distant views, over and out

 

Not exactly kicking our heels this sunday morning you understand. Quite a chilly start as we elect Lannion to provide petit déjeuner this time. Had to hang around mind, our chosen bar having no chairs out front before nine (see left) but is trading on the stroke of neuf while the pastry outlet opposite provides the provender. Best pain-aux-raisins of the excursion Mme Melling opines.We have two or three hours before we must repair to the ferry port, so we take the euphemistically called coastal road from our Sunday morning subdued breakfast centre. Our chance maybe to add phare content to this memorandum. Would it be clear enough to finally get a sighting of the Triagoz lighthouse and where best to try for it?

The coastal road westwards finally gets to the coast at the bay and village of St Michel-en-Grève, site of a memorable spring holiday for the Melling Smiths some years back. You'll find the place getting honourable mention in my sister blog phares sighted but today we simply pass by, pass round the grey sand bay (Lieue-de-Grève) and then go tootling down minor roads on the headland opposite (the Corniche de l'Armorique etc), to visit that shoreline or this excrescence: I won't detain you with the detail, we all need to get on, and in our case we need to get on that ferry.

At last a very distant view of Triagoz Islands (mysteriously omitted from p72 Michelin) is obtained through passing flocks of fishing gannets: crowning this achievement, the unmistakeable stack of the phare itself. Result! The weather isn't quite as gloomy as my snap suggests of course, it is bright – but not exactly sunny at the moment the image is secured. Sorry about that sailing dinghy.

Viewed I might just as well add, from a previously unvisited protruding headland (with fishing quay) on the bay, opposite to St Michel. 

Need to brush up on your knowledge of this distinctive light? Why not visit my post on the subject– you know you want to: here is a link: triagoz explained

We drive on after visiting sundry other viewpoints, and then proceed by the littoral-hugging road right up (to Morlaix) and back down the ria that connects Morlaix to the sea. Here comes  another view that fills our hearts with pleasure, so very inadequately captured here, no doubt the subject of many a box-brownie output, the view to the Rade-de-Morlaix. A roadside montage! A festival of cardinals, land-marks, islets, buoys, mussel beds, minor lights and even a fort. Mercifully free of pedaloes, luxury yachts, dinghies and other blots on the seascape, this quiet sabbath morning. 

Need to know more about the two lighthouses featured in these views? Of course you do! Visit my post on said stretch of briney by clicking on this link! And excuse any repetition you might detect by so doing, I'm only human.

But now our time is almost up. We must away to the pleasures of the ferry check in, no time even to wander into Roscoff central, and no inclination to either as it is reputedly a french holiday weekend and past experiences suggest that Roscoff then tends toward honeypot status. We are content to sit out the last hour quayside before being called onto a lightly loaded Armorique, to sail off across the mill flat waters which separate us from the gloomy coast of distant Albion. Yes we have a cabin, should we wish to isolate ourselves from other voyagers, but this boat is so quiet we take our reading matter into the bow windows where we eat both lunch and supper. We dock in the gathering gloom of a Plymouth Saturday evening and are off and out on the road to North Devon in as little as twenty minutes. 

Before we leave Fr terra firma and when we profer our passports to Fr customs, it is pointed out that my passport has no entry stamp. I know. Spotted that a few days after arriving via St Malo. Her colleague there fell down on the job but stayed focussed long enough to stamp both Dr G and Mme Melling's PPs. So, the Roscoff officer informs us, she cannot issue an exit stamp to my good self as I am not in France, er – technically. Ah. I suspected as much. 

So if I want to come to France tomorrow (she goes on to explain) I will be able to stay in the Republique, and in the EU in general, up to the full 90 day limit in any 180 day period now operational (after the Brexshit f**k-up took away our EU citizenship – these last words mine, not hers). Whereas Mme Melling? --- only 42 days remaining for her, should we decide to turn right round and come into Fr, that is: arrivals, rather than departures, as it were.

Don't tempt us! 

Got to get some gardening done, etc. etc.

but then we'll be back, sometime in late June, if we are spared. 

Watch this space!

fog, fish and crèpes, day three returning

Easy enough to slip off and get on to our road North with Mme Melling navigating. A new way avoiding the race track that the N137 presents each and every morning between Rochefort and La Rochelle. But no sooner having set wheel upon the D5 northbound then we are also… fogbound. 

