Wednesday April 30th Marseillan Plage

After our arrival yesterday we took the dogs for an evening spin on the beach. It’s amazing, it’s like having your own private beach. The dogs get to tear around and exhaust themselves and we are confronted with the glittering blue med before us. It’s beautiful.

We are grateful that our neighbours witnessed the fact that Norm is in fact alive and breathing as he does his best impression of a stuffed dead dog after all his beach exertions: or perhaps as a result of an overly exuberant booting for (more) excessive barking and general delinquent behaviour (that’s my job Norm, leave it out) you decide.

The weather here is somewhat erratic, there are warnings of winds up to 100kmh and sure enough we are feeling them! The campsite is blustery and Valerie is actually being rocked by the gusts. (Honest) Oddly though the sky remains clear and if you can find a sheltered spot on the beach it’s baking. 

Everybody gets a bit sunburnt and Moo has managed to go lame on both front legs. Thank goodness we’re not moving anytime soon! Sadly Norm is unaffected by any of the conditions the rest of us face and continues to be a pest. Although you can’t help but love him. (Git)

We attempt a bit of fishing, but we are out on the point and the wind is too fearsome, we do catch a wee fish, but we were hoping for something a little larger – or even lunch. There’s one guy here with 7 rods out so there must be some serious stuff to be had. Perhaps try again when the wind drops a bit.

We do a bit of exploring of Marseillan plage itself. We are coming back here at the beginning of June to meet some friends and family and we are trying to scout out all the best bits.

Herewith our discoveries so far… Lard… we’ll see you at the bar! Plus an idea of your digs….

Marseillan plage itself is yet to hit full swing, being off season still, but there are all the things you would expect of a resort like this. There is the main drag with fish restaurants, cocktail bars, terraces and all your standard seaside shops. Beware the prices of the clothes though, Noush is tempted by a little white bikini only to discover it costs €60! Bearing in mind it is little bigger than a folded up napkin it seems rather pricey. Why not just go to the nudist beach down the way. Well, apparently, someone told me, you understand. (Now, where are my binoculars?) [Hanging off your bicycle handlebars you perv].

The supermarket ain’t cheap either, but then that’s to be expected. Best to travel to LIDL and stock up before you get here. On the upside there are fishmongers who are reasonably priced and the restaurants do some good deals.

There’s a train service that goes from here to Beziers, Sete and Montpelier but as yet we’ve been too idle to go and explore. Perhaps we shall scout something out for Mayday celebrations.. watch this space. 

Wednesday April 30th La Redorte to the coast!

We make an early start today despite our wine tasting last night; always a sign of good wine when you don’t feel broken the next morning! We manage to find the worst aire ever in Ouveillan, thankfully we’ve only stopped there to empty the poo tank and have a quick bit of brunch, but even 20 minutes was too long. The access is very narrow, made worse by construction going on all around the entrance and a semi route barre at the entrance, but what really tops it off is some total plonker who has parked his camper in the turning circle. He stands outside his van grinning at everyone who is having to perform 50 point urns around him to get in and out. We’d like to think he’s broken down – hence his choice of parking spot. We fear that if he hasn’t broken down, he may well be encountering some serious problems in the near future…. Even Noush has got no small degree of rage at his stupidity. Resisting the urge to empty the poo tank in slightly the wrong place we leave. Serenely of course. Jon noticed he was German and put it down to the football, obviously.

We are off to Beziers today, or at least that was the plan. When we arrive at the quay-side aire we are somewhat disappointed. Construction seems to be the order of the day today and the aire is bang next to a site. Again. It’s not all it’s built up to be. Ahem.  The roads here are appalling and after half an hour of spine jangling driving we decide that Beziers can wait and we head towards the coast. Today is not going well, the aire we’ve ear marked on the coast is not only full, but also rubbish. It must be rubbish aire day today. After scouting about a bit we decide we need some pampering and bail into a campsite on Marseillan Plage. This turns out to be a magnificent decision. We have “tombee dans” Beauregard Plage, direct access to the beach, shady, private, dog friendly and peaceful. We park up and make a pact not to move for a few days. 

Tuesday April 29th Routier to La Redorte - Les Penitents Bleus (our first French Passion!) via Carcassonne.

We pass a very quiet night, this place has been a really quiet little gem of an aire.  Tonight sees us doing a small skip down the road to our first French Passion . We have been sort of avoiding them so far because they have been mostly Foie Gras producers or farms because of the regions we’ve been traveling through and animals mean Norm barking incessantly. But Les Penitents Bleus is a wine producer situated on the banks of the canal midi. It sounds perfect. Despite only being 40k or so away from where we stopped last night the landscape begins to change again… vines start marching away as far as the eye can see and we are on relative flat lands with the Pyrenees to one side and the Grand Massif looming away to the other.

