the joys of returning

Saturday: THERE IS LITTLE LEFT TO TELL. We are away once more from our Castelnaudary stop over before daylight has fully taken hold but despite varying our route a little, still fail to find an open bar (or any closed ones) for our breakfast coffee (no food, please – no sandwiches – I could not touch a crumb) in any of the rather dowdy Minervois roadside villages we pass through. My assertion that there will be nothing before Capestang once more rings true. At least there, we know from past experiences, there will be at least two bars pleased to see and supply us. And so it comes to pass. Good old Capestang. We can sit outside with grand crêmes and take our ease one last time on this voyage!

By now Mme Melling thinks it is time to check out the lie of the land in Sablet, so uses the marvel of her smart phone to fire off a message to fellow Sabletonians already ensconced and announce our approach to PACA84. The intelligence flashes back– it is raining heavily in Sablet, but notwithstanding, would we like to sup with the Roberts upon arrival? You bet we would. We of course are sitting out under blue skies but I am keen to engage with precipitation (I am known as a lover of a good downpour, me) so we ship out of good old Capers, in the Beziers direction, with the Mediterranean glittering in the distance, to where we pick up the A9, toll notwithstanding, and head off in the direction of Orange. The autoroute is but moderately busy and once we have our ultimate destination closer at hand we feel less inclined to go wandering off in the direction of Uzès, as originally planned. Needless to say, and as foretold, the skies are of a threatening aspect – we are soon under falling rains and into flying spray. Add to this an almighty clogging up of the autoroute just before we are supposed to slip road off it, and the ensuing chaos at the Orange toll barrier due to folk trying to get past whatever obstruction is bringing the A9 to a standstill, by leaving it —well, it delays us. 

No matter! We get some milk and butter and arrive at 1rueFB at 1300 hours precisely. The rain has stopped and the sun is out: all is well and supper is just round the corner (thank you Keith and Liz, because by now there may just be a lessening of our antagonism to 'solids'… ) after a good cup of tea, unpacking and opening up, we are ready for Liz's chicken, social intercourse and the general satisfaction of being back in Sabbers reacquainting with other fans of this wee village in the Vaucluse.

F  I  N

footnote: if you just don't have the time or patience for all this twaddle (and yet have somehow reached this spot) you might prefer the simpler yet equally erudite postings of Mme Melling's blog. She gets to the point you see and takes pictures of a more informative kind… here is a link: le blog It's a life choice decision and only you can make it. 

The flowers below were growing in Capestang by the way.  I was taken by their intense blue…

pays basque and east

Friday: CIBOURE, SWEET THOUGH IT BE, is obviously not the Melling/Smith target destination, although this second visit to the settlement confirms an aspiration to spend a longer period of time in the vicinity. Spain is just a few minutes down the road, the Pyrenees overlook the scene, it’s Basque, the food is topping and the coast is mighty fine — it has phare interest albeit not on a particularly epic scale.  

But for now, we need to make tracks.

We are not stop-abeds so are on the road before daybreak. The foothills of the Pyrenees must be addressed. and after all of five miles we peel off our route to partake of croissants and grand crêmes at Ascain, a fully Basque hill-village on our route. After our repast, we obtain bayonne ham and local cheeses in our made-to-order baguettes from the village traiteur (plus a bottle of local cider) and eventually get back on to the switch-back roads east. 

Unfortunately, the golden weather you will have been aware of in the preceding posts of this voyage, well it doesn’t exactly follow us into the hills. It is cloudy, hazy, and mostly dull. No rain as yet. So the long views of the wondrous Pyrenees are denied us. Their majestic profiles loom from time to time but show little of their true robust character. But it is what it is. We stop off in Espelette, a centre of red chilli growing: can you believe, the place has an AOC (Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée for chillies FGS) — they decorate their architecture with them accordingly. I include snaps to confirm this. 

Please note the distinctive venacular style. No rank stonework here, my dears. Basque build is generally crisp, white with ivy-green or ox-blood-red doors, struts and shutters, barge boards etc., under generous snow-competent roofs. We like it very much. Always have. Pity it rains so much. Today it is dry. The second snap is of the post office… they carry through the style you see (and the chillies) even here. I like a good post office, me.

