november exit

 

AND SO IT COMES TO PASS that our first hotel on this final departure to the UK, slotted in just days before we make our move, is a mere 13 miles down the route back, about twenty-five minutes journey time from 1rueFB. 

You'll be familiar by now with the situation that has brought this about. We need to sleep under some form of bed covering given that all our bedding is packed for shipping. We risk the Ibis Budget in Orange. Custom built and sound proof mostly, very reasonably priced, up to full spec, where we can keep an eye on the motor in what we hope is a secure car park… we don't sit up mind,  we go to bed – after mooching into the environs of the Roman Theatre for snifters, then partaking of une pizza in the town square (Sablet Bar des Sports pizzas, the best around these parts are not an option: the chef there has been on leave the entirety of our stay).  The National Dish sustains us and I limp back to the hotel with the hope of some repose . . . 

Never slept so close to a motorway toll booth before. We are off at the break of day through the toll in question  and are quickly en route to Marseillan where we have planned to breakfast. We do just that. There is a gale blowing in from the Med but the rain is holding off. Hardly anyone about in the port but we are beckoned into an otherwise empty restaurant and are served good coffees to accompany the croissants wisely obtained beforehand in the usual boulangerie. Good. Very good. 

We've run this strategy a number of times now – going south before heading west and then north: sort of boxing the compass. That is it as far as tolls are concerned too: an hour and five minutes to bring us into the Mediterranean hinterland; from now on we'll be sticking to D roads, mostly. I like Marseillan this early and this quiet. Did I mention before that we contemplated buying a gaff here? The town was a bit less honeypot then. Today the wind swoops through the yacht park rigging and the étang slaps hard up against the riprap. Magic! Can't see Sète at all through the storm-haze, across the Étang de Thau…

This is the way we begin our leisurely retreat from Sablet, stopping at four further hotels on the way this final time, enjoying the variety of landscapes, colours, people, roads, towns and villages that motivate us to travel slower than many, by routes more varied than those preferring their journeys to be as short in duration as the (autoroute) network will allow. Our rationale for getting about is to make it last, absorb the scenes, compare the differences, stop here, divert there, find out more… at a leisurely mileage per day where possible. Eccentric I know but favourite with us. 

After a stroll down the Marseillan quays and the customary visit to the Noilly Prat retail outlet (to acquire stock for 2025/6) we take again to the road. The weather holds off for a few miles; we get through Agde where Christmas decorations going up are causing traffic chaos, and having side-stepped all that, we motor on towards distant lowering cloud, skirt Béziers via the north eastern ring road, and follow the D612 off towards our destination city for this day, Castres. We have to climb through and over the Montagne Noire to reach this fine town and thus we are soon in the rain and the deep valleys and gorges of these unlovely hills, as well as ever thickening cloud. 

Dropping down the other side of the pass, the road takes us through a string of former textile towns, each grimmer than the last. St Pons is just one them and we note that the principle church has an organ over the altar rather than the more conventional position at the west end. The industry has gone (we lodged with friends of Mary's in their badly sited but grand house in miserable Labastide Rouairoux the year after Adam was born, where the river ran with purple dye. It has not improved any – although the river runs clear now, by all appearances). The weather doesn't help these places today. France has some less than lovely settlements, as well, for sure, and not just in the north. However, these grim towns are not that far from some glories, so there you are: caves, Minèrve, limestone hills and gorges, distinctive wines, that sort of stuff. Mazamet is a bit better (we take refreshment there) but chilly, heavily into roadworks and Christmas decorating. 177 miles, (not kilometres please note) the way we went, Orange to Castres. 

Now, Castres sits in much more pleasant country. The hotel Mme Melling has secured for our first real stop-off is back on the D612 as it goes into the town. It is not a very inviting walk into the centre on a grey afternoon so we shelve that idea. We 'chill', eat a good repast in an almost empty dining room, enjoy a comfortable night and drive into the centre for our customary breakfast snack – on the main square – the next morning. It is a lovely day! Castres looks as good as it did when last we passed this way. Maybe better. The central market bustle is a plus as well, so we linger a bit.

We report back to our conveniently parked up motor and drive on. This next leg is through lovely, rolling agriculture, but is a bit on the short side: Castres to Périgueux. Straightforward, on very quiet roads after getting beyond Montauban. We take a break at Fumel (it is 20°C no less) but find no café open, so just suck up the views from the mairie on top of the town that overlooks the Lot. That's a river and there is a lot to see. Maybe, says I, we could divert to our favoured café at Lalinde? 

