the night and the next morning until about 3pm, when as forecast, the sun managed to re-assert itself.

Unfortunately I observed my transformation into a southern europe wuss – no longer able to contemplate going outside in such rain and chill, and even when the sun came out, I had to force myself to put jeans on, and various layers, get the bike off the rack and make an effort for the city, given it’s motorhome provision, the choice I’d made to come here, and the fuel expenditure in doing so.

But fortune favours the brave ….. and obviously not being one of those “les anglais se cachent!” (the view of a French motorhomer – more of that in https://lifeinnewlanes.com/?p=796 ), as a result of this courageous sortie, I found a companion to meet up with in the evening to go and try the pintxos, rather than spending the time (me cachant ? 🙂 ) as usual in my apartment. This companion was a Dutchman who happened to take the same otherwise more or less empty funicular ride to the viewpoint at Mont Igeldo, who, after having the usual sort of conversation as to what are you doing here etc, suggested that we meet up and go to the old town area in the evening together as he’d also spent the previous one holed up in his airbnb due to the rain.

Marcel from Enschede is a consultant for integrated city mobility/transport projects, – see www.empowerproject.eu – and had been attending a workshop in S Sebastian. It was great to have company, and actually ‘go out’ (gasp) for the evening, and find out about his work as I am interested in cycling provision and how integrated transport-wise continental cities seem to be in comparison with ours. But beyond this conversation, in for a penny in for a pound, I decided to try some gastronomy, which I had managed to avoid more or less totally up to that point, despite already having concluded that this was something of a shame, and not helped by my solo travelling. So Octopus, Crab, Bacalao, (ie Cod), Sardine, with only the last not being ‘acceptable’ to my uneducated philistine taste buds 🙂

Because of Marcel’s invitation, I also saw more of the city centre, which I may well have amazingly avoided, and with this and the sun reappearing the next morning, decided to stay for a third night. Really enjoyed cycling all round the different areas – photos speak for themselves – and having longish conversations in French with my neighbours, Yves and Michel from Lyon, who have invited me to contact them for an evening out, if ever I’m passing through their city. So cheers Marcel.

Lots of young people, surfer dude vibe, all nationalities – and made me think about the Summer that one of my youngest son’s best friends would have spent working here last year.

Strongly recommend.