Wednesday 30 May 2018

Flower power and Spanish Masters

Tuesday 29th May



Carrieres de Lumieres. This place is on our list every visit to France. The first time here we saw Klimt, the next time Chagall, and this year is is Picasso and the Spanish Masters. We hit the place at opening time 9.30 and spent the next 2 hours mesmerised by the exhibition.


The support act to Picasso was called Flower Power and it had me hooked from the moment it started with the music, Simon and Garfunkels Sounds of Silence. This was only a 10 minute show and included excerpts of music from Beach Boys, Rolling Stones, Beatles and others. Loved it!!!




I didn't recognise a lot of the artwork from the Spanish masters, but the production of the show keeps you enthralled with all the colour and movement and music. Wonderful!





By the time we left there were quite a few buses of tourists and schoolkids so we picked our time well. Not sure that the busload of Japanese tourists got the full experience - they were in and out in 10 minutes.

Now we are in Marseille for 4 nights. Rob is in search of a good bouillabaisse but so far neither google nor tripadvisor have given me the perfect answer. I think it is going to have to be potluck.

Tuesday 29 May 2018

Not for the faint hearted!

Monday 28th May

We woke this morning to rain and thunder and lightning and the forecast was for rain all day. Not a good day to be looking at views but that was what was on the agenda.

The plans for our day changed last night when we picked up a couple of brochures in the hotel. Firstly, we'd seen a program on tv at home about building some of the world's best bridges, and one of them, the Viaduc du Millau was only 50k up the road; not quite the planned direction, but hey, why not? I let Dora choose the roads out of town - big mistake. She took us via a very narrow and winding road. It looks ok on a map because in one inch of road you can't see the 7365 bends and the up hill and down dale,  or the width of the road, and of course what goes up must come down which is the bit I hate. The only thing that pleased me was the Col ouvert (pass open) sign as we headed up the mountain.

Pretty impressive to come around the corner and there it is in front of you.
Viaduc du Millau - tallest pylon 343m, length 2,400m in 8 spans.
Height above ground 270m. Cost 320million euro +.

Sorry photos aren't great but it was raining
and taken through car windscreen.


Another brochure, and another detour to a place called Cirque de Navacelles. Absolutely amazing! Photos just won't do this place justice. We had lunch at a restaurant overlooking the 'crater' as the fog and cloud moved in and out. Just stunning. After lunch we drove down to the bottom - down 300m via another very narrow and winding road. So glad we didn't meet anything coming the other way because someone was going to have to back up.



This 'crater' has been created over thousands of years via water erosion
from the Vis river that flows through here.
It has left a small patch of arable land
which is the only fertile land for miles around.
This is in the middle of 'national park' type land.

View from the viewpoint at the top looking down 300m.

This is a view back on the road as we headed up the other side.
There is one road going in that is actually 2 way
but so narrow you'd have to back up if another car came.
We drove down hugging the corners, then out the road
that goes up the other side which is slightly wider.
This is the tiny village at the bottom
- a long way to go when you run out of milk.
A lovely waterfall on the Vis river.
There was someone there fishing but I'm guessing he was a local
because it's a heck of a long way to go for a feed of fish.



I've read up a bit on this since we went there yesterday and glad I didn't read it before we went. A lot of websites suggest not driving in because of the dangerous road, but I'm not a walker, so drive or nothing for me. It was a miserable day but the French love a good walk and there were lots of them about. And those who don't walk ride pushbikes and there were lots of those on the road too.

From here it was on to Nimes, our next overnight stop. Dora did it again, every bitumenised narrow goat track in sight was the road she picked. Average speed over the 80k left to travel was almost down around the 30kph - thankfully that picked up after around 40k and we were on almost straight, and wider roads.

Carcassone has it's own Yellow Peril

Sunday 27th May

It is Mothers Day here in France so a lot of families are out celebrating. Bonne fetes des meres to all mums.

Moving on today via Carcassone. The castle is still mind blowing - even with its yellow paint. Apparently it is some sort of art installation??? We didn't visit the medieval city again this time but instead wandered across the old bridge on the river that is now a pedestrian bridge. The wildflowers were in bloom all along the river.

I had to google to find out about the yellow.
Its supposed to show as concentric circles if you are standing in the right spot.
Nup! Doesn't do  anything for me.


These poppies were huge.

