We set off for the Cirque de Gavarnie in the Pyrenees region between France and Spain, some 200kms south of our moorings at Buzet intending to be away for 5-6 days visiting sights of interest and friends. Louise had a cold but thought she was shaking it off, so off we went. Lourdes was on our route and we stopped there at about 3 o’clock. We took the funicular railway to the top of the hill beside the town where after a short walk up the last half kilometre we were able to climb a small tower to obtain fabulous views of Lourdes itself and the surrounding hills. There was a slight breeze blowing the low hanging clouds on and off the hilltops and sometimes obscuring our view down. Very atmospheric! A very grubby teenager had accompanied us in the funicular, with his equally mud-caked mountain bike. He had bought a multipack of ascent tickets and this was to be his 6th bicycle descent, mad fool, but what an adrenalin rush. We watched with awe as he careered off down the tiny muddy track.
Later we got to Lourdes itself and as it was out of season, the place was pretty quiet. Presumably at this chilly time of year miracles hardly ever happen (or is that hurricanes?). However, all the rows of healing water spouts and places to burn candles and rows of urinals in the gents were all open for business even if nearly deserted.
A lone preacher was orating to a small semi-interested congregation outside the cave of the miracle of the sighting of the Virgin Mary, by St Bernadette, while a straggle of tourists was guide-led round the cave behind him!
The cathedral was pretty impressive, and the walls were covered in 10” x 15” marble tiles, each inscribed with thanks from somebody who may (or may not) have been cured by a miracle. We looked. We left.
The small hotel we had booked in the village of Argelès Gazost appeared to be unattended when we arrived until after much banging of the desk bell for 10 minutes a surly concierge finally appeared and directed us to our room. Surprisingly after this inauspicious start the attached restaurant gave us quite a good meal.
The next day we set off for the principal object of our tour – about 25kms further south and into the mountains. Louise was not better – in fact worse - but having got so close we agreed at the very least we should look at the Cirque.
We parked in the village of Gavarnie, which appeared to be deserted, and walked into a café which was open (we thought) but no! We were turned away in no uncertain terms but not without our pointing out that their ‘OUVERT’ sign was clearly displayed on the door!
Louise found the one-hour walk to the centre of the Cirque pretty difficult but soldiered on with encouragement from Alex. It was all worth it in the end – a truly amazing sight – a 2000ft high circle of mountains with one way in and out, sheer cliffs rising skywards. But Alex decided that we had best head for home to let poor Louise suffer on in Riccall. Fortunately the new motorway route back had been completed and we were able to leg it at 130kph back to Riccall before nightfall. And a good decision it was as Louise spent the next two days laid up in bed and it was at least a week before she was up to even 80%.
We like to try and give as much purpose as possible to our trips so when Louise had fully recovered we started planning our next foray. Alex had just read a book which was set in Tuscany, close to Florence, and it reminded him of a calendar seen years ago in his mother’s kitchen at Plantreees which depicted one walled (fortified) town in Italy for each month of the year. Although Louise has over the years tried to track such a calendar down she had not had any success. However, Alex still felt interested enough to propose a trip to Tuscany and via the internet produced a list of possible sites.
On the way we would have lunch with Gill and Brian and after the staying the first night in a B & B in the countryside we would drop in to Mazamet to pay some money into our HSBC account to keep our SFR direct debits on track!
Madame at the B & B spoke good English but had to leave almost as soon as we arrived to take her daughter to the doctor and left us with her husband and his good friend – neither of whom spoke any English at all. She also asked as she left if we could help with another Englishman who was arriving shortly and could speak no French. We heard his arrival and went out to try and translate but when the young man heard our attempts at French he realised his own French was as good if not better than ours! But we like to feel that because we didn’t mind making fools of ourselves and were doing the best we could, we encouraged him to do the same himself. So we all sat with the older two Frenchmen talking and drinking an aperitif of home-made wine for a while and the older guys spoke clearly and slowly and if necessary used different terms in explanation, so the conversation went well.
