France by Campervan. May-June 2007
Click on any image to enter the gallery
May 23rd 2007. Suzy has recently discovered art, impressionism in general and Claude Monet in particular so it came as no real surprise that the first part of our holiday to France and Andorra in the campervan first took us to Giverny on a sort of pilgrimage. Giverny is on the Seine not that far from Paris but it turned out that the area was not big on campsites, eventually we managed to locate Le Fosse Rouge near St Marcel from where it was possible to take the local navette to Giverny or risk ones own transport.
The weather was quite hot and we sort of assumed that this was to be the norm for the next two months. Wrong. The navettes turned out to be infrequent so next day we took the campervan the few miles down the road to Monet's house and gardens. Parking in the main park was not campervan friendly - surprising for France but we found a suitable slot some half a mile down the road. Another misconception that we had was that being early in the season things would be quiet. Not so, the house and gardens were packed with visitors such that it was only possible to shuffle along as long as everyone kept going in the same directions. Many of the visitors were Japanese, perhaps attracted by Monet's collection of Japanese art in the house. The gardens were beautiful with some stunning collections of roses and irises, the lake was rather muddier than I seem to remember from Claude's pictures but the lily pads and the Japanese bridge remained much the same.
After several hours (well it seemed like that) we fought our way out and visited the nearby town of Vernon on the Seine which contained some nice medieval buildings and an excellent church with impressive gargoyles and furies. The windows of the church were all destroyed in the war and have recently been replaced by modern ones. I'm not usually that impressed by modern church windows but these were stunning, every one a different theme and colour scheme. Top, Monet's garden, Middle Vernon church, bottom, one of the windows.
25th May. From St Marcel we headed south down the A71 payage towards Claremont-Ferrand. The weather got greyer and hazier, and in an attempt to avoid the town and find a campsite nearer to the Puys we ended up at Camping Les Domes near Nebouzat. The rough guide recommended a site near Orcival but it was sloping, neglected and full of sheep.
The Puys are extinct volcanoes and are scattered all around the local countryside. The highest one is Puy de Dome at 1464m, and in the best of French traditions sports a toll road to the summit, a radio station and a large car park. The views would have been stunning had it not been for the haze, see left. After having walked around the top we returned to the toll booth and took off on a walk to examine a few more Puys. Strangely, the closer one got to a crater, the less it looked like a volcano, more like a hollow meadow. We took a circular route crossing 2 and circumnavigating another, barely avoiding getting struck by lightening as we crossed open ground on our way back. The weather grew colder, dropping to 2C overnight and pouring with rain all next day. Left spectacular broom.
27th May.
We potter around in cold windy weather with lots of threatening clouds.28th May Pouring with rain again. Enough! We packed up and head off in the driving rain and low cloud. Onwards and southwards. In any other weather the scenery would probably have been spectacular as we wound over passes and deep valleys past Mont Dore and Monts du Cantal. In continuing rain we camped in the municipal site in Murat. Next morning the cloud lifted a little to reveal that the hills around us were white with snow.
30th May. St Flour and up into the Aubrac region in improving weather. This was a strange wide upland dotted with granite tors and boulders. We stayed in the pleasant little municipal site just outside Nasbinals. The village looked like it was having a bit of a make-over but there was an interesting old church.
1st June and the weather is improving though not quite settled. We stayed at the large campsite at Pont de Tarn just outside Florac and made this our base for a few days. Northwest were the rolling hills of the Cevennes, East and southeast the windswept limestone causses and the Tarn and Jonte gorges. There was lots of walking to be had round here and the wild flowers were stunning particularly up on the limestone escarpments of the causses (limestone pavements). There were many varieties of orchid, most unknown or very rare in the UK See appendix for Suzy's list of orchids throughout the holiday.
Top is a Bee Orchid, lots of these, next we are about to get very wet having just trekked 300m up the the edge of the Causse Mejan above Florac. Below, these are some sort of miniature Flax and bottom is me next to one of the many impressive menhirs that dot the Cevennes. We got very wet on this walk only to find on our return to the village where we parked the campervan that there had been no rain at all.
The weather was now becoming hot and we reallised that the fridge was not working properly. Further investigation revealed that the fridge condenser was neatly tucked away where the ventillation could not reach it. Everything was hot and little was condensing. We were reduced to keeping perishable in the freezer compartment which with luck hovered around zero while the fridge maintained a pathetic 15C even overnight.
5th June. Moved on down the D907 to the spectacular Tarn gorge through Ste Enimie and la Malene, down a narrowing road hemmed in by overhanging cliffs that threatened to de-roof the campervan and dizzying drops down to the river 200m below. Eventually we came to le Rozier where we had camped previously at Les Peupliers (1 of 3 sites) by the river Jonte. The Gorge du Tarn may be better known but the Gorge de la Jonte has more spectacular rock formations plus a liberal sprinkling of Vultures, mainly Griffons.
From le Rozier there is a splendid walk past the Rocher de Coplac (essential tick) and along a well defined traverse along the north side of the Gorge de la Jonte. There are several interesting rock formations, long drops and the Belvedere des Vautours where there really were vultures. The track cuts inland and its possible to make a fine circuit (short of long) returning down the left bank of the Tarn.
The village makes an excellent base, and we visited the splendidly sited Ermitage St.Michel which can be visited via a circuit along the Jonte and then back via the Corniche du Causse Noir. There are also spectacular show caves within easy driving distance (aven Armand and the Grotte de Dargilan) both of which are well worth a visit. The Causses provide easy but sometimes tedious walking, not so the Chaos', Karst areas of holes and pinnacles which dot the south edge of the Causse Noir above the Gorge de la Dourbie. Chaos de Montpellier le Vieux was one of them, and although one has to pay to enter it is possible to wander at will or escape onwards as part of a longer walk.