We make a brief detour into Carcassonne to dip a toe into the fortress walls and see a little of the city. It really is breath-taking, but even at this time of year the old streets are very crowded and it makes for difficult passage with the dogs. Especially when it transpires that Norm is scared of medieval pageant type people beating drums! We flee to the relative sanctuary of the city proper and restore ourselves at the fabulously French Café Felix. The city is a strange combination of modern, ancient, beautiful and grotty. While Carcassonne is a must see it’s not somewhere we find ourselves wanting to spend too much time. With a quick zoom through an open air gallery after Café Felix we head back to Valerie to continue on to La Redorte.

With fortuitous timing we arrive at Les Penitents Bleus on the heels of one of the owners: Solange. There is only one other camper here and Solange makes us feel very welcome telling us to park up and enjoy the sun and giving us directions to the local town (La Redorte) should we want to go for a mooch. The dogs are allowed out and immediately take themselves off for a frolic down the canal which is about 10 metres away by fields of vines. It’s beautiful and completely quiet. And sunny! Solange leaves us to it with a parting invitation to join them for a wine tasting in the evening. Oh, if we must, but what a bloody inconvenience, really! If all French Passions are like this then it’s hard to believe anybody would stay anywhere else. Or indeed be able to leave capable of getting out of the parking space.  

We pass a lovely afternoon tinkering with Valerie and lazing in the sun. We take a walk and Michel (Solange’s husband) gives us sneaky snicket directions through the vineyards to La Redorte. The town is really charming, but quite quiet when we get there. There’s a slightly incongruously deluxe hotel which looks amazing, but perhaps La Redorte wasn’t quite ready for the uber glamour it exudes as it appears to be up for sale. We wander back in the evening sun, ready for food and collapso. Upon arrival back at Valerie we start cooking only to be kidnapped for the wine tasting - life is such a drag sometimes! We sample Michel and Solange’s selection of their produce, a variety of whites, reds and roses. They are all yummy and the other campers who have joined us all get stuck in with enthusiasm. We buy 5 litres of red for €10 and retreat to Valerie to salvage dinner and sample our purchase. Everything delish, we love French Passion! Thank you to our lovey hosts J

Monday April 28th Albi to Routier via very inhospitable Lac des Montagnes nr Mazamet.

After our interlude in such a beautiful city we feel sufficiently restored to head back out to the wilds again. We earmark Lac des Montagnes near Mazamet. Apparently there is an aire there, it’s only 6km away from the town itself and the Lake looks beautiful.

Once again the weather is not on our side, neither are the French roads. Mazamet is a weird little place which we don’t particularly take to, but we find a LIDL and despite the sheeting rain and thick fog decide to head to the Lake anyway. Perhaps we’ll break through the cloud layer a little higher and emerge into glorious sunshine….?? So… the road we need to take is closed. There’s a diversion, we are heading towards Carcassonne ultimately over the next couple of days so we have no option but to take the diversion, even though they don’t say how long it is  - or where in fact it goes. A quick check on the map reveals that there isn’t another way around anyway, and the only road the diversion can follow doesn’t look too long at all. Oh how wrong we can be!

The diversion snakes up and and up into the never ending layer of fog. The roads get more narrow and more twisty and the drop into the gorge gets ever more hair raising. On we go. Couldn’t turn around even if we wanted to! For such a narrow road there are an enormous amount of old factories, some of which seem to still be in use. They predominantly seem to be tanneries of some description, specialising in leather and pelts. It is strange to see them looming out of the gorge, suspended over the river and seemingly completely inaccessible. Wouldn’t fancy being a trucker down these roads, perhaps they transport it all by river? 18 winding kilometres later we reach the lake. Or we think we do, can’t see hands in front of face at this point in time. 

One of the main reasons we chose here was because you can replenish with water – we are running low. However… we are slapped in the face with a big old hit of French Irony in that despite this lake being a reservoir the aire itself is seemingly defunct. It will not dispense any water. So, with water sheeting from the sky onto the reservoir in front of us we leave empty handed. We simply cannot stay with no water and to be honest, the weather is pretty prohibitive!

We scarper and try and find a back up aire that’s not too far. We land in Routier, which, thankfully is sunny and serene. There are 360 degree views from our little birds nest eyrie of an aire.

The water is free, there’s even free leccy but the plug is out-dated (beware campers) and ours won’t fit. Nonetheless we snuggle down, watching the black cloud bank we have just escaped move further away from us across the horizon. Thank you Routier. 

