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Published: July 23rd 2010
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Monday 21st June
We stayed a night in the town of Villefort which sits at around 3000ft in the hills and it was cold enough to require long trousers which we had thought would not be needed till we returned home. Liz drove down the twisting road from the mountains and as the sun was shining the temperature rose by about 10 degrees by the time we returned to near sea level. Some fellow travellers had told us that the town of Sauve was worth a visit, partly due to there being a museum dedicated to the art of using trees to grow three pronged pitchforks. It sounded bizarre enough for a passing visit, the town is an old medieval labyrinth backed by a ruined castle on the hilltop set amongst a stunning natural landscape of huge boulders. By happy accident we found a marked trial which took us through the town and round the hilltop area. We chanced upon a piece of modern sculpture, which oddly enough didn’t look out of place amongst the old ruins. A gentleman arrived from the opposite direction and slowly in French explained that he and two others had created the sculpture, which turned out
to be a sundial. Another couple shortly arrived and the old man, obviously bored with us proceeded to entertain them with his anecdotes. We then descended and checked out a display in the tourist office which showed how the subterranean water course had been charted by scuba divers for many miles. This explained the architectural water features at the base of the town which ran into the river. Also by happy coincidence the pitchfork museum was closed (stupid idea anyway).
Liz was keen to push on and get to the Med. So we motored on to an Aire beside the sea at Le Grand du Roi. At first we thought it was pretty good until the boom boom beach bar music went on to 3am, things got worse when the ticket machine swallowed our ticket and some euros and then shut itself off. Somewhat oddly there was an attendant who had locked himself inside his booth but since we were stuck with no way of getting out I managed to persuade him that the machine was not working and could he please let us out. He grumbled a bit at me, quite a lot of expletives on the faulty
machine and then kindly opened the barrier. Things didn’t improve as we tried unsuccessfully to get into a local supermarket only to be thwarted by a height restriction barrier, Le Grand du Roi will not see us back again. Our plan was still to find a pitch by the beach and hole up for a few days so we made for a place called Sete where we knew there was Motorhome parking along several miles of the beachside, we knew this because we tried and failed to get into a space there back in September of last year on our way down to Spain.
After a problem with a low bridge we made it to Sete beach and guess what, we couldn’t find a single space. Tensions were rising now due to lack of sleep etc. so we looked for a campsite fearing high prices, more music till 3am etc. A really friendly guy on reception showed us several places on a small touring site right next to the beach and we are very happily settled in next to a melange of different nationalities enjoying the sunshine and a general friendly site where there is no noise at all
after around 11pm. One odd thing though is that whilst walking the dog in a marshy reserve next to the campsite and behind the beach we keep encountering completely naked people who frequent the adjacent nudist beach, you might be forgiven for thinking this could be a good thing but sadly time and gravity has taken its toll on most of the people we meet. There were however a number of fit young men who unfortunately were more interested in Alan than me! As the weather has been hot and is forecast to stay that way for the foreseeable future we decided to take an extended stay, watch the football, drink cold beer, and lie on the beach. I argued against this but Liz had her way.
Monday 28th June.
We had some friends from Scotland on holiday near Perpignan and so we went to Narbonne to meet up with them for the day. Mike, Fiona and Rory had lunch with us and we spent a very pleasant and hot afternoon in their company. As our plan was to head to the gorge de Tarn we left the next day and stopped off near the town of
Soubes, next night Le Vigan and then over some very high rugged mountain passes to arrive in Florac before going into the gorge itself. The tourist information in Florac helped us find a municipal camp site right on the banks of the river Tarn by the town of Le Malene. It’s a great spot for waking, cycling etc. and we have taken a two man canoe plus a very excited small brown dog on an 8km paddle through part of the gorge.
The gorge did not disappoint us in its splendour, and dramatic scenery, the weather was very warm, there were plenty of walks, and as you will see from the photographs there were some buttock clenching moments driving back out! Driving out of the Gorge as we headed towards Montignac.
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