Across the south west of France from Alés to Salies-de-Béarn

After just a short hop down to Nimes to get on the motorway, and a trip to a hypermarket to stock up on food and wine, we set off past loads of places on the Med coast that used to be regular stop-overs on our meandering trips to and from Spain. It was very odd just driving past – but good to be putting the miles away on the motorway so we could have more time on the Cote Sauvage – a part of France we used to visit with the kids in the 90s.

As we are not big lovers of motorway driving, we took the A9 to Narbonne and then the A61 to just west of Carcassonne where we then got off at Bram to use the excellent N and D roads, heading across the Ariégoise natural park.  The toll was €26.90 for approximately 122 miles – a lot more expensive than Italian autostradas! We’d been past this part of France before, but never driven across the park area on this route. It proved to be a real treat to drive through, with plenty of free camping opportunities and plenty of Aires should we need them.

We eventually stopped in Castelnau-Durban at a shady riverside Aire (free). This was a classic French Aire, with picnic benches, a full service area for water and waste, and even a toilet and regional produce store.  And of course, the morning’s necessities catered for with a boulangerie just across the road!

As we’d opted to stop early (compared to some recent drives!) we had a wander up the river and around the village, thinking we might try the restaurant that had been advertised as we entered the village, for a treat. Of course, this being France, it was only open on Saturday nights for dinner, doing most of its trade at lunchtimes!

The village was surprisingly interesting, with a renovated public weighbridge for crops and animals (last used in the 80s) and a memorial to Spanish fighters who had crossed the Pyrenees after their Civil War to fight against Nazism with the French Maquis.

After dinner under the trees and next to our very own babbling brook, we turned in, looking forward to a relaxing and cool night. And those church bells were bound to stop at midnight…weren’t they…?

…except they didn’t, and to add insult to injury, they not only repeated the time after the first bell ringing, but chimed on the half hour as well! Luckily, we’d had a nice bottle of Italian red we’d brought over, so we didn’t really appreciate the bells until we were woken by rain in the early hours and the need to get up and drop the skylights – a sound we’d not heard for ages!

The rain had stopped by morning so after a quick look round the regional produce store we were off, just as a large convoy of ‘gens de voyage’ descended on the Aire – en route to what looked like a major gathering of travellers a bit further on our route out to St Girons and west to Tarbes and Pau.

As we’d made good time on the motorway the day before, we took the N and D roads over to Salies. The route over was like so much of our driving in France – picturesque with lots of stop-offs for another day. By 16:00 we’d arrived at Salies and Chris and Sue’s new home – wow!

S.

A note on food in Italy

Before we leave Italy too far behind, some reflections on food there . . .

Buying local ingredients and cooking with them is one of the pleasures of any trip for me, and Italy was a country I'd been looking forward to, a lot, and it certainly didn't disappoint.  I've made some mention of new foodie discoveries in my blog entries (as well as a bit of surreptitious editing on Mr B's entries!) and here are some more thoughts for those interested :)

Shopping and eating in Italy seems firmly defined by its regions.  Each one has its own distinctive dishes, produce, fresh fruit and vegetables but unlike other countries, some of those won't be available in the next region, which threw our menu planning once or twice! In Liguria, pesto and fresh pasta were everywhere, along with pasta sauces, such as liver or artichoke.  There too, were mountains of amazing and unfamiliar greens, such as agretti (similar in appearance to a feathery samphire, tastes a bit like spinach) and a bitter leafy green, cicoria, which looks like dark green dandelion leaves and was delicious lightly boiled. I tried steaming the first batch but the taste was too bitter.  I guessed these two were early season veg as we only saw them a couple of times but was proved wrong on the latter, as much further south, in Puglia in July, cicoria surfaced again in a campsite shop and we discovered it's a speciality of the region, served with fava beans!

Back in Liguria in May, the staples were masses of chard and spinach, sold in big bunches fastened by raffia or elastic. In Tuscany, things changed again and we found the most difficult thing was buying good bread, but the porchetta was delicious, as were the fennel flavoured sausages, and the range of pulses and grains was vast, including one called farro dicocco, a type of spelt I think, delicious lightly boiled and served as a salad with tomatoes.  In Lazio, a favourite vegetable was a variety of courgette (a Roma?) with a pale green ridged surface and firm flavoursome flesh - we've not seen it since!  And we discovered the suppli, a round tomatoey cousin of Sicily's rice based snack, arancini. Driving into Campania we  hit the start of the tomato season in earnest, with delicious cherry tomatoes in the shape of tiny lemons plus crates and crates of fennel, which we saw being harvested from plots of land dotted around between the houses in the urban sprawl of Pompeii. Here too is the home of buffalo mozzarella, which is delicious and fresh tasting, unlike the long life versions we get back at home. There we also saw the huge thick skinned lemons famous in the region, and the unavoidable Limoncello liqueur!