White dense and infiltrated by the usual morning jobs-worths leaving it to the last moment to get to distant workplaces. But there is no passing us (or passing for us)! Not this morning. We pass through potential breakfast venues without even seeing them…  Luckily the D5 is as straight as an arrow, mostly, so we can still motor. I trust we do not delay too many thrusting executives in their contract BMWs, Mercedes and similar, not our fault your marshy flats take to misting up…   Not nice though…… after an hour or something of that order we suddenly emerge, >pop< around Marans I think, into bright blue cloudless light. Let's head for Luçon I propose -- we know we can be sure of refreshment there… so that is what we do. 

Ah Luçon. Oasis! The best coffee on the road, on so many transits in the past! And today we are just that bit later clocking in so, the boulangerie opposite Le Commerce (our café of choice) is open (it does not crack a shutter before 0900) so we achieve the perfect pairing, sitting outside to relish the coffee et croissants (or whatever Mme Melling had instead) that I have previously banged on about in a former post – once more! Was it foggy? All behind us now! We are set for our dash to our lunchtime fish resto! Vroom!

With impecable timing, for which the Melling Smiths are widely renowned, and on the dot of twelve, we park up by the Le Mord’eau in Port-du-Bec for our lunchtime repast. Only snag is, no 'R' in the month. Well there is, just, (ApRil) but only just, and notwithstanding the rule, moules are off, dear, it is no longer the season. We go for the menu du jour which includes baked mackerel with chips backed up by a glass of Muscadet (just a paris goblet half, we are on the road after all). Trés Bon. I ate crab claws there last time, you may recall. But then, you'll be familiar with this fish restaurant anyway, either because you've been there yourself or you are an avid follower of this blog (probably both, a very select group of chums, beyond number).  

A quick check on the Port du Bec feu (freshly painted we note) before heading off to cross the Loire at St Nazaire.

It's no good. You can't dress it up. It is a slog from the bridge up to the north coast of Brittany. Especially if you've got limited time to make with the miles. We grit our teeth, try to spot new things of interest from the tedious N12 but the top and bottom of it is, once you've crossed the Loire, it's all a bit down hill. And getting round Rennes was more tedious than usual too. Hmm. 

Until you reach the northern coasts that is: then it picks up again. Or you go off piste in Normandy, there's lots to see and do.Anyway, this time we are forced to make our sea crossing during day light hours (no overnight sailings this spring from Roscoff, that we can use anyway, dash it) so we need to be within striking distance of Roscoff on the day, so stop off at Guingamp to spend our last night on Fr terroir at the end of this springtime jolly. 

Guingamp? Well the hotel is OK/good even, albeit with next to useless internet connection and no soap in the wash-basin dispenser either, it's a scandal… but moderately priced and on the edge of a town which has another rather good crèperie. We get into G and Mary snatches the last table once again, this time in la duchess anne … we take our seats in the phare-themed establishment. Small, friendly and perhaps even slightly better than our Rochefort supper. More cidre bouché, naturally, this bottle as toothsome as the last. 

Après, we take the chance to take a brief stroll into Guingamp's town square, a fine space – but not doing much to dispel my impression that Guingamp doesn't offer its inhabitants or visitors much in the way of eating places – beyond fast food snackeries that is. The cats won't come down either, they just pass judgement from an upstairs window.  But having driven 305 miles today we are quite ready to slink back to the digs, take an early bath and hit the sack. The beds are good.

onwards, west then north on day two twenty-two

Kicking out time in Ibis is quite late (we believe) and of course we are long gone by that time, not hanging around for itsy bitsy hotel petit déjs. We head west this time to eventually skirt round Bergerac…… deviations from the true route here and there, although I could not tell you where we go off and come back on the straight and narrow. I just do as I'm told.

The Dordogne is a frustrating patch: we try village after village but not a sniff of a boulangerie or an open bar. We resignedly get back on route and hold out until Lalinde, where we are spoilt for choice as it is market day. Nippy though so we go inside. The croissants are fairly good, the coffee cracking and two extremely well filled baguettes are also secured (they are secured with green ribbons in fact). I quite fancy some of that choucroute pictured herewith for my elevenses but the idea is scotched before I am even able to suggest it. It looks a good market though but we can't linger longer in Lalinde: we are headed for the Gironde! 