Sunday April 27th/Monday 28th Albi

Noush falls instantly in love with Albi. Perhaps it’s the sense of history about the place, or the culture on offer, or the fact that it’s such a romantic blend of French and Italian. Either way she ain’t moving. It’s gale force ten and throwing it down still, the sun has fled, but the wife is having a rhino Norm moment.

We take a tour around the Cathedral, which is the most imposing building externally and tardis like. It’s ENORME when you get in. It’s astonishing. The austere exterior: “a militant-style of architecture” and the largest brick built cathedral in the world (thanks guide book), leaves you completely unprepared for the lushness of the interior.

It’s as an impressive Cathedral both inside and out as we’ve seen.

Later in the evening the weather lifts and we take a stroll around Albi itself. It’s just amazing. All of it. The river Tarn runs through it, even through the heart of the Episcopal City (UNESCO World Heritage site since 2010) and old buildings lean towards the cool water on the sides of the old bridge (XI Century), the new bridge (1867 – really new!!) and under the shadow of the Cathedral.

We return very much cultured up and collapse in the van. Ten minutes later we have to move the bloody thing because – AGAIN!! – we have failed to notice that we’ve parked under a tree. This time it isn’t bird poo that’s the problem, but scrapy creepy branch thingies like nightmare fingers. We move all of four foot to the left to avoid them. Grandiose Albi city sophisticates…perhaps not after all.

In the morning we zoom to the Cloisters before we hit the Toulouse Lautrec museum. We stumbled upon the Cloisters while we are sheltering our baguette from the rain. A nearly secret snicket takes us up to there and our sleepy senses are greeted with yet more astonishing hidden treasures. Is this place full of marvels behind every door?

It would seem to be the case as we enter the Bishops Palace which houses a large and permanent collection of the art work of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.

The building itself is incredible enough but the amount of art work is MIND BOGGLING!! We leave, hours later, reeling from cultural overdose and completely brain baffled. People be warned, buy the value ticket thing that gets you discounts to other stuff and spend at least half day in the museum. It’s a treasure trove and deserves to be slowly sampled with care, attention and diligence. Can’t believe the Parisian museums refused his work, hence they were bequeathed to the city of Albi, his birthplace. Lucky Albi. What a collection. Couldn't photograph the artwork, but snuck a photo of a bit of ceiling :)

Sunday April 27th Boisse Penchot To Albi via Villeneuve, Villefranche de Roeurgue, Najac, Lajoupie and Cordes Sur Ciel.

Today is another conspiracy in zooming. We have earmarked a couple of likely stops and a couple of back ups, but we’ve had enough of rain and are determined to outrun it, this results in some grand hops.  Villeneuve is a really pretty little town and on any other day we probably would have stayed. It’s got a tiny old charming centre, with an old bastide thingy and there’s a local football match on and the market is going strong. However, it is still chucking it down. On we go. Villefranche de Roeurgue is also a likely candidate, but parking becomes problematic and nobody can be bothered to tramp into the town and get wet. Imagine trying to drag a rhino out of a bog and you can picture what it’s like trying to get Norm to walk anywhere in the rain. We move on.

The weather looks a bit better further south so we decide to head towards Najac. Najac is indeed beautiful and sunny. We stop for lunch, but the aire is at a bottom of a cliff that we can’t be bothered to walk up to get to amenities (beautiful though the aire is) and our current needs (civilisation!!) aren’t met.

We move on. We take the scenic route via Lajoupie which is really stunning…So stunning that we can’t remember if this is the right picture of it… but you get the gist!

As we travel further south we notice the landscape changing… the med is definitely getting closer, but oddly everything starts to feel and look more Italian rather than French Med. It’s all beautiful.. we zoom past Cordes sur Ciel and it looks pretty jaw dropping. And very Italian. Weird. Have we had one of those sat nav fails you hear about, are we in fact near the Nazionale???

Anyway, we arrive at Albi, well sign posted free aire, perfectly located in the Castelviel district at the foot of the Cathedral. Albi just beautiful.

Friday 25th April to Sunday 27th Boisse Penchot

Il Pleut. A LOT.

We hole up for a couple of days, but the weather prevents play. We had hoped to relax here and enjoy some fishing and some bbqs and geneally take a breather from the road, but there’s not much to do except sleep and try to resist the charms of the local bar. We manage. Mostly. But when we cave in on the second day and end up having a few too many beers with the locals and discussing their frog problems (we tried not to laugh….les ros beef anyone?) we decide that we’ve had enough of the rain and need to leave.

A wonderful aire, and nice area actually, but not so very good in the rain. Bye bye Boisse. Slightly over refreshed, we leave.