On to Italy – 16 July 2010

The Montgenevre pass was just up the road from the fortified town of Briancon, which has guarded the pass for centuries. The old town is delightful to walk around, and have a coffee, and we were entertained with a re-enactment by a brigade of soldiers, who patrolled the town in full 18th century kit and gave a rifle firing demonstration.



The drive over the pass and down through the mountains on the Italian side, was the highlight of the day. The Fort Exille was the Italian counterpart of Briancon. But sadly, after leaving here, the drive settled down to very hot tedium, as we crossed the top of Italy,

Turin was wrapped in heat haze, pollution and traffic fumes so we shrugged of that Turin shroud, and moved on to Milan which unfortunately was mired in motorway madness and men and machines making more, creating mayhem and monotony as we moved maddeningly slowly around the metropolis. It was all compounded by the fact that every Italian in the city seemed to be heading north for the weekend, but eventually we reached our destination – Lake Como. We had no idea what the camping situation was like here, and after getting stuck in the continuous tunnel system above the lake, we were finally able to exit that, and found a campsite right on the water's edge, and were allocated a spot right beside the water. Life seemed to have taken a turn for the better! We were happy to be well away from Milan and it's pollution and heat; temperature gauges we passed during the day had hit the low 40s

From lavender towards the Alps – 15 July 2010

We left our delightful campsite, near a fragrant field of lavender, and visited several other towns on the lavender tour. The best coloured lavender was at Ferrassieres. Workers were out in the field of the richest colour, cutting and bundling lavender to leave it to dry in the sun, one day later and we would have missed this stunning sight.





Photographing lavender is very addictive, but we finally dragged ourselves away, and bought a picnic lunch, which we ate at a at a picnic site overlooking the really stunning hilltop town of Lurs. This town had been abandoned, but since WWII it has been restored, and is a delight to visit, quiet and calm, the tourist throng seem to have bypassed it. As our last taste of lavender, literally, we sat on a terrace in Lurs enjoying the view and a lavender ice cream.

Setting our sat-nav to take us to the border crossing with Italy, at a town called Montgenevre we had no idea what type of road we would be on, but it turned out to be wonderful gorge, with dozens of old stone bridges to cross.

A mountain pass took us over a range to wonderful views over Lac de Serre-Pancon. We unfortunately got stuck behind two logging trucks, as a result of stopping to take photos, but after winding down the mountain to nearly lake level, the sat-nav turned us off the main road (which we assume wound around the lake shore) and instead of the easy road, we had fun winding over the hills to the far end of the lake. Imagine our surprise that, when we reached the main road again, we had to give way to the first of the two logging trucks!

The lake was tempting to camp beside, but we decided to press on further, and eventually camped by a very small lake at Roche de Rame, the temperature of this lake was perfect for swimming, so a good decision.

Start of the Lavender trail – 14 July 2010

While our tent dried out from the heavy dew, we toured south of Avignon to Les Baux. This hilltop town is built among wonderfully shaped rocky outcrops, in an area like a lunar landscape.




The town is cute, clean and quite worth a detour. On the way back to Avignon, we called by St Remy, where Van Gogh spent time in a mental ward, after slicing off his ear.

After packing our now super hot/super dry tent, we headed north-east through wonderful villages like Gordes and Roussillon to Sault, the heart of one of the lavender areas.

Gordes tumbles down a hillside, and we enjoyed our best lunch yet, of strawberry custard pie – delicious, and just outside town, we found our first lavender at the Abbey de Senanque.

Roussillon must be paradise to an artist. The town is built of rich red to vermilion coloured clay, the whole experience was like walking through an impossibly over-the-top film set. We loved it and were reluctant to move on.



The road from there to Sault is fairly uninteresting, but once we drove to the edge of town and looked out, the view of lavender fields is great. We drove through the fields to Mount Ventoux. At 1900m the air is fresh and cold, and the 360 degree view was great, despite the heat haze.

At Sault we picked up a brochure with a selection of lavender tours, but shortly into the drive, we decided to finish tomorrow, and spend the night at a campsite at Montbrun les Bains.

Sur le Pont – 13 July 2010

Today's theme was bridges: Starting with the town we camped in – Le Malene – we drove through the spectacular Tarn Gorge, with many rock arches for the road to wind through, to morning coffee at another bridge town – Les Vignes. The itinerary was planned simply to take us to Millau, but the route itself proved to be a major scenic attraction.



In Millau, we were able to get printed instructions from the Tourist office (no doubt in high demand), to take a trip over the new bridge, which broke a number of records when it was built. A specially built viewpoint has a display about the making of the bridge, and then the drive over the 2.5km length goes all too soon.