As we follow the twists and turns of thankfully generally quiet roads we encounter a number of flocks of sheep actually on the road (they make fine sheep cheeses all over these lovely hills but they usually graze in the fields hereabouts).

After stopping to lunch at Nay, beyond the reach of the Basque influence now, and which boasts the national museum of berets – they made them here apparently, perhaps still do, why not – we decide that time is once again an issue, so we do the next bit, from Tarbes, on the A64, toll notwithstanding. Not all the way to Castelnaudary you understand, which is where we are booked to lay our heads before the final day of our transfer to 1rueFB.

We arrive at Castelnaudary at a reasonable hour and find our oft mislaid hotel without missing a turn or overshooting a junction. It's been a while since we were here and here we are once more. The hotel is somewhat out of town…

Supper is therefore in an adjacent restaurant, but we’ve eaten here several times now and deem it good. The locals think so too if patronage is anything to go by. 

Let me explain. Castelnaudary is Cassoulet City. Cassoulet is made in quantity here, there are shops that sell it exclusively, they export it, etc. When you fetch up in Castelnaudary (possibly by boat on the Canal-du-Midi) your first thought when it comes to your evening repast (or lunchtime delight, one or other, but not both) is their wondrous local speciality, namely cassoulet. Other dishes may tempt you but when it comes down to it, you know there is but one dish that can truly address your Castelnaudary needs, and that begins with the letter C.

Cassoulet is served up in a traditional brown earthenware bowl in which it is lovingly cooked and is delivered to your table bubbling straight from the oven, under a crust of toasted breadcrumbs. As you may know, it is principally a stew of fat white beans cooked in stock, in concert with confit of duck, goose or pork, sausages and pork fat, nuggets of ham etc, etc. You drink a robust rouge with it and ensure you are famished before starting in.

I’ve managed the individual bowl version on previous occasions, as well as despatching a two servings bowl shared with the son-and-heir heretofore, but tonight we are up against it. I’m surprised that Mme Melling agrees to go for the double but she does and after a passage of time the dish (bowl) is before us. It would definitely satisfy three hungry diners… we order another pichet de rouge…

We almost manage it: I follow through with my second Coupe Colonel of the trip, after the three-quarter empty bowl has been retrieved from our table by the serving staff… but I can tell you now, the Melling/Smith duality do not eat again, even a morsel, for up to twenty four hours thereafter. Satiated, that’s what we are, if slightly overfaced. 

Time was when we'd buy a cassoulet to bring to the residence for supper upon arrival: our small collection of cassoulet bowls, both here and in Blightey attest to this. If you are domiciled in Castelnaudary of course, you take the empty bowl back to your supplier in exchange for your next serving… it's an AOC, naturally! By the way, cassoulets come in all sizes, from individual through to platoon sizes!  They come in tins aussi, but they are a mere shadow of the home cooked variety.

I apologise for not supplying snaps of the feast but the resto was but dimly lit, we sported no cameras – and photographing one's dinner is so yesterday, don't you think? 

aquitaine south

Thursday! 

WE ARE AWAY AT DAWN and after a brief visit to the bassin edge to watch Cap Ferret phare flash out overall in the incoming dawn, it's Route Barrée within minutes. Our plan to drive down past La Dune du Pilat, through Biscarrosse and Biscarrosse Plage are scotched by the terrible and decimating forest fires that raged hereabouts in the summer. Being thus warned by signs and barriers we proceed by various strategies to rejoin our planned route via other roads and by-ways. 

We walk the beach at Vieux-Boucau-les-Bains, a fraction of it at least, and wish for less development and more time to take in the light, the surf and the squeaking sands. We deviate to Plage d'Ondres to eat our acquired sandwiches on the beach where I feel overdressed, it being warm and very surfy! Shoes! Jeans! And rather an oldie……sucks. And if that wasn't bad enough, Biarritz has two 'rs' and I've used only one in the montage below. You'll note I have not done anything about it though… don't tell me about the accent on the word jetée being missed off either unless you want to get a bad word back! 