Thereafter every village and town seems to be throbbing with cafés. It is often the way of it. But between Sarlat and Lalinde coming west? Forget it. Chocolate box villages river cliff chateaux etc, beloved of the British of course … but I take no snaps of these things anymore. They cease to amuse, It's all on the interweb anyway. 

It is a greyish morning so we are not up for lingering much in our former stamping grounds of the Bordeaux around St Emilion either.  But we do stop briefly to stare forlornly at the Côte de Francs Cooperative, now derelict and unloved, where we bought some of the best bidon sauce we've ever washed our taste buds with, when the son-and-heir was still knee high to a grasshopper. We've still got that customised bidon somewhere. 

You won't find Port des Callonges on our route back either. Mme Melling sends us off down the local D23 from St Cires-sur-Gironde (p219 in your Michelin) to get to a suitable spot to work our way through the baguette of the day…… 

…… and so, by diverse ways and motorial means we proceed, over familiar estuarine roads, stopping only to take tea (or what a Fr café seemingly can't do to a tea bag, which is to add freshly boiling water to it, preferring instead to provide said TB in a cup together with a small tea pot of fairly hot or heated water of unknown vintage, and let you do the business, doomed to only partial success of course as the water should be bally well boiling when it hits the tea fgs) at St-Georges-de-Didonne, as this mini cruise liner trundles past going up river. Past a shadowy Cordouan aussi, got to get a lighthouse ref. in somewhere!

From St-G-de-D, a few more kilometres bring us to our destination town for the day, namely:

Well, we fancied a change from La Rochelle, we like the feel of Rochefort, get a kick from its historical significance, the naval connections and that… and there used to be a dashed good créperie, very small, down one of the grander 18C streets, will it still be in business? Yes yes here it is … Mary quickly phones from outside its entrance door and books a table, so we get the last two covers and that is supper sorted. Changed hands of course, this former family pancake shop, but still very choice, friendly – while the cidre bouché is like the nectar of the gods after so much wine with everything, quite the best cider in space.

While waiting to get into the said establishment, at 1900 hours prompt, when it opens to the public, we remind ourselves just why we are fond of this grid pattern town. It has some of the finest river mud known to man, it is where I saw my first ever Héron & Héron lighthouse poster, slowly fading in a shut shop window one hot summer's day, back in the mists of T. Excellent marine book shop,  all the French navy stuff, La Corderie Royale, classic stately houses, the transporter bridge, home port and building site of L'Hermione (not at home this time – when it is, it parks up in the basin illustrated left, currently sporting some epic mud). Have made many visits over the years of course, to jolly old Rochefort, so I rather fell down on image capture this time round, I have to own, I gave it a miss again mostly, but you've got to be impressed by the drying mud in Hermione's dry docks – it was quite wondrous.  …… 

Not your thing, mud……dry or otherwise……? 

Oh well, it takes all sorts I suppose. On this day, day two, we cover 209 of our none metric miles, from Sarlat to Rochefort and it turns out nice in the late afternoon. Garage parking too: – another of those impossibly narrow entrances but yours truly leaves no paint on the stonework, thankfully: I have an inch at least to spare either side. 

As she retires, Mme Melling is a little non-plussed to note an oversized 'smudge' on the wall of our hotel room of what appears to be a naked man possibly seated on the WC. 'Art' I think – in the mode of Rodin's 'Thinker' perhaps (although he'd be turning in his G if he knew that hotels are putting this sort of rendition in their hotel bedrooms these days). An unhappy image, it would be an 'E' at best (unsatisfactory, fail even) in any self respecting fine art class of which there are few. Or not. Maybe I am wide of the mark. Those fingers… What? and the fellow seems to have a hoof rather than a right hand. I wonder just how many Ibis hotel rooms this apparition graces? Rather too many I warrant. Rochefort gives us a very quiet night and we are awoken by a most tuneful blackbird. First time in this hotel for us. Not living it up on the ring road anymore, blow the budget……

going forward by coming back spring 22

ALWAYS SOMEWHAT OF A SURPRISE  to Madame Melling and self, when we set off back to our native land in spring, the way the clock winds back through the season right to the beginning of it, if not back into the end of winter…… and then gallops forward again as we get ourselves out of the mountain areas and on towards the western coastal regions. We go from fully leafed up trees through hardly showing and back to full out finery. In a day or two. 

