Blog 2.9 - Heading North Again

Sunday 14th May 2023

Not today or tomorrow though. We were set to move on tomorrow, Monday, but we've decided we quite like it here and have now paid for another night and will leave on Tuesday instead.

Hey, no tengo prisa!

It started really bright and sunny and warm today - for our 41st anniversary - which was nice!

Not quite so nice, but one of the reasons for coming here, was the pile of washing and drying we, sorry, Admin did. Not so bad though; it was mostly a case of stuffing it all in the big on-site machines while we had our breakfast of pancakes, strawberries, Greek yogurt, and maple syrup. Delicious it was, too.

Fortunately, having spotted a bit of moisture heading our way I had the foresight to put the awning out to cover the bit of washing that couldn't go in the tumbler. And it was a good job too, as it really came down for a few minutes.

I don't think our neighbours can quite comprehend the adverse-weather-attraction powers of the Kimbos-on-Tour, but they may have to get used to it. We'll be back...

At least the forecast is for much, much better things from mid-afternoon on.

Monday

Bright and sunny, and rather breezy for our last full day here.

Aunty Beeb promised very light and diminishing wind conditions overnight, and it started that way. However, by morning, the awning (poet, didn't know, etc.), that I'd left out - against my better judgement - was rattlin' like a Gatlin', and so a quick intervention was called for before any expensive damage was wrought. Fortunately it was already daylight, so not overly difficult. I could do without having to leap out of me pit first thing though. Most uncivilized.

Belgium's answer to Brian Blessed over the way is holding forth as usual. I don't think he's actually breathed in during his last 24 waking hours, which is probably a bit of a conflict for his lungs considering he also sucks non-stop on Gitanes.

I keep thinking he's addressing me from his perch some 20 metres away, but no, he's actually talking at his mouse-like wife who is right in front of his face.

It must be my Estonian side coming out, but I really can't cope with loud! At least BB is very entertaining with it.

Tuesday

Thankfully it's somewhat calmer for our longish run to France today, which started, counter-intuitively in a sort of southerly direction with signs for Barcelona cropping up every few miles. Eventually though we shifted bearing to a more northerly direction and crossed the lovely Montseny range, with glimpses ahead of the still snow-capped Pyrenees. This is a motorway I can quite happily cope with: almost deserted, and with wonderful scenery all around, and barely a straight section as it twists and swoops over viaducts and through tunnels.

Soon enough, Vic hove into view and then we were quickly in Ripoll. Here we stopped for that last cheap(er) fill of diesel and for a few provisions from the Aldi next door.

From here, the road becomes single carriageway, and ever more challenging. In fact, it's rather like the road north of Tossa, but in HD. Another not to be missed.

After what seemed like hours, and a detour due to who knows what (on which section we stopped for lunch, at very nearly 6000ft altitude,

with the Pyrenees in full view) we finally reached the border town of Puigcerdà, via the winter sports resort of la Molina.

From here it's downhill all the way to our target, Tarascon sur Ariege.

The drive up to Puig had been brutal on the fuel consumption with the computer read-out rapidly dropping from a range of nearly 500 miles to just over 400, in maybe 40 miles.

From here on the instant readout rarely dropped below 99.9mpg, and we finished still on well over 400 miles range left in the tank (allegedly), 50 miles later!

Tarascon is fairly typically French.

It has two rivers, lots of scruffy

houses, lots of scruffy businesses (mostly closed, permanently or temporarily) and lots of charm.

Oh, and the car park we're calling home for the night, backing onto one of those rivers, has lots of free (and free) spaces, so it's almost perfect.

Almost, but not quite. There's a ruddy great turbine affair, presumably connected to the two ruddy great pipes that plunge down from the ruddy great adjacent mountain (the place is completely surrounded by mountains), which makes a rumble-hum a bit like a middle-distance diesel generator. Oh well, as Admin said, just imagine it's the rushing waters of the river...

Peaceful enough night though.

Wednesday

An unremarkable, and slow start to the day - which is fine by me.

I was planning on getting north of Toulouse today, but Admin had other ideas and pointed us at a village just south of that sprawling metropolis, so I'll just have to gird my loins and tackle it tomorrow instead. I'm not the most enthusiastic person I know about driving in big cities, but I've done a few in the van in France over the last six months or so, so I'm sure I'll cope.