CapBreton supplies the last sniff of a lighthouse, but I am not fooled. Only feux I fear. The little stone tower has been inactive for quite a while; the light a few metres seaward has taken over the green flashing and now the tower remains as an oddity. It is covered though, in The Lighthouse Directory, if you need chapter and verse . . . 

Mme Melling eschews my proposal to bypass Bayonne and Biarritz on the A63 and directs us right through both on ‘normal’ roads. Not too bad, in parts… At some time in the afternoon en route we try in vain to visit the St Jean-de-Luz coastal headland feux… the only car park up there is fully patronised and we give up, then thrash about a bit through roadworks and illogical slip roads to try to get to our hotel, eventually succeeding and here we are in Ciboure. It is a joy! Of course, this too is the subject of a rather good post in my Pharesighted blog but just in case you can’t be fussed enough to visit nay, revisit that worthy description, I conclude this post with Ciboure and St Jean images, as well as distant views of Socoa, the last proper phare before the Spanish border, visited before but not this time.

The stripe of tone on the Socoa montage is in sympathy with the identifying mark that Socoa sports, i.e. a black vertical stripe. That sort of cross reference is a demonstration of designerly engagement with the subject in hand, an aspiration I still try to adhere to, despite the almost total lack of any form of encouragement from my public. One might almost feel one’s efforts are going completely unnoticed. 

I am trying you know . . . very trying, go on , say it — I know, I know…

NB There is an error in the labelling below: St Jean de Luz FGS, not 'du'. Twice as well! 

 I apologise but cannot be bothered to change it.

médoc meander

Wednesday: WE LEAVE LA ROCHELLE BEFORE DAY BREAK to get to the Royan – Pointe-de-Grave ferry in good time. It is a glorious day. We breakfast on said ferry and arrive in Médoc feeling fit to go. Sadly Pointe-de-Grave Phare Postérieur (below) itself looks really tatty: all the white paint seems to have fallen off, or is it being rubbed down for a re-spray?

We pass by without calling in this time. 

After an uplifting Pointe end review of distant Cordouan, and of the various markers that punctuate the Pointe, our first specified target is to visit the St Nicolas Feu Antérieur, overlooked if not exactly spurned as a mere feu hitherto, but now enticing, to fill in the gap in our awareness, as previously described in  that Pharesighted post….. as you will no doubt be calling to mind. No? 

Here’s the linkagain: pointe de grave …now amended accordingly. 

Saint Nicolas Feu takes a bit too long to locate, we are slipping, but we find it, snap it, and move on. Sweet and still active! The nudist beach in front of it is indeed nude: i.e. it is sans bathers and sun worshippers, nude or otherwise.

We are going down the Gironde side of Médoc this time, clipping the edges of some very renowned Bordeaux vineyards rather than through the woods that clothe so much of Aquitaine. Leaving aside the town where is purchased a single filled baguette and where Mme Melling is enchanted by a romanesque church with a modern tower affixed, we now move on to visit and inspection of the first inactive Gironde estuary lighthouse of the day, namely the Pointe de Richard Phare, relegated to act as a museum and a focal point on this impressive stretch of estuary. Remember, the Gironde is the largest estuary in Europe! It is spiffing. Ships pass up and down, but manage without the reassuring flicker of Fresnels. It’s the same on the Seine: Phares & Balises have decided that if you are sailing up or down a navigable river then you don’t need lighthouses these days. Shame, foolish even, but there you are.

Two more such abandoned lights are encountered before we head into the trees. One in the river and the other on an island in the river. Read them up if you like: The Lighthouse Directory covers these sad relics and explains the tripod phare that preceded the more standard structure that became the last Phare de Richard. What a loss to lighthouse variety, does no one value ingenuity?

Cheer up! After some miles and many many stands of roadside pines, we see at last, signposts pointing out the way to the epic Cap Ferret and its legendary lighthouse. Hurrah! We’ve varied our longitudinal journey to move to the west coastal fringe of Aquitaine you see, because our next hotel is on the south side of the Bassin de Arcachon. But first a diversion!

