{"id":1673,"date":"2013-04-16T18:27:50","date_gmt":"2013-04-16T17:27:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/?p=1673"},"modified":"2026-05-26T04:54:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-26T03:54:08","slug":"spring-has-sprung","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/2013\/04\/16\/spring-has-sprung\/","title":{"rendered":"Spring Has Sprung"},"content":{"rendered":"

Travelling by campervan through the French countryside in Spring is to live life at heavenly pace.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

With my first pot of wildflowers; cowslips, speedwell, daisies and muscari, tucked into a non spillage situation, we set off down to V\u0117zelay. \u00a0This quiet, little town is built on the top of a hill with nice views of the surrounding countryside. \u00a0We 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. \u00a0We searched about for a gargoyle that it is reported to look much like Jim Morrison (The Doors) with his tongue hanging out, but couldn\u2019t 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.\u00a0 \u00a0So far this year we seem to be visiting cathedrals with the relics of saints. \u00a0At Amiens there are relics of St John the Baptist, though we didn\u2019t see them as they were closed for the day.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"The
The Basilica St Magdalene<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

Back down outside the town gates we tucked in to delicious \u2018Les Formules\u2019 three-course lunches at the \u2018A La Fortune Du Pot’ restaurant.\u00a0 For those of you still interested in food, we both had the cheese tart with salad for starter.\u00a0 Rodney followed this with a Boeuf Bourguignon and then an apple tart, while I had the Poulet \u2018Gaston Gerard\u2019 (chicken in a mustard cream sauce) and followed mine with a smooth chocolate mousse.\u00a0 All very delicious but we\u2019re 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.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"A
A Franciscan nun outside the town hall<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

From V\u0117zelay we drove through Clamecy, Varzy and past Nevers. We passed the Magny-Cours grand prix racing circuit; there didn\u2019t 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.\u00a0 Tonight\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

The next morning we drove through the hillside town of Thiers and then along the twisting turning road to Bo\u00ebn, it wasn\u2019t an easy drive, but it was lovely to finally see an abundance of tree blossom, tulips and daffodils blooming. From Bo\u00ebn 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Mont
Mont Mezenc<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

At one point we stopped so that I could pick some wild daffodils, though I felt a little guilty doing so.\u00a0 But then, as we drove around the next bend there was a herd of older people picking huge bunches of them!\u00a0 My guilt went out of the window.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\"The
The West Front of the Basilica St Magdalene<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 V\u0117zelay. \u00a0This quiet, little town is built on the top of a hill with nice views of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1675,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1673","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-europe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1673","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1673"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1673\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8418,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1673\/revisions\/8418"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1675"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}