After dallying in the
Dordogne for longer than we had planned but for less time than we could easily
have stayed, we decided we really must make an effort to answer that siren call
of the south. We were heading to Les Calanques, east of Marseille and (so we
thought) a campsite in the national park there (more of that in a subsequent
entry!).
Having lounged about for
more than a bit at Camping La Plage, we clearly felt the need for a bit of
culture/history and so we found ourselves heading for the famous cave paintings
of Grotte de Peche-Merle in the hills above Cabrerets. These caves are unusual
in that they allow visitors to see the actual paintings (via strict limits on
daily numbers and only 25 people per visit) rather than replicas, as well as
having an amazing range of stalactites and stalagmites, including ones shaped
like discs and some tiny ones like pearls.
Tours are only allowed with
an official guide and there is a strict regime of no photographs at all. The
tour was entirely in French (as were the rest of the group’s participants) but
we were given an English translation that enabled us to make sense of the
sometimes less-than-obvious art works we were being shown. Some of the drawings
though were clear even to our inexpert eyes, and it was quite breathtaking to
consider the ancient peoples that had created the drawings/paintings.
Discovered by three schoolchildren
in the 1920s, the caves are perhaps best known for the preserved footprint of
an adolescent from some 20,000 years ago – and the tour takes you right past
the route s/he would have been taking – spine chilling! And here are some images,
courtesy of the interweb…
Leaving the caves mid
afternoon we continued on our route in the direction of Marseilles, not sure of
how far we would get but secure in the knowledge that the route was dotted with
plenty of Aires. Mr B quite fancied stopping at Villefranche-de-Rouergue, a
‘bastide’ town in the Aveyron valley, having read about this style of defensive
architecture and construction in one of his summer reads (Citadel by Kate
Mosse). The town also boasted a free Aire a short walk from the historic centre.
The town was built as a
defensive structure in 1252 as part of the royal ‘pacification’ of the south following
the Cathar persecution. Although it apparently showcases one of the best
bastide squares in the region, we felt the town had seen better days and it had,
for us, a sad air of neglect and decay. It did have some fascinating
contemporary sculpture though, making great use of up-cycled materials,
combined with a great sense of humour...
Unfortunately, the Aire left
a lot to be desired, downtown alongside the railway in a big dusty car park,
just the sort of place where the local kids might hang out at night and do
wheelies on their mopeds. We weren’t the only camper to pull in and then
depart! As we always follow our initial gut instinct on whether to stay
somewhere or not, we decided after our brief look around the town, to head off
in search of a new stop for the night.
It’s an odd feeling as we
take off on a ‘plan B’ option, never sure whether we are going to find a space
in our next second choice Aire, or whether we will have to drive on even further.
And even though we know we can just pull over in pretty much any French village
in rural France and not be disturbed for the night, it’s a bit hard not to view
every other campervan on the road in front of us as heading to our chosen spot
– and tonight, we’d set ourselves a special challenge, as the Aire only had
three spaces!
Luckily Mr B kept a lid on
his pitch paranoia and avoided overtaking every single camper en route where
possible, and, with fate clearly on our side, we pulled into the one remaining
space at the municipal Aire in Rieupeyroux, still in the Aveyron department.
We’d read on our Camper-contact App that this free Aire had electricity and
sure enough it did, with each of the three bays boasting hook-up and a fresh
water tap, with proper facilities for waste disposal a short walk away. Snuggling
in between the much larger campervans either side of us, we spent a very
peaceful night and slept on until the odd sound of an electronic jingle woke us
from our slumbers the next morning – and then every hour or so. It turned out
that the local middle school just across the road had ditched marking lesson
changes with a bell over the tannoy, and replaced it with a catchy bit of
electronica instead!
It’s places like this that really
bring home the very different attitude to ‘camping caristes’ in France compared
to the UK. And to add further grist to this particular mill, when we popped
into the local tourist office to see if it was possible to pass on our thanks
to the officials at the Mairie responsible for this generous approach, we were
given a handbook of a network of similar Aires in the Aveyron department, all
designed to encourage tourism by campervan! If only…
We set off the next day
knowing that we would be revisiting an old friend of ours on trips from years gone
by – the free A75 and its amazing (not free but such good value at €12.40 for a
class 2 off-peak crossing) Millau bridge. And undeterred by the ‘vent fort’
signs on the approach to the bridge, we gritted our teeth and gripped whatever
was to hand as were buffeted across what we think is still the tallest bridge
in the world!
And it was not long after
negotiating the bridge that we had an on-board party and we raised a toast (OK,
swig of water) to Eva the Iveco campervan’s 100,000th mile – 52,000
of them with us as a campervan!
As the miles rolled by we
knew we’d run out of free motorway just east of Montpellier, and our experience
of the lateral coastal roads in this part of France has taught us to make no
assumptions about journey time at this time of the year. And as we’d only ever
seen the Camargue in the wet, we decided to head for a site just inside the
national park near St Gilles, with perhaps some time for a bit of exploration
before settling in for the night. Unfortunately, the traffic was true to form
and by the time we hauled ourselves onto our odd emplacement at camping Crin
Blanc (complete with strange wooden gazebo) we had run out of time to do much
else other than wonder why anyone had thought these structures a good idea for
putting campervans next to! Luckily, it had become too windy for us to get the
awning out…
With the wind still blowing
strong enough to flay the shell off a tortoise (as an old Rough Guide once
described the Mistral) and continuing our newly acquired love of trying to
drive in a straight line whilst enjoying the buffeting wind, we set off
eastwards, knowing that those Calanques were not too far away…
S&J
Great to read adventures... and now fora bit of very hot weather...there are european warnings everywhere! Keep cool!
ReplyDeleteGood to see you back online. France looks like its really heating up this weekend - Hope you're managing to find a place to keep cool!
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