No sooner said than Mme has the route plan sorted and off we go. When we arrive however it is apparent that the café we aspired to patronise has just closed for the afternoon so we sit out at another, nearby. Noisier than we'd like, raised eyebrows are exchanged (can that be done? -ed.) but the culprits are foreign, Belgian maybe, so one has to make allowances. Strangely, to Lalinde from Castres, the way we've come, is another 177 miles. 

But we are not done. Now we are back on familiar roads of the Périgord, through Le Bugue, thus to the outskirts of Périgueux, where we've been unable to secure accommodation in our favourite central Ibis (they've got a conference on we think) so we must make do with the rather cramped (but clean) cabins of the Ibis Budget on the outer edge of town. And it is cheap, fair do's. No immediate promise of an eatery presents itself so we buy filled baguettes from la sandwicherie next door as well as a sac of those Portuguese style custard tarts… and watch BBC News TV in our quarters. Castres to Périgueux? 218 miles by the route we took. 

Next up: Périgueux to Chinon. We suffer a wet night: outside that is, we stay dry. Once more we easily pick our way through P, no wrong turns whatsoever, onto the misty wooded roads by Brantôme where the sun breaks through and we take our breakfast: Brantôme brings in the visitors and is usually a honeypot – but this morning, quiet. It sits astride the river Dronne, not the Donne as the illustration below suggests. Doh!

The drive today is full of interest, the road extremely quiet, it is sunday after all, just local traffic but the weather turns back to grey again with occasional light but increasingly frequent showers. We stop at L’Isle Jourdain for a coffee on the former cattle market square (sorry, no snaps) as we are making too good a time. A front room café habituated by locals who greet one and all as they drop by for a café. I have noted, long before this, that we can see ahead the condensing vapours rising from the nuclear power station on the Vienne a full sixty miles before we pass it, at Civaux, just prior to reaching Chauvigny. Amazing, what?

Then we undertake a variation on the route which isn't up to much (who knew) from Châtellerault: to try see a river confluence: the Cruese joining the Vienne. Not visitable by those on wheels, seemingly. Trying to introduce variety into familiar country. It happens. Or rather, it didn't. 

We arrive in rain soaked Chinon and dither about a bit, trying to find this hidden Ibis ‘Styles’ hotel. It proves to be opposite and not in the town: guarded by a no entry sign one must ignore. We book in and get into our room (quite nice, spacious, but no tea/coffee therein, the hotel does no food either at weekends, FGS! In my book is less than welcoming really). Wet afternoon, Chinon not exactly humming: we went up and down it a bit prior to locating the digs, in hope, as we have secured no lunch on route. The hotel boasts views across the Loire to Chinon Château: not from our room of course: we overlook some forlorn willows. But we do have a (dirty) wet terrace. 'Style' yes, not substance. Pleasant journey… this hotel – not so much. 

Chinon was projected to be a highlight of this return. We are not completely unacquainted, you understand, but it has been a while. Neither party fancy the trudge in and out and across the bridge, or the rather clammy coldness, so we call it off. And go hungry. 184 miles in total for this day. 

Which is why we take very full advantage of the all-in-breakfast extra that our booking has attracted ('free') the next morning. Jolly good actually – so I relent in my tedious critique on Chinon Ibis 'Styles' – though I might hesitate in choosing it a second time. We are so stuffed in fact when we leave, that we are unable to stop at Montsoreau, for breakfast at least, we've had it. We are on our last leg of our journey back: Chinon to Dinard. At Montsoreau we obtain provender for lunch once more and note the leaf fall since last we passed this way. For now we are following the Loire downstream, a pleasure we always respond to, no matter the weather or season (but best out of, of course…).

Yes, we have reached the Loire, where I have oft maintained heretofore that for travellers bound for southern climes (Sablet for example) France really begins, the vineyards most certainly do, mostly. Going back to the motherland (and thus crossing the stream in the reverse direction) one holds on for dear life to the evolving traits, features and more northerly characteristics that demonstrate that Fr continues, yeah, even unto the coast and La Manche. If you are a fan of Fr that is. I am, we are. It isn't until we are through the passport check, the humiliating post brexit exit stamp applied, and gained entry to the bowels of the ferry, that we finally and wistfully concede that we are off terroir Francais once more.

As crossing the Loire northwards is still perceived by this party as drawing stumps, as it were, this seems a good point to conclude the chunk of turgid drivel that constitutes the story so far and reveal the tragic news to those that have somehow struggled to this paragraph, that this isn't 'it': a part two is to follow.        I know, don't take it to heart. 

Why not get on with some of your charity work and save just a bit of your sensibilities if you can, for the time when la deuxième partie goes to press? you know you want to…