As part of a circular walk we parked at the hamlet of Le Mauber just north of the Chaos then walked round the chaos on the various tracks until we escaped south down to the village of la Roque Sainte Marguerite beside the Dourbie river. From there we took the path past le Moulin de la Caze which climbs and curves around the hillside almost to the village of Montmejean before taking a sharp left and up the ridge to the Rochers de Roques Altes, a spectacular pile of rock pinnacles. From here it was possible to follow good tracks north then west past the gite at la Bresse and back to the starting point. 1:25000 Carte de Randonée 2641 OT is essential.
It was about this point that the water pump in the campervan stopped working. As we were 1000 miles from home I stripped it down in the vain hope of repairing it. On removing the end which holds the brushes, several fragments of plastic fell out revealing that the assembly had fallen apart. Attempts at repair with bits of plastic from a string bobbin and some super glue almost did the trick but it was never reliable. The campsite owner recommended trying Sarl Artiers in Millau and Wow!, not only did they have one but it was the same British manufacturer so that it slotted straight in.
From the top, evening entertainment, Ermitage St.Michel, Griffon vulture, Chaos de Montpellier le Vieux, bridge to nowhere Tarn Gorge.
12th June. From Millau we continued south to visit the Cirque de Navacelles, a spectacular loop in a valley long abandoned by the river Vis. Just as spectacular is the Resurgence de la Vis where almost all of the river emerges from a subterranean passageway which has been dived for several Km. The walk from Navacelles village to the resurgence is about 2.5km along the banks of the crystal clear Vis. Above the resurgence is a ruined corn mill the Moulins de la Foux, unique for its location and the horizontal waterwheels used in the resurgence. Broom, which was very common in the area was quite splendid with huge yellow flowers up to 3cm across. Unable to find the local well signed campsite we camped in the car park at the lovely village of La Vacquerie.
Top is a view of the Cirque from the rim of the Gorge. The Vis now flows straight across ignoring what must once have been an oxbow lake. Bottom is the Scarce Swallowtail butterfly. Scarce maybe in the British isles, not so in the south of France where they were flapping and gliding everywhere.
13th June. Continued south over the upland escarpment and down to the lowlands, dropping in at the tourist trap of St.Guilhem le Desert. Beautiful little village with an ancient square and church but even this early in the season was becoming busy with tourists (like us). We did a half day walk but the weather was beginning to get rather hot. Camped at Campeole - Camping de la Cité.
14th June. Carcassonne and Cathar country. The story of the Cathars is a tragic one and Carcassonne was at the centre of the cruel crusades by the Catholics and Simon de Montfort in the 13th century. The main castle is in La Cité which rises above the lower town, La Basse. At the centre of the castle is Chateau Comtal one time home of Raymond-Roger Trencavel, Viscount of Beziers and Carcassonne. It's a splendid castle and chateau though rather given over to tourism, the inner ramparts being filled with nicknack shops and restaurants.
16th June. Left Carcassonne for St.Paul de Fenouillet south of the Corbieres. This was an excellent base for exploring the Cathar castles to the north and the famous Gorge de Galamus. We walked to the gorge from St.Paul and visited the Ermitage de St.Antoine de Galamus which is built into the wall of the gorge. It's an amazing place, still in use and when there are no services it's possible to visit the chapel set deep in a cave. There's a through passage (tradesman's entrance?) which dumped us up onto the road where we we able to study vehicle trying to pass each other on this ludicrously narrow and twisty road cut into the cliff side 200m vertically above the river. It's a good job we didn't drive up, No Campervans, width 2m height 2.4m. As part of a circuit we took a minor path at the north end of the gorge to Col des Souls. Not the best of paths, 400m of steep and slippery boxwoods .
The castles were stunning. We visited Chateau de Queribus, a fortress perched on an unlikely outcrop of rock atop a ridge, and Peyrepertuse which is worth all the hype that surrounds it. It's a magnificent construction also atop a limestone ridge, apparently impregnable but of course, nothing ever is
We also completed walks south of St.Paul, paths yes but rarely used and hard to follow in places. Lesquerde was an interesting village, many of the old houses were built with iron ore from the local mine and were magnetic.
1st June. Prades is on the N116, the main access route to Andorra except that it wasn't any more, road works a few km from the border had removed the keystone and a huge rockslide had blocked the road. Apparently, diversions were historic. We managed to squeeze on the main campsite for 3 nights which was just about enough.
22nd June. The Petite Train Jaune runs between Villefranche de Conflent and Latour de Carol but we needed to alight at a tiny halt called Thuès Carença so it was important to tell the driver or else he wouldn't stop there. Out objective was the Gorge de Carença and according to our Sunflower guide it was a 7h circuit. First train 9.05, last train back 5.30 we might just make it. However, the first train was cancelled so we all poured onto the 10.05 which rather scotched our plans. Still, it was a fine gorge with lots of wobbly bridges, ladders and walkways, and after about 4 hours of gorge we retraced our steps.
Top, Suzy on the first ledges leading into the gorge, next typical walkways and bridges, last the Little Yellow Train.
The campervan uses LPG for heating, cooking and fridge. The beauty of this system is that it is possible to fill up from certain filling stations in most of Europe (not Spain or Andorra yet) without worrying about incompatible gas cylinders. Assuming LPG anywhere but not checking, LPG stations turned out not to exist in this valley and the meter indicated half full. Nevertheless, when we did come to fill up the tank on our way home over two weeks later it would take less than half a tank to fill it.
It was becoming too hot, the road to Andorra now allowed single file traffic and it was time to move on.
Top, the working monastery of St. Martin de Canigou
Bottom, Cistus