Back to this place first though, Venerque.

It's, how shall I put this? Unremarkable? Yep, that'll do it.

I don’t wish to take anything away from the local Maire; they've provided us with a free, and hopefully quiet, place to kip and to take on water and dump waste, and for that, I'm grateful.

Think you took a wrong turn Biggles...

However, the village amounts to not a lot, but that's not its fault. It does have a rather unusual church which appears to have been added to at least twice over the years in a not particularly tasteful manner.

Battlements? Odd. The exposed set of four bells is unusual too. I'm just hoping they don't feel the need to practice on them through the night as well as this afternoon - they're just about 100 metres from where we sit and I can see them right there between the pollarded tops of the Plane trees that are so abundant here!

We explored the village in about fifteen minutes flat, and then walked to the next village, which has an Aldi and not much else.

Mind you, the River Ariege which separates the two is certainly impressive at the moment, being in spate, and rather high, from all that Pyrennean rain and melt-water.

From the river bridge - there's that church again

Bet it's cold!

Thursday

Well, I counted twelve strikes at midnight and joked to Admin that at least the next one would just be the single 'bong' so not too bad.

And yes, it probably wasn't too bad as I didn't hear it. However... what we did hear, from 2am onwards was an absolute pillock nearby running his diesel van constantly for several hours (and I mean most of the night), accompanied by shite 'music'.

WTAF?

It would seem he lived (or had lived?) in one of the adjacent houses and was visiting his kids, and his missus had chucked him out again and told him to sleep in his poxy van.

(All this is assumption based on our observations, but I'd put money on it).

Ah well; his problems are far worse than ours, so we just packed away, as planned, and moved on.

What a git though.

We breakfasted on chaff and milk and hit the road for the dreaded Toulouse. And it wasn't too bad to be fair. The road north is basically a dual carriageway 'inner peripherique' and skirts the worst (traffic-wise) bits and eventually spits you out via a single carriageway and several further miles of suburban sprawl onto the not unpleasant Gaillac road. We passed the ground of the famous and extremely successful Stade Toulousain rugby club on the way. Quite impressive from the outside, too.

We'd considered stopping at Gaillac, but the aire is some way out of town so gave it a miss. Mind you, we did pass through much of the town centre and it's very impressive. Maybe it's another one for the future.

North-east of here the road gets even better, ambling through vineyards and pretty villages, one of which provided lunch which we consumed on the roadside a few miles further on.

It really is a quite scenic route, with another real gem of a small town on the way - Cordes sur Ciel.

Cordes sur Ciel (not my photo!)

It looks gorgeous, with much of the old part built on a rocky promontory that can be seen for miles.

Not too much further on we reached our destination, Laguépie.

Another small town embraced by two rivers - the Aveyron and the Viaur - with the confluence just to the west and the two watercourses virtually forming a moat around the town.

It has the usual French provincial character in abundance as we found during our walking tour, which concluded with espressos at a bar named after one of the rivers.

There seems to be a considerable English population too, but we'll forgive it that, as mine host at the bar, a fluent English speaker himself, obviously does!

The bar's literally round that corner.

We have to make a decision now. Another night here, or move on. Tomorrow morning will do for that though.

The Chateau (the bit on the right). Twice held by L'Anglaise, apparently. They wouldn't have liked that...

And from the other side, atop its lofty perch above the river and town.

Friday

After a short conflab, we decided to have another day here, just to relax and drink coffee.

The biggest issue with this place is that the Boulangerie has shut down - some time ago by the look of it. I'm surprised there wasn't localized rioting, but maybe there was?

There's a small supermarket over the road from it next to the church (and from the surviving Charcuterie next door) which sells fresh bread - if you get there early enough.

We didn’t, and were greeted by empty baskets and had to make do with long-life sliced.

Yeech.

Lesson learned.

However, we did sample coffee at both of the town's bars, and spent an inordinate amount of cash on garlic and cheese at the aptly-named Laguepicerie. Hah! This was followed by a wander down to one of the rivers' picnic area, with views of the chateau high above.

Bet that front lawn took some mowing

Mileage so far: 2379