As we drove on to Calabria and Basilicata, the weather began to heat up and roadside stalls were piled high with cherries and melons plus strings of elongated red onions and garlic alongside the tomatoes.  Here too we saw more citrus than anywhere else apart from the north. The aubergines here are quite different, either long and slim, or almost spherical, with violet skins and creamy white flesh with a firm texture.

The only thing we missed on our travels down the west coast was fresh fish, up until right down south at our last campsite, where we ate locally caught fish in the campsite restaurant.  Later, on Sicily, it seemed more readily available. Reading up on this later, it's because, as with fruit and vegetables, the Italians import very little fish.  On Sicily, we enjoyed locally caught bream, sold from a van on the campsite, which was delicious and the fish man visited several times a week too.  The food on the island is pretty amazing generally, all so fresh and the most fabulous fruit; when we were there in June there were cherries, peaches, huge apricots, early figs from Messina and melons. The island has some very fertile volcanic soil and intensive polytunnel farming, so I imagine it produces much of what it needs and food miles are low.  Palermo was a revelation, not only the produce available but the sheer freshness of everything, and the cost, so cheap!  We were there for the day so bought very little, but were inspired to try unfamiliar ingredients we'd seen, including salted ricotta whilst still on the island.  Even the nibbles were new, including lupines, a brined broad bean which I found highly addictive.

The majority of produce we've seen is Italian and here you buy with the seasons, which is the best way to shop.  There was probably no better province to leave from than Puglia, which produces some 75% of Italy's fresh produce and a great deal of olive oil. Here again the produce was fantastic, so loaded up with fruit, tomatoes and weird and wonderful cucumber varieties, we headed north to the border.

J.

Puglia to Provence – 7 regions, 531 miles, 14+ hours driving and 62 Euros in tolls in one leg!

Sunday 5^th of July and we’ve decided to make the transit back to France in as big a hop as possible, as we want to get over to the French Atlantic coast for a trip down memory lane - and to meet up with Chris and Sue who have just moved from Brighton, to Salies-de-Béarn in the Pyrenées-Atlantiques region.

After a quick swap of blog addresses with Chris and Wendy who we met at Lido Salpi en route for Greece, we headed off to Foggia and the Italian motorway network up the east coast of the mainland. This was our first go at using the Autostrada for a long distance trip and we had no idea of their standard, or cost, over such a big distance. The motorways we had used so far on the west coast had been variable in standard – and south of Naples and on Sicily, mostly free of charge.

So, just after 10:00 we set off – into a Sunday morning traffic jam as peeps headed to and from the coast. The Italians seem to be very organised at getting to the beach early and we had seen a steady stream heading to the beach past the campsite from about 08:00!

Once on the motorway though, we made good progress, stopping near Pescara for lunch and a view over the beaches. The motorway hugs the coast for much of this coast and is very picturesque, making driving very enjoyable.

We had largely clear roads until we skirted round Bologna, where we slowed to a crawl for about an hour. Once the other side, we made good progress again and stopped for a bite to eat near Piacenza, using the auxiliary fan for the first time to help keep Mrs B cool as she created yet another culinary treat to keep us going! The temperatures throughout the day had been mid to high 30s outside and low 40s in the cab - and they didn’t drop much as it got dark!

We left the motorway at Asti and were pleasantly surprised at the €61.90 cost. This seemed like very good value to us, given the very slow progress we would have made on the ordinary roads - and the quality of the road surface was every bit as good as France for the whole journey. Indeed, the Italian toll model of only charging at the point of exit (rather than intermediate toll booths as in France and Spain), made the journey faster and smoother.

It seems that the general neglect of the Italian south and west is evident in its motorway network, which although largely free and showing signs of major renovation in parts, is more akin to Spain and Portugal 20 years ago. It didn’t bother us unduly, as the van has a heavy duty truck chassis and suspension seats – but it clearly challenges some vehicles!

