Travelling by campervan through the French countryside in Spring is to live life at heavenly pace.
With my first pot of wildflowers; cowslips, speedwell, daisies and muscari, tucked into a non spillage situation, we set off down to Vėzelay. This quiet, little town is built on the top of a hill with nice views of the surrounding countryside. We strolled up to the UNESCO listed Basilica St Magdalene which seems hugely out of proportion with the surrounding buildings below, but it is beautifully refined inside. We searched about for a gargoyle that it is reported to look much like Jim Morrison (The Doors) with his tongue hanging out, but couldn’t find it amongst the enormous number there. However we did find the extremely old relics of St Mary Magdalene which are kept down in the crypt under the quire section of the building. So far this year we seem to be visiting cathedrals with the relics of saints. At Amiens there are relics of St John the Baptist, though we didn’t see them as they were closed for the day.
Back down outside the town gates we tucked in to delicious ‘Les Formules’ three-course lunches at the ‘A La Fortune Du Pot’ restaurant. For those of you still interested in food, we both had the cheese tart with salad for starter. Rodney followed this with a Boeuf Bourguignon and then an apple tart, while I had the Poulet ‘Gaston Gerard’ (chicken in a mustard cream sauce) and followed mine with a smooth chocolate mousse. All very delicious but we’re back to wondering why the French consider themselves great chefs and connoisseurs of good food, yet they always cremate their vegetables, or mush them in to ratatouille; my poor beans were flopping off the plate as usual.
From Vėzelay we drove through Clamecy, Varzy and past Nevers. We passed the Magny-Cours grand prix racing circuit; there didn’t seem to be any action going on, so we continued south past Moulins and through Billy, which had a spectacular ruined castle set above the village. Tonight’s halt was just south of Vichy in Camping Croix St Martin, where we absorbed two episodes of Downton Abbey before sleeping soundly for another night.
The next morning we drove through the hillside town of Thiers and then along the twisting turning road to Boën, it wasn’t an easy drive, but it was lovely to finally see an abundance of tree blossom, tulips and daffodils blooming. From Boën we again turned south, passed around Montbrison, through St Just St Rambert ( I thought they were being greedy claiming two saints, but apparently it is two villages that merged together and joined the two names as one) and then down to Firminy for a picnic lunch by the river Loire. Rodney was a bit tired of bendy roads at this point, so we picked up the N88 motorway for a little while, before turning off on to more snaking roads through Montfaucon en Velay, Tence and down to St Agreve. We glimpsed snow on a distant peak as we drove through St Pal de Mons and then as we turned on to the D15 near Mars (did we travel that far today ?!!!!) the view of Mont Mezenc was beautiful.
At one point we stopped so that I could pick some wild daffodils, though I felt a little guilty doing so. But then, as we drove around the next bend there was a herd of older people picking huge bunches of them! My guilt went out of the window.
Finally we raided a teller machine in St Agreve before continuing on a road still studded with hair-pin bends to stop at Camping de Retourtour in Lamastre.