This time we were springing back to Bullsmead Barracks for the first time in spring since 2019, so we sensed the reversals and progressions of the season a bit more intensely. 

I suppose I'd better include our proposed route back for my Michelin Atlas of France cognoscenti (it is conveniently placed at the end of this description) but let me tell you right away, we went quite wildly off piste, even from the very start: we didn't try to go through Orange as the road was up (local knowledge); nor did we pass though Rocqemaure either – no – that would have been too easy. Madame M had us on tiny roads right away so we didn't touch the official route until almost Uzés. But that, dear reader, is how we come across odd little places, you see, like St-Victor-La-Coste.

We had our breakfast coffee at St Victor, and even though not a croissant was to be had by either resident or passer by alike, the boulangerie being closed for yet another public holiday, no doubt, we liked what we drank, liked the chirpy spirit of the place. Mme Melling pointed out to the proprietor, rather tactlessly I thought, the apparently non awarded 2022 Routard plaque; but he was supremely confident that this year's accolade would be arriving in a month or two, his coffee at least confirming that he knew his way round a grand café … 

… the footnote that graces this narrative supports that confidence…

We admired St Victor's regard for science, discovery and learning in the persons of Isaac Newton and Galileo, inevitably under the patronage of Napoleon trois and Marianne, commemorated upon the fine white obelisk in front of the Hotel de Ville, and watched over by the glowering presence of the medieval fortified château (see above) on the hill behind (which we were assured in both Fr and Eng, has excellent views … but no time to confirm that assertion this time so, mark it down Mrs Melling, mark it down (file under places of interest). They may have gone off science a bit since this was stuck up, mind, in Saint Victor: it was erected to commemorate the centenary of the Fr Rev 1889.

After St-Victor-La-Coste we settled down to our passage through to Sarlat-la-Canéda rounding the circuit of Uzés (shudders as fingerposts to St Maximin were espied [it's a long story] and of course, through Règlisse) before clambering back up to the Corniche des Cèvennes, so enjoyed on our passage south in March. Now with flowers and almost all snow melted away. Even better if that were possible.  I took no pictures however as we were sandwich seeking… 

We did secure sandwiches, as is now our norm, this time down from the corniche and back in Florac (- which we had the audacity to drive right through the middle of)  from whence we bore them forth, enjoyed them up a farm track not far east of Rodez where we were royally entertained by a trio, or quartet even, of nightingales singing fortissimo. Lovely. I thought of recording them but, well… my sandwich was a more pressing matter. Nice! Chicken with salad mayonnaise if memory serves. In a baguette. Oh my.

And so it was that we came to our hotel after some 288 miles of reasonable motoring, under sunlit skies of blue,  for our third visit to the honey pot previously mentioned, namely Sarlat. It was rather warmer than we bargained for and our hotel was entirely sans internet, TV and other services due to a national failure (they said) of Communications Orange. 

It was true! We had to pay cash for our pizzas and we only just managed to scrape together enough dimes to do it from the resources carried upon our persons that is. Our war chests were back at the Ibis, you understand. Services of the electronic kind were restored unto us by kicking out time the next morning (we'd paid in advance so there wasn't an issue there at least). Hotel very satisfactory apart from not being able to check on all that needed checking up on. Oh, and a badly fitted curtain: couldn't shut out the bally car park light entirely. No pictures of Sarlat this time, sorry -– I was somewhat preoccupied and did it last time (the snap below was one I took last October, it hasn't changed much) when we  turned up Sarletside to overnight. Remember those greenhouses? 

Here endeth day one of going forward. 

It's the detail that brings it all to life, you have to admit.

footnote: On Friday 24 June, we were able to confirm the assertion that the restaurant attached to the café in St Victor, called l’industrie for some reason not entirely clear, had indeed secured the distinction of featuring in the 2022 Routard guide for a twenty-sixth year, no less. We ate there and yes, it was very good value, good quality, and service most satisfactory. We had the menu du jour, of course, it being just a hop and a skip to Sablet on the final leg of our summer return. 