We don’t go up the edifice, we’ve done that before… I don’t fancy queueing behind tourists of a certain age to struggle up to the lantern, because I am one such tourist myself, preferring to keep my stair-climbing struggles private, where possible. But we do take our chance to capture Cap Ferret’s likeness once more: it certainly looks as though it has been in receipt of fresh paint in the not too distant past. Smart! 

My Pharesighted blog naturally sports a post concerning this famous phare and should you have never absorbed that post, I generously offer you a chance to make amends by employing this link: aquitaine: cap ferret … you know you want to…

It’s nearly always worth going out of one’s way to visit a phare, of course it is, even if you’ve scored it before, but the resulting trek to our Bassin-de-Arcachon south side hotel is slow, long and yes, tedious. The traffic my dear. How many roundabouts, traffic lights and speed bumps do communities need? Come off it!! Jeeeez. We pay for our visit in the traffic and the road right round the bally bassin… it takes an age! 

Oblivious to the energy sapping exertions of getting to this comfortable but improbably sited hotel, Mme Melling drags her incumbent out into the mean streets of La Teste-de-Buch in search of an eatery she’s researched on the internet. Needless to say the principle establishment she has identified only serves lunches (didn't read the small print) so we end up on a roof overlooking the port at the second choice. Lovely evening and a very busy resto, hardly surprising, it seems the only place for miles and we are on foot. We choose tapas. One of Mary’s choices proves to be out of stock so almost absent mindedly and without further reference to the menu she substitutes octopus. We are well in to our other tapas when this latter choice arrives. Whole. Barbequed. Cut into bite size chunks before our very eyes. 

Octopus is a no-no in Mme Melling’s book as this cephalopod is deemed to be too intelligent and beautiful to eat . . . It is delicous. We eat it all we eat well. The price proves to be a bit of a fright but then everything is, with the pound dropping like a stone once more, just because we came on holiday . . . Nevertheless, it is unlikely we will order it again, given our sensitivities towards this noble monarch of the sea-bed. And the price.

aquitaine and the long way round

OUR TRANSFER TO PACA84 VAUCLUSE, IN THE EARLY DAYS OF AUTUMN '22 is by way of an indulgence of a fondness we have for that sweep of the coast down the west side of France, all the way to where it gives it over to Spain. Not our usual track, a bit out of the way, but we fancy it and so that’s what we set out to do.

Let me be clear: this is not a travelogue, so I am not about to chunter on, but once more we find the Roscoff to La Rochelle first leg, supposedly on the quieter roads, less than satisfactory. Lots of factors intervene: I shall not detain you with them here.

We get off to a good enough start I think, by revisiting La Lande, a phare that sits atop a hill overlooking the Rade de Morlaix, and featured in my ramblings concerning this lovely stretch of water and islands, in my Pharesighted Blog.

We want to see this tower again, preferably not in a downpour this time, and we do this. No visits offered or undertaken: the light is on strictly private property but we walk around the site as best we can. We have a good coffee and croissants in nearby Loquénolé, after which we traverse Morlaix and get on the road……

Hours later we fetch up at La Roche Bernard quayside for our very late scratch lunch (we failed on sandwich aquisition, the crêperie is closed); we scrap plans to use the chain ferry option near Nantes and go over the Loire via the St Nazaire bridge, as usual but conscious of the lateness of the hour.

I’ll leave it at that. Suffice to say La Rochelle is almost gridlocked when we do enter the town and it's been pretty much nose-to-tail all the way from Le Roche-sur-Yon for some reason. I could spit real tacks over the Routes Barrées encountered.

The familiar hotel is a relief even though the lift is cordoned off, while the restaurant next door answers our nutritional requirements most adequately; but oh dear, the first day off the boat does not get any easier. Yes, of course one could pick up autoroutes etc, but we’ve come to renew our aquaintance with the country. Trouble is there are so many ‘Routes Barrées. And vague deviations therefrom, usually taking one kilometres out of one's way. Aquitaine is still down the road right now, we are still Charente Maritime tonight.

What is going on?