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Published: June 13th 2008
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Driving
A view of the country side on our way to Clermont Ferrand Friday 16th May
Over breakfast Marion explained Owen's deprivations of the night before (in somewhat less heart-rending tone than he employed) to our hostess. She was incredibly embarrassed and sincerely contrite, apologising over and over again. In the end she cut our bill by a third, effectively not charging for the forgotten one.
We decided we didn't want to brave the dog-visited city streets again so headed off for Clermont-Ferrand.
The day was similar to Thursday, overcast with threatening sky. Otherwise the scenery was also similar to yesterday. The main differences were that we made a couple of steep climbs and in the mountainous region there was quite a bit of wild brush; but most of the way was lined by flat fields of crops.
More toll roads. I think we've used at least one every day we've travelled, but we did a long stint on one today and had to cough up almost 17 euros (around $A28) for the privilege.
The method of collecting tolls is particularly annoying and inefficient. A couple of them have been a set price when you enter the road.
But the way most of them work is that the
The Black Cathedral
Clermont-Ferrand's Black Cathedral. Too big to get a complete shot! road widens into around 5 lanes and you have to queue up and edge forward until it is your turn to remove a ticket from the machine and raise the boom (just like car parks in Australia). There's not too much trouble if you exit via a side road as there'll be a little station manned by a couple of people with 2, maybe 3 lanes. However if the toll section ends on the motorway, the motorway spreads from 3 to around 10 lanes. About half the lanes are reserved for people with some sort of automatic transponder (they still have to stop and wait for the gate to lift however, 3 lanes for those wishing to pay by credit cards and two with attendants accepting cash. 90% of the cars queue for the gates taking cash. (We're not game to use the credit card gate because all of our credit cards have been unreliable at some point). So you edge forward for 5 to 10 minutes until you get to the booth. You hand the attendant your card, he feeds it into the reader and he tells you how much the toll is (It is already displayed on a
Rose Window
A beautiful rose window in the Black Cathedral. screen on the side of the booth). You hand him the money (It is rarely a round number of euros but does seem to be rounded to the nearest 10 cents), and then you collect your change, and the attendant raises the boom.
But the fun doesn't end there. The ten lanes spanned by the booths now narrow back to three over a large expanse of unlined asphalt. All the drivers are usually pretty annoyed at having to stop, and at having to hand over cash, and are eager to get back up to speed. This results in a fair amount of jostling, until the traffic returns to an organised, steady flow. I have yet to see an accident caused by this but I have seen a number of near misses.
Our first problem with Clermont-Ferrand was finding the hotel. The map provided by B&B hotels was unclear in the extreme and Navman was also confused sending us to one roundabout and asking us to perform a U turn and then off to a second roundabout for a U-turn, back to the first roundabout... endlessly performing the same loop.
Eventually, by looking at the map on Navman,
Cathedral Aisle
A view down the centre of the Black Cathedral - an odd atmosphere, for a church. Owen worked out a route to our destination avoiding the two roundabouts Navman had taken such a liking to, and we got into the street. Then our second problem arose. While we had a stret number, we couldn't find the hotel. After several drives up and down the street, we stopped the car and Owen went off to investigate.
With the help of a friendly restaurateur, Owen was able to pinpoint the hotel, which didn't seem to be where either Navman or the hotel's own map thought it was!
We were somewhat underwhelmed by the hotel which was on the outskirts of Clermont-Ferrand (34 steps). It wasn't really a hotel, it was a motel. So if you are travelling in France you need to be aware that the B&B hotel brand are really motels and treat the pricing and quality of them at that level.
As the name suggests, Clermont-Ferrand were two cities who spread and became one (somewhat like Albury-Wodonga in Australia) except there is no confusion caused by the cities being in different states or provinces although, in this case, the cities were founded at different times. The older city is Montferrand which was swallowed
Altar
The gleaming altar in Clermont-Ferrand's Cathedral. by the new, and now much larger, city of Clermont, officially becoming one in 1630. (So they have had some time to grow used to each other!) Montferrand contains urban dwellings ranging from the middle ages to the 18th Century and was one of the first protected areas in France.
Any guesses at what we saw first?
A museum?
No. An art gallery?
No. A chateau?
No, a cathedral?
Yes!!!!
The cathedral in Clermont-Ferrand is unique. The city lies in the volcanic region (in past times, no active volcanoes now) and is built out of black volcanic rock, as is much of the older part of the city. As a result the cathedral is of a dark, ebony colour, and the cathedral is known as "The Black Cathedral".
It certainly had a very different feel inside to the normal grey cathedrals; it felt quite oppressive. This cathedral would seem to house an early medieval wrathful God, rather than the later Christian benevolent one.
The tourist bureau was just across the way from the cathedral, so we decided to see what was on offer. There were a couple of walks we were interested in; one was
Clermont-Ferrand
Clermont-Ferrand has several buildings built out of black volcanic rock - some can be seen here. "Guide to the Fountains" (a walk linking the fountains in the city to interesting sights near them) and the second was a tour of the old Montferrand.
Over lunch we tried to decide which to do and had come to no firm decision, and instead began collecting items for a scratch dinner for the night. Some of the instructions got garbled and we ended up outside a games shop we didn't know existed. Marion insisted on Owen and I going inside (I am not making this up!). She bought 2 games for me, I bought 2 board games and a card game and Owen bought 3 games.
We had no sooner exited the shop than the skies opened. Thick, large-dropped soaking rain. So much for fountains or the old city for today!
Instead we posted the games, purchased the remaining items required for dinner and were ready to head home, or so we thought.
Marion had parked the car in another of the frightening European underground car parks. We went to the machine to pay for parking, but it refused to read the card that had been issued at the boom gates when we entered.
Slap-Dash Dinner
This is our make-up dinner, including the rather cheap wine. We pressed the red button for help and were put into voice contact with a Frenchman with zero English. With our limited French we were having trouble conveying our situation to him, let alone solving it. We were getting in quite a state and the air was turning blue when a kindly Frenchman who could speak English offered his help. The situation was quickly sorted out and we were able to go down to the controller's office, pay there and received a card that would allow us to exit the car park.
On the way back to the motel we decided that we'd like to have a glass of red with our slap together meal. In Australia you'd simply head for the nearest drive in bottle-shop. These do not exist in France. Instead you drive to the nearest service station (who sell wine)! The station we chose had a somewhat limited range aimed a particular area of the market. We had been paying 20 -30 Euros ($A35 - $A50) for a bottle of red wine (of varying quality). This service station's range started at 2 Euros, so we bought it's top of the range bottle at a whopping price of 7.50 Euros ($A12.50).
The slap-together meal was great but the taste of the wine reflected its price.
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