After the young man left we all sat down to supper and wine en-famille and eventually Madame returned. A great evening.
We did the biz in Mazamet with HSBC, spent a night in Nice, then visited a couple of places on the coast recommended by Jane and Guy (who had had a house in Tuscany for a while). Camogli and Portofino were lovely coastal towns and we had lunch of bread and cheese on the sea front at Portofino in the warm sun.
We dropped into Lucca on our way to our next night near Florence and decided we would have to return on our way back to spend more time there. We finally got to our B & B near Florence about 6.30pm.
By the way, I think we should mention that, though the road above the Cote d’Azur and eastwards into Italy is spectacular, as it cuts through the hilly landscape – bridge, tunnel, bridge, tunnel, bridge, tunnel – the road surface and quantity of traffic is appalling. Can you believe this? Worse than England! And the drivers? Well . . . .
Our B & B was an old fortified mansion but unfortunately the usual provision of a basic meal was finished for the season, but the local pizzeria in the village sold us the best pizza we have had for ages.
We set off the following morning on a whistle-stop tour of the fortified towns that Alex had earmarked.
First off was Certaldo (coffee) then San Gimignano (lunch) Monteriggione (tea) and finally Volterra, this last on our way to our overnight in Pisa. We drove to the gates of Volterra, parked in the 15 minutes waiting slot and followed the signs to the Tourist Information Office. We walked in, and said to the girl. “We are just passing through. We have 5 minutes here in Volterra. What should we look at?” I think she thought we were mad (well we were really) so we softened the blow and told her we would be back on a longer trip some other day. She gave us a map, pointed to the cathedral and main square and off we went.
We got to Pisa about 6.30pm (dark, narrow, one-way streets like a rabbit warren). The GPS still said half a kilometre to go for our destination but amazingly Louise spotted the hotel just as we passed it - a beautiful hotel with private parking at the rear for €10. Am American guest in Reception said to Louise as she booked in, “Pay the €10 for the parking. Believe me, it’s worth it.” So we did and he was right! Parking in Pisa? Forget it.
That night we walked the 2kms to the Duomo and Tower to see it leaning in the dark, had supper in a Sicilian bar on the way back to our hotel, got lost, eventually found the hotel at about 11.30pm and fell into bed (a long day).
After an excellent breakfast (included in the €59) we ‘did’ the Tower and the Duomo, had coffee in the square and lunch overlooking the river . . . picked up the car from the hotel and set off for a longer look at Lucca.
On our way through Lucca the first time as we headed for Florence we had at first wondered where the fortified part of the town was, but when we found it, we were amazed just how big it was. We drove in through the gates and into the maze of narrow streets, not sure if we were allowed there or not. Eventually Alex chickened out and headed back to the gate, down what appeared to be pedestrian-only roads.
This time we went to the Tourist Information Office, got the map provided, parked in the free car park half a kilometre away and walked in to do the job properly. As usual this included going up the highest tower – this one with trees on top!
We got to our next hotel in Bagni di Lucca just as dark was falling. Alex had had slight misgivings about this hotel as 30 minutes after making the booking on-line that morning, the manager rang to say the hotel we had booked had no central heating (broken down) so was closed, but he could give us a room in his other hotel 1km away and give us a similar deal at the same price. This call came half-way through breakfast so we just said OK. The room was very tired and obviously not refurbished since the 70s. But so were we so we just accepted it! Then when Alex went on-line again he discovered this hotel could be booked for €20 less than the other for a standard room.
We had a good dinner in the hotel restaurant for €50 and in the morning, bill time, Alex took on the manager. He tried to claim he had upgraded us to an equivalent room complete with balcony (true) overlooking the river (true). Alex pointed out though that with evening temperatures falling to below freezing, the balcony wasn’t much use and that the noise from the weir coming through the ill-fitting door had kept us awake all night!