As it was still too hot to even think about sleeping, we pressed on into the night and eventually stopped to have a kip at Fossano, north of Cuneo, next to another campervan in a small carpark. It was still in the high twenties at 00:30 so we used the skylight fan – also for the first time this trip – the gentle breeze was just what we needed to help us off to sleep.

By 05:00 the noise of HGVs on the move woke me up and we decided that I’d put in a shift to get us over the French border and stop for breakfast whilst Mrs B had a lie in. By seven o’clock we were still in Italy heading up over the Alps, so we stopped for a quick cup of tea and breakfast and then headed off again into the mountains. As we neared the French border at Colle della Madalena, we pulled over to have a much needed coffee boost, overlooking a very picturesque valley and hills.

Not long after that we were across the French border and heading to Gap, where we treated ourselves to a French food shop and refuel at the much lower diesel prices (average in Italy about €1.50 and France about €1.20). There doesn’t seem to be a network of cheap supermarket fuel stations in Italy, unlike France and the UK – but it was still cheaper in Italy than the UK, so no moaning!

The scenery as we crossed the Alps was spectacular, with glassy reflections of mountains in lakes and even a beaver crossing the road at one point!

As we started to drive through small towns and villages, the general tidiness and absence of litter along the roadside and in lay-bys was a testament to the very different civic cultures in Italy and France.

The journey down the French side of the Alps was as hot as the trip on the Italian side and by mid afternoon we were so hot and sticky we pulled over by the river Aygues en route to Nyon and went for a dip in the cooling water.

Although not deep enough to swim in where we stopped, the effect was thoroughly therapeutic and we set off again feeling refreshed and ready for exploring the options for our stop over in France.

As France is just so much better provisioned than Italy for Aires-de-Camping Cars and good value municipal campsites (and we were out of our ACSI discount season) we opted to just drive and see what turned up – knowing we could easily free camp if we found nothing – but hoping to find a site all the same! By six o’clock we had spotted a sign for Camping les Dolmens near Méjannes-le-Clap, east of Alés, and managed to get a pitch for the night.

The shady pitch (with hedges and attendant privacy – a rare sight in Italy!), a swimming pool and hot showers, were just what we needed, and although we could have done without the cheesy (and at times, unintentionally hilarious) piano bar chanteur who serenaded the campsite until midnight, we had a lovely cool night and set off towards Salies next morning, looking forward to catching up with Chris and Sue in their new French home, after another overnight stop somewhere en route. We plan to use the Autoroutes from Nimes to somewhere near Pau (depending on journey times) – so it will be interesting to compare costs with Italy!

S.

Yours trulli

Alberobello was a must see en route back and I for one was super excited!  Before leaving the UK we'd watched a few episodes of Italy Unpacked with Giorgo Locatelli and Andrew Graham-Dixon and this picturesque little town had been on their itinerary.  A trullo, plural trulli, is an ancient circular stone dwelling with a conical roof, sometimes adorned with symbols of mystical or religious significance, peculiar to this part of Puglia.  We'd read different stories about their origins, although it seems that they've been around for many hundreds of years, primarily as farm dwellings to begin with, and were easy to build and adapt into groupings when the need arose for more space.  They certainly have a startling effect on the landscape when seen en masse, and Alberobello has the highest concentration of them.  Many are still inhabited, or used as businesses, although few of the existing ones are any more than a few hundred years old and some recently built or renovated.

As we drove into the area, we began to see the occasional trullo by the side of the road, some as individual buildings and some incorporated into bigger houses.  This area is lovely, with many other villages to return to.  We drove through Martina Franca, then passed by Locorotondo,  a confection of a tiered white village which looked beautiful, and we had also heard of Ostuni nearby as a place to wander.

For us though, time was marching on and after the somewhat stressful day of brake replacement we were looking forward to a bed for the night! Again, we were lucky and found a lovely little campsite, Bosco Selva, a walkable 1km up the road from Alberobello.  The camperstop in the village proved to be a tad pricey at €18 to park in a tiny unshaded carpark for 24 hours with the only facility being a refill/drain for water and waste wheras for just €20 we had a lovely shaded pitch in the woods, a modern sanitary block with hot showers, free wifi and a free map of the village.  We'd definitely recommend this site if you're visiting the area.