Generally we have found Routard recognition broadly coincides with what we are looking for in a lunch. Usually. I am sure there will have been exceptions to this generalisation… 

above durban a second time

Yes, this walk has been covered before, I own up, this is a repeat. But you see, it isn't a repeat because we varied (shortened) our actual route a little bit but more significantly we did it in the spring…  so if anything, it was an even more uplifting experience. 

The first time round, I called the post: postcard: below grand montmirail. You will remember it as if it was yesterday, I'm sure. It was a high summer perambulation described there.

This time the vines are just starting to leaf up. We set off from the point from which the banner panorama (top) was taken, from where I park the motor, up the track ahead past the trees and towards le grand montmirail rocks, top left. That road, unmade at this point, goes on to become metalled again after a few hundred metres, and joins up with the route up from the other side of Beaumes, but see below to see our route up the hill. By a slight error of navigation we are not on our preferred route at the moment I compose the snap below, but I am able thus to photograph it. It's that track coming away from the trees to the left. 

…and the track then comes up to this point (above) over a number of terrace steps, negotiable only on foot or by a caterpillar tractor-type of thingey. Steep. The last terrace is topped, the hill flattens out to a more gentle slope, the terraces having given way to hillsides where there are these wonderful trees, individuals, track side mediterranean pines.

There are copses of holm oaks and pines too which help break up the worst effects of the mistral. There are also operatives further up the hill getting amongst the vines to fill in the no shows, prune, wire in etc. We decide not to go up further and pass them by as we are not actually on a GR or other designated pathway, if you see what I mean, so we take another woodside track curving round and downwards in the general direction of where we started from… down there…

Eventually the motor is espied slumbering in the shade of the pine we set off from and we see in greater detail the tantalising track that probably leads the walker to the back of the Durban domaine, a walk we will configure next time round, as this is our last day before shipping out and back to Le Royaume Uni. Note, if you will, the chapel of St Hilaire on the tree-line top right in the image above this text. 

Lower down, the vines have not been hoed so are blotted with poppies, while another view further down the hill on the way back to Durban, where youngish vines have been hoed rigorously, exhibits a minor road visible climbing up the other side of the valley in the mid distance above those woods. Going to take a look at that, the next time we can. 

A short walk then, not overtaxing your author too much, but uplifting the spirit again, as what it done previous in summer 2021 and now again, on this day, before the grand départ is upon us…  gold star rated this walk so think on. 

plateau d'albion

The D40 runs west along the northern flanks of Ventoux from behind Mollans in Vaucluse eventually into the Drôme where it briefly becomes the D72. You can then go on to Séderon in one direction or Sault in the other. Betwixt the two is St Trinit. More of St Trinit anon.

In springtime there is no finer way to get to the Plateau d'Albion: simply beautiful scenery, the towering and steepest flanks of Le Géant, several small hamlets and villages, a wild river usually withdrawn and calm. And in spring, very little road traffic to vex the dawdlers we want to be on this route. There is the spectacular perched village of Brantes. Yes, a minor honeypot, but deservedly I think. Note to self: must do a postcard featuring Brantes, we've been there often enough, I dreamt of living there even (no shops!) but today we pass beneath Brantes and cut up instead through Rheilanette (to take a look at it) then round the side of Montbrun and up onto the target area: Plateau d'Albion. It's a perfect day.

Plateau d'Albion. What a heady area of high ground. Air like wine etc. We like it lots. Big big skies, stonking and unfamiliar views back to Ventoux, and towards the south, emptiness, hectares of lavender, next to no vines for a change… and really rather empty. They grow lavender, did I mention that? On a big scale……

One may come across one or more rather incongrous straight, wide roads, perfectly surfaced and yet seemingly going nowhere. The explanation for them is sobering: they were built wide enough to deliver intercontinental ballistic missiles to deep underground silos constructed here during the height of the cold war… they've all gone now of course, the missiles and the silos (or have they?) but there is a lingering military presence, strange closed off and blank areas on the maps, and occasional inquisitive patrols by low flying military helicopters. But as far as y'visitor is concerned its nothing to see here if you don't mind, not on that score at any rate. 