Our fourth bridge was Pont du Gard. This section is the most impressive section that remains of the 50km Roman aqueduct, designed to provide water for Nimes. The sun was baking hot by now, and the well presented history of the bridge, construction, and water in Roman times, was a very cool respite from the heat.

Our final destination of the day was Avignon, and of course the Pont, made famous in the nursery rhyme we had learnt in French lessons.

We enjoyed walking around the town in the early evening, watching the performers there for the annual festival of arts, and generally enjoying the atmosphere of a lively buzzing town, before returning to our tranquil campsite and an excellent 3 course meal, the main was duck cooked in a local Provencial way - absolutely delicious.

A Postman's “Castle” - 12 July 2010

Hauterives is the location of the Palais Ideal du Facteur Cheval, our first stop of the day. This creative folly is the work of a postman who collected rocks on his 32km postal round, and over a period of 33 years, built a whimsical folly. Stairways lead up to turrets and vantage points, over the “castle”. All manner of building styles are involved, from Egyptian, Roman & Aztec. The locals considered him slightly mad, but he persevered, and when the local authorities changed their minds about allowing part of his construction to be a mausoleum for himself and his wife he started again, at age 78, and built his own tomb in the local cemetery, using the same type of building style.

Our intended destination was Millau, so we took the scenic route along the Ardeche, and over the mountains. The road was full of hairpin bends, gorges and stunning scenery. Every vehicle (except one) was extremely courteous, and made it easy for us to pass, and we had a brilliant time enjoying various mountain roads.

We were very tempted to stop for the night at at picturesque gorge village of Pont de Mont Verte, but decided it was too far from Millau. So carried on to Florac, over a high mountain switch back road, across a plateau to La Malene. By this time we were only 35 minutes from Millau, so decided we should stop at this very appealing town. The combination of arch bridge and medieval town rising out of the surrounding cliffs, was irresistible. But just as we paid for the campsite, the thunder and lightening moved in, and we put up the outer shell of the tent in an almighty deluge. The extremely heavy rain lasted for at least 30 minutes, and as soon as it stopped, we decided to explore the town for dinner, while the world dried out.

After spending most of the day with pharmacy thermometers registering 36 – 37 deg, we now found ourselves in a muggy 31 degrees, which was not totally adequate to dry everything out. But by the time we had a salad in a local restaurant (while our neighbouring table dined on the most enormous platters of steaks and frittes we have ever seen), the campground had returned to a much drier appearance and we looked forward to seeing it in the morning sunshine.

Hot, hot and hotter – 11 July 2010

The air was delightful and fresh when we emerged from our tent, but it didn't take long to get hot and then progressively hotter through the day, until early in the evening a pharmacy temperature gauge said 35 deg. so it was obviously higher mid-afternoon.

The first stop of the day was Semur-en-Auxois. This town is definitely worth the slight detour. The town tour leaflet from the Tourist Office takes you on a pleasant walk to a viewpoint looking at the town along the Armancon river.

Our goal for the day was Lyon, so we only made one more brief stop in Tournus. This town has a Romanesque Abbey, but not much else. However, the previous day it was the departure point for the Tour de France.

Lyon was only another hour away and our hotel was in the centre of town, and easy walking distance to everything, although 'easy' is not the description we would give to the steep and long walk up to the Basilica in the heat. But the effort was most worthwhile for, initially, the view and then the Basilica interior. This stunning church, totally over-the-top was built to fulfil a vow for deliverance from the invading Prussians. There are other notable buildings in the town, but none as amazing as this.

The Rue St Jean is a must for dinner. We enjoyed delicious salads (Lyonaisse salad is, naturally, a local dish), and the street is lively and interesting; all the more so, as the final of the World Cup was on and dinner was interspersed with cheers and groans from neighbouring bars showing the game.

On our way to Provence – 10 July 2010

Having nearly missed the ferry on our last trip to France because of traffic congestion in Dover, we allowed an extra hour for the queues in Dover only to find no traffic, so sat on the quay for 1.5 hours. For a new experience, we chose a ferry to Dunkirk.

Our intention was to get halfway to Lyon for our first night so chose a campsite in Soulaines-Dhuys. We optimistically set off on the non-toll roads, but after several deviations for closed roads, we realised this was false economy, and joined the excellent motorway toll road system. While driving at speed here, we encountered a violent electrical storm with fork lightening all around us. Fortunately we had had an opportunity to pull off and put the hood up, before it struck (not literally!).It was a matter of minutes after the hood was up that the deluge started so we were very pleased that a service area appeared at that moment.





Lunch was