Friday 5th - Monday 15th
August
Following
on “en Provence”…ho hum, where do we start?….we’ve just celebrated the Provence
Princess’ birthday at Les Deux Garçons, a little 200 year old restaurant in the
main square of Aix where the major pastime is “see and be seen” Now, for those few who don’t know, this is the
restaurant where Hemingway and Cézanne “hung” with their mates…we’re feeling
more talented, if a little poorer as a result of our lunch! Escargots don’t come cheap these days…
Provence
is full of highlights – Grasse is well known as “the perfume capital of the
world”. Perfume museums abound, the
small streets are picturesque and along the streets where the perfumeries are,
they release scented spray dropped on pedestrians from above. Provence abounds with rugged scenic mountains,
such as the Gorges Du Verdon, St Victoire, Les Mées and the Hautes Alpes. Then
there are spa towns like the busy Digne les Bains which was getting ready for its
lavender festival.
In
our travels we’ve met many people who became friends. It was in the campsite laundry at Aix de
Provence that we met the lovely Vetter family who live near Cologne. We enjoyed two home-cooked meals chez
campsite – one Germanic, one Aussie – and made plans for a catch up next
year.
We
left the van and trekked west for two nights in another region,
Languedoc-Rousillon, chez “Clancy”. He’s a highly intellectual being, super
intelligent and ultrasensitive…just like Jimbo….hehe Clancy you’re now worthy
of being in the blog!!! He lives in a
small village called Péret where a couple of churches’ bells clang away by the
hour. It’s near Roman ruins and the
surrounding landscape is a myriad of vineyards – purple grapes this time. Thanks Clancy for
having us to stay…we were there with Cousin
David and family who were down from Paris for the Summer hols, so we all set
off on a day trip to Pézenas, then to an ancient Roman/Gaulois ruin “Oppidium
d’ Ensérune”, which has an amazing pre-, during- and post-Roman history for
such a small place. Fascinating relics
in the museum…but as we’ve said, only the hard bits (bone, metal, pottery,
stone..) remain…but what about the soft bits?
Then
it was on to the town of Béziers - In 1209 this was the site where thousands
were massacred in the crusade against the Cathars - the troops of the Pope were
ordered to not discriminate between the Catholics and the Cathars - "Kill
them all. God will recognise his own".
Religion – so full of hypocrisy……
On a
lighter note, Béziers is where an amazing engineer named Riquet was born. He designed
the Canal du Midi, to connect the Mediterranean with the Atlantic, allowing
commercial traders using barge freight to avoid the perils of the Iberian
coast. There are 9 locks in the space of
2km just next to the town, allowing barges to gain a trajectory that would take
them all the way to the coast! It was a pretty
amazing feat for the 18th Century!
We
had another sojourn in St Rémy, which has been lovely as we start our return journey
to the UK and home…visits to Les Baux de Provence, an old crag of a castle on a
crag of a (dolomite! with ancient shells
in the rocks..) hill, surrounded by quarries where the roman (slaves!!) used to
hand cut the blocks they needed for their structures and monuments…we’ll be
back here, for sure!
We
left St Rémy for Paris via the west so that we could see two different bridges
– the ancient Pont du Gard with its aquaduct along the top, and the new and
highly impressive Viaduc de Millau. As
we neared the Pont du Gard we decided to defer seeing it due to a lack of time,
but crossing over the amazing Viaduct on the A75 near Millau was a fabulous
experience. Designed by a British
architect and a French engineer it is the tallest but not the highest bridge in
the world…..work that out…..yes it has the tallest mast (343m) but the bridge
is not the highest! Completed in ’04
it’s about 2.5km long and only cost about 12 Euros to cross.
Summer
holidays and traffic – With 11,769,433 (greater) Parisians living in one of the
most densely populated metropolitan areas in Europe all leaving for their
annual Summer holidays all at the same time so we thought we’d be in for it!!!! “Black Saturday” was to be avoided at all
costs!!!! Leaving from the South the day
before was a brilliant plan…the traffic was easier on the Friday, so the
approach to Paris was not too bad. The
outgoing traffic heading past us was extremely heavy as they headed south for their
holidays and we often passed 15km long traffic jams. Saturday is also bad because that’s the day
accommodation bookings change, but as we saw – Fridays can still be utter chaos!
Ahhh
Paris….we’re staying once again with David and have been pulling down his
hedge. How do you put a 10m x 3m hedge
in the trailer to take to the tip in Paris? Proof of residency, vehicle height
restriction of 2m…we’re getting through the tip runs…slowly!! At least everyone’s
left Paris and we’re here doing battle in the street without too much traffic.