Walking around the trulli next day was magical, and although the village is obviously a tourist attraction it's very low key, and none of the invitations to look inside a shop feel pressured in any way.  In fact I'd say go in and take a look, as some have terraces with wonderful views across the town and the owners will tell you about the history of their individual trullo.  We were extra fortunate in that it was market day too and for lunch we sat outside with our takeaway stuffed foccacias, followed by the inevitable gelato, and watched the world go by.

Our final stop in Italy was to be a beach treat, and we'd chosen a stretch of coast near the Gargano peninsula.  This area looks very picturesque but with an imminent departure we'd decided to stay on the straight stretch near Manfredonia.  We made more food discoveries en route, including a ricotta in jars called ' Ricotta Forte' - my mouth took a while a recover from that one - this is ricotta allowed to spoil, under controlled conditions, and then sold as a delicacy.  It certainly packed a punch!! Less challenging were the pale green round cucumbers, barattieri I think they were called, around the size of a small melon and pale green in colour - picture below - any more info on these appreciated as the little I've found online; a couple of pictures and recipes/information, is all in Italian. And of course, more figs, some of the best we'd ever tasted, which we bought at the campsite shop. 

The site we chose, Camping Lido Salpi ticked all the boxes, small, good facilities, the promise of a peaceful night's sleep as it was well away from the road and any houses, and an ACSI bargain at €12 a night.  The beach was pretty decent too, with a well run concession, clean and not too busy but again a good illustration of clean in front of the site and a mess just beyond. . . . . .

This campsite also has parking for the lido/concession and gets pretty busy with the locals at the weekends, which may be why the dinner dance on the Saturday night went on until past 1am . . . Warning bells rang when a coachload of revellers turned up at 10:30pm!!  Ah well, Friday night was quiet.

Next morning we headed off, suitably sunned but a little bleary eyed, ready for the long trek north into France.

J.

Across Calabria and on to Puglia – and a trip to the garage…

As this part of the trip is very much the homeward leg, we plan to do longer distances than we’ve been used to on our slow meander down to Sicily. We’re keen to visit Alberobello in Puglia to see the ‘Trulli’ that we had been intrigued by when watching a programme about Italian culture and cooking. So we looked to break the journey in the ‘sole’ of the Italian ‘boot’ at a place called Sibari.

It’s a trip of about 200 miles and just as we were making good progress on the motorway, the brake system warning light came on… and after checking that the fluid levels were all good, and with plenty of bite left on the foot brake, we guessed it was probably the warning light that the disc pads needed changing. A quick call to our local garage in Brighton confirmed that it was likely the pads, and although there would still be a bit of mileage left, best to get them checked out sooner rather than later.

Once we arrived at Camping-Village Pineta di Sibari we did some research for the nearest Iveco garage that was on our route back – and settled on one in a town called Fasano in Puglia near the coast. As it would likely be about a two and a half hour drive, and there’s no telling how long the lunch break might be, we decided to make a ‘proper’ early start the next day.

Camping Sibari was a really interesting stop-over. It’s a classic example of the enormous ‘camping villages’ that the Italians love, with lots of long term/ permanent set ups – some of them very elaborate indeed!

The beach itself was also a revelation, as although the campsite had its own neatly arrayed brollies in the style we have come to love…

the locals also made great efforts to stake their individual claims and the rest of the beach was taken up with rows (not so tidy) of neatly furled brollies all ready for the next day.

Had we not needed to press on to the garage, we could have stayed for a day and enjoyed the clean beach and well-provisioned campsite. This is the first one we have come across with its own butcher and barber! And after nattering to the women in the shop about local wines in my alarming Italian, one of them popped out the back and came back with a ‘special’ local bottle for 2 Euros – and it was rather lush! Mrs B was also pleased to see the return of cicoria, a type of bitter greens of which we’d grown rather fond en route down in Lazio, so a large bunch of those were popped in the basket too, along with some juicy yellow plums for dessert.

After a peaceful night under the plentiful pine trees, we set of for the garage at 0930 – a very early start for us!

Following a couple of attempts to find the garage via Google maps, we gave up and followed our instincts instead – thanks Google – that’s the second out of two times that the real location of a garage is nowhere near your positioning!