The manager relented with poor grace and reduced the bill accordingly.
Our next village was Barga. Not so much a walled town as an ancient one, very self-contained with narrow steep alleys leading between houses dotted about on the undulating terrain. A good view of the surrounding hills, also.
On one of these Alex was intrigued by a cluster of buildings clinging to the summit with a tower in their midst.
After two failed attempts up the precipitous tracks in the wooded mountainside we finally found the right one to what turned out to be a small village of about 15 houses called Sommocolonia.
As we investigated the ruins above the village and a plaque in honour of the US army, we realised that the village had been involved in heavy fighting during the war.
There were a couple of old guys roasting chestnuts in the small square by the bell tower and a younger one carrying out some maintenance on the tower. As we strolled past, the old guys offered us hot chestnuts and wine and the maintenance man dashed off, beckoning us to follow as he wanted to open the tiny museum for us.
Here was a potted history of the US operation towards the end of the war to relieve the village and drive the Germans from the opposite ridge. And of course, there were photographs of the US commander and his troops who had returned en mass with about 20 jeeps in 1984 to revisit the village he had helped to save. We left – for us – a generous donation for the upkeep of the museum (or whatever).
Then as we wandered near the bell tower Alex noticed the door open and rickety stairs leading up into the dark. He poked his head round the corner and caught the maintenance man’s eye. “Can we go up?” He was with us in a trice and leading the way up before you could say “Jack Rabbit”, clearing the debris from the steps as he went!
When we got to the top there were three large bells and one smaller one. We looked at our watches. 11.55am!!!!! Perfect! 5 minutes later the big bells chimed the 12 strokes with an electric clapper. Then the smaller one started to chime and swung back and forth at the same time. The whole tower shook while it did this for the next full minute. A great experience – the bells, the bells! So partially deafened, we made our way down and back to the car to continue our journey. We had a lovely lunch in ‘new’ Barga village, then forced our GPS to take us on a spectacular country route to our next port of call, Lerici on the coast, followed by Portovenere.
Our next hotel booking was in Savona. After a bit of coastal hopping we realised we had better get moving, so back onto the motorway and hot-foot it to our next night at the Hotel Miro. This had been booked because it had an on-site restaurant. On no it didn’t! Closed on the night we were there!
We walked the half kilometre to a restaurant recommended. We sat and ordered our meal and shortly, when mine host poured the wine, (€14 a bottle) it was fizzy – red but fizzy. Alex thought he recognised the name but in the UK it’s not fizzy – it’s just good quaffable stuff. However, bless him, the waiter said, “No problem, I will get a bottle of local wine (€16) for you to try.” This was fine! Still, and fine, and he just took the other bottle away. No quibble, amazing! (The meal was OK too.)
The next day was Louise’s day! The Côte d’Azur. So we headed down onto the old coast road (off the motorway to Menton) and then all along the coast – Monte Carlo, Monaco, Nice, Antibes, not quite into Cannes as the road section of a triathlon had closed the coast road, but eventually we got back to the coast, had lunch in a café and coffee on the sea wall, where Alex was treated to a good long look at a topless bather (female)!
We regained the motorway after Fréjus and arrived at our rather tacky night’s accommodation in a Premiere Class in Arles at 4.50pm. They don’t open till 5.00pm so we drove into Arles to have a look at the moorings and re-fuel the car. That evening the restaurant next door opened at 7pm. At 7.15 we were the first in and wondered if it would be OK. By 7.45 the place was buzzing! We had a good meal and house wine – at €5 a half litre, very good value for a restaurant.
The next day we drove to Capestang to look at the recent tree devastation (removal of the famous plane trees because of a fungal disease) and on to La Croisade to have lunch with Peter on AURIGNY and thence back onto the French motorway system for a quick 3 hours back to Riccall.
There is no doubt the French autoroutes are absolutely fantastic – not crowded, good surface, fast travel, worth every franc!