Anyway this is the best way to get there that we have discovered to date. It's a peach… so beautiful in good weather, it makes me quite well up…

And then we sort of meandered down to St Trinit, a village that celebrates mushrooms and the like, which grow in abundance hereabouts we assume, and where we have tried to lunch a couple of times before, as it is closed out of season mostly. But today, not so, it's third time lucky and for quite a few others who turned up after I took this view, it filled up nicely, inside too. 

I think that is quite enough about this lovely area, you can bet it is cold in winter! Oh yes, and there are ancient limestone borries here and there, deep thick forest patches, deer, butterflies and all that sort of stuff. And rocket silos I believe. 

I confine myself here to pictures taken this spring (2022) – a rather limited palette I will admit, but other family members will confirm that coming up here to St Trinit is a peculiar treat, for us at any rate. I have a small, earlier archive to remind me why we rate this locale…

We will return, in summer maybe, when the lavender is in flower, and suck up the colour and scents accordingly. 

My public (might) have asked for earlier snaps! These were taken some years back:

postcard: mollans revisited

 

the tyranny of the poles

 

WELL, OF COURSE Le Géant is closed at this time of year. Gated most often. But after the obligatory mooch through Bedoin’s Monday Market, after getting a BiB of Ventoux rouge, and after sinking coffee and croissants in the aforementioned town’s market square, we nevertheless set off up the hill. 

We got as far as Chalet Reynard, and then on up to the barrier above that – where we parked, booted up and set off up the D794 on foot. True, the barrier was raised but only to allow heavy lorries bringing down the dispiriting dump of old tarmac, displaced concrete and rubble (from the gentrification of Ventoux I have had occasion to discuss in earlier posts) safely and without impediment of motorised visitors – to where the detritus was being redeposited at Chalet R to ostensibly extend the already outsize car park. Other ascenders included the odd rogue Belgian, half a dozen two wheel mental-cases and a bloke on a moped or was it an electric bike. Two service vans went up and down aussi. To change a light bulb or some such. 

There were no other walkers ahead or behind us. It was just us and the mountain. Each member of our party was sunken and alone in their own thoughts as they toiled up the relentless slope. Counting steps. Struggling to gulp enough oxygen into their lungs from the thinning air. Would it go? Was this the day we would summit? Would we get back down in time for lunch? 

Luckily the idea of going all the way to the top was not openly or extensively discussed until we were well up the hill and only then, as the roadside snow became appreciable, did the issue break surface, come to the fore. There were doubts expressed (in a kindly manner) as to our stamina levels, whether my back and legs would hold up, etc etc, but we persevered, eventually concluding that we could at least put two of our party on the summit cairn. Mme Melling thought she would sit out the last bit up the rocky stretch, off the road, so Dr G and self took off in one last superhuman effort, to try to top out. Needless to say, when we arrived in the vicinity of the Family Seat, Mme M was already there, having ‘nipped’ up the road. Sneeky. 

Thankfully there was only a slight breeze on our ascent and only a slightly stronger zephyr on the top. It was quite chilly. As previously commented there were but a half dozen or so of the cycling persuasion toiling on the slopes, those service vehicles and the Belgian party in a small white car, unable to read road closed notices. Yes, lorries passed up and down carting the aforementioned spoil, but there were but three of them and we always stepped aside to allow them free passage both on our assent and descent and on theirs.

Our endeavour was worth it. Family Seat was confirmed as still extant, snapped for the nth time, the lip curled at the misuse of summit concrete etc. including those steps I vowed never to set foot on, now usefully employed to aid our return to lower altitudes… Two hours up and one hour down. Dr G opined that there were over 600 yellow and black poles marking the road to the topmost tarmac. I am not in a position to confirm or correct her assertion. I do know that they were an unrelenting presence, unsurprisingly in both directions, up and down. And that I photographed again post 225, the post I first walked to as a maximum upward excursion from the motor of the day at the first closed barrier visit way back in the early 2000s or was it late 1900s. I was a young man then, still green, still moderately fit >sob<. 

As road walks uphill go, this trek, strictly in sans traffic conditions, is both fairly easy and full of interest: not something you’ll hear me admit to very often about road walking up hill. 

I shall not, nevertheless, be doing it again. You read it here first, and that’s official. Until the next time at least. Future guests at this address take note.