We managed to get a quick visual check by one of the friendly mechanics who told us to come back at 3.00 and they’d have us sorted that afternoon – genius! So after a shop at our now favourite Italian supermarket, Conad, we arrived back at 3.00. Once the wheels were off I was called over to look at the problem – one of the discs had rusted away on the rim and was badly scored – as well as not being entirely circular any more - and the pads needing replacement as well. So, changing the brake pads turned into replacing the discs as well. Fortunately, the garage had a pair in stock - this is one of the reasons why we opt for Iveco main dealers – not cheap but pretty reliable for parts availability.

The job took the two mechanics an hour in the very well equipped garage, one on each wheel, and after they’d checked the rear wheels and handbrake (OK – phew!) we were on our way. So a big thanks to Garage Losavio and the two Leonardos who did the work!

Heaving a big sigh of relief that we were back on the road, we decided to look for a campsite close to the Trulli we had planned to see. We’d heard from other camper-vanners that there was a good ACSI inspected site that also did a discount just outside the town of Alberobello, so we set off into the evening, driving, as instructed by the Leos, ‘molto piano’ for the first few hours of driving. The brakes were so much better – and the warning light was extinguished - hurrah!

S.

Ciao Sicilia!

Following our salt-water swimming pool relax-a-thon in Finale, we decided to find a beach-side campsite for the final stop-over before catching the boat back to the mainland – or going to Italia as the Sicilianos say!

As we were paying at the campsite I had my credit card refused – probably just a dirty magnetic band or chip I thought… then it was refused at the supermarket in Finale where it had worked the day before… A quick call to the bank confirmed that it had been blocked, as there were a number of attempted purchases from Sears and Roebuck in the States… No idea what links there might be between Sicily and organised crime in the USA…

So, fingers crossed the cards we are left with are not compromised!

We’d heard good things about Camping Marinello in Oliveri from other travellers and decided to give it a go. As it happened, it was just along the coast from a spectacular cliff-top sanctuary at Tyndaris – another church built on an ancient Greek settlement that we thought we might have a go at, via the steep ascent from the campsite before we left.

Marinello  turned out to be a real gem, with a large and clean public access beach with just a couple of private bits away in the distance.

The campsite was busy when we arrived, with a large group of friendly French camping-caristes from their national federation and a smattering of campers from a variety of countries – including my first sighting of a camper on Maltese plates. We managed to get a nice shady spot near the sea in a little row with campers from France, Austria, Switzerland and the Czech Republic – and I added the Czech ‘ahoy!’ to my smattering of international ways to say ‘hello!’

The bay that Oliveri is in is adjacent to a natural park ‘Laghetti di Marinello’ and super pretty. It also attracts a number of floating gin palaces that anchor up over the weekend, making for a very swish vista from our beach-side viewpoint. This was taken just before the other 50 boats turned up…

After much prevarication/ lazing about on the beach, we decided to make the ascent on Tyndaris ‘early’ one morning - that’s just before 11:00 for us… By then, the temperature was in the low 30s – which we’ve been used to for a while – and we’d packed water…

After about 45 minutes of airless, hot and sweaty almost vertical climbing (OK – a bit steep then) we were treated to some incredible views of both the sanctuary and looking back down to the lagoons.

Unfortunately, the remaining 500m looked like they might just be the cause of a medivac as we had run out of water and the temperature was soaring and we were flagging…

So we headed back, looking down on where our camper was parked and with the sound of the sanctuary bells tolling ominously behind us.

Later, over one of those now familiar chats I’ve grown used to with women from other countries over the mysteries of the washing machine, I met a German woman from Marburg who had just come back from doing the 8km ascent to Tyndaris on a mountain bike (by road) – time for me to raise my game on fitness levels I think!

After another perfect afternoon lazing on the beach, we decided to treat ourselves to a ‘last night in Sicily’ meal at the nearby restaurant. Over a chilled carafe of local wine we tucked into swordfish and watched the sky over the hills behind us turn a pastel pink, as we sat looking out over the bay – perfect!

We decided to take the motorway for the last leg to the port at Messina, especially as they had been largely free on the rest of our trip around the island. This leg cost us the princely sum of just over 3 Euros – so our total motorway bill for Sicily came in at about 5 Euro – genius! It looks as if most of the southern part of Italy has free motorways – something we almost missed by not paying enough attention to the map legend!

Getting the boat back was a doddle – we just turned up at the port and literally drove onto a ferry that was about to depart.

So, thanks Sicilia, it’s been an amazing month and there is still so much that we didn’t see – the best way to leave somewhere I think!

S.