The main entrance to Carcassone - busloads of tourists kept arriving.

This building was at one end of the bridge.
Note the flood level mark in 1891.


Followed along the Canal du Midi for a few kilometres hoping to see some of the locks in action. Not happening here - they take a lunchbreak from 12 to 1 and we hit there just after 12. We continued to follow the canal hoping to find somewhere for lunch and eventually found a lovely restaurant on the canal front at La Redorte. As we ate lunch we could see clouds building and hear the distant rumble of thunder. Thankfully no rain eventuated as we ate lunch.

Canal boats in Trebes

This was one of a triple lock set - out to lunch.
The boats just wait - they were queueing up in the river.
Mother's Day lunch - well its going to be soon.
Prawns for me were yummo and Rob had mixed grill which was also good.

Parking was at a premium here so we parked the French way
- half on the footpath and on a corner.
We decided to head to our hotel via the town of Olargues which is in one of our beautiful villages in France book. This one turned out to be another stunner with its narrow laneways, crooked buildings and beautiful stone work. We also managed to get our first cherries for the season here.

Olargues - we love to wander around these beautiful villages. 
Up and down and in and out;
you never know what's hiding around the next corner.







After that it was straight through to our accommodation for the night. Well, what a find. As we drove up the narrow twisting road into the hills above the town of Lodeve, I was thinking 'Oh, no. What have I done?'. But what a room with character we had, looking over the whole town. This was a B&B with 4 guest rooms and the owners were lovely hosts. We'd scouted the town on the way through searching for dinner but found nothing so decided we'd just have to eat at the hotel. For me, I'd say it was one of the nicest meals I've had this time around in France.
A room with character...

...and a view from the terrace.

Monday 28 May 2018

A windy, winding way.

Friday 25th May

Today was a taste of Australia day.

Rob has been doing French classes at U3A the past 12 months or so and a couple who also do the classes have a house here in France, not far from where we are. We went to visit them for lunch and had a lovely day. Their house is in a lovely location, right in the heart of a tiny village, but a close drive to all services in a few directions. Such a peaceful feeling place. You can see they have done a lot of work in the house and garden and have many plans in front of them.

After lunch it was home to pack ready to move on tomorrow. We will be sad to leave here - it has been a very relaxing week in a beautiful area.

Not quite the Aussie style bbq.
Seemed to take forever to cook but was very nice.
Saturday 26th May

On the move again, heading 200k south towards Carcassonne. Today I left the route up to Dora rather than tell her via this or that place. She certainly provided us with an interesting drive with a mix of main, secondary, tertiary and other roads. We wound in and out of forests, through farmland mostly wheat crops, through vineyards, and tiny little villages. Every now and then we would spy a chateau perched on a hill but we bypassed most of them as we had a bit of distance to cover.






We finally did stop at a village we saw on a hill. A bit of a detour that had Dora replotting like mad, but what a beautiful medieval village we found. We wandered in and out and around the lanes of the village. The wind was blowing a gale up there and Rob had to chase down his hat - as we've always said, if you get views, you get the wind.

The second entry gate to the village of Puycelsi.

Wandering the laneways. Love all the stone work.
This village was from the 14th century.



The tiny chapel.
The painting on the ceiling in this church was fabulous
- Rob lay on the floor for a photo!
One for the cat lovers.

We passed on lunch here as it was expensive and not a lot of choice, and half an hour later we found the town of Lisle sur Tarn. This was a lovely town also with some very interesting timber and angles on the buildings. We ordered hamburgers with the meat between medium rare and well done - didn't  have the right french words, but managed to convey what we wanted. Blow me, while we were waiting I heard the waitress speak to a fellow in English about his dog (schnauzer), and we found out that she was actually English. The waiter there was interested that we were Australian as he plans to go to Australia in September.

Buildings around the town square in Lisle sur Tarn.



It was blowing a gale most of the rest of our trip, strong enough to push the car around on the road. We saw on the news tonight that there were heavy hail storms in the southwest that caused a lot of damage to crops and vineyards.

As we got closer to our overnight stop here in Castelnaudary we could see the Pyrenees in the distance - still snow covered in places. We won't be going any closer this trip, but in 2 weeks we will be in the french alps. It will be interesting to see how much snow there is there.

Have a look at this on a big screen - maybe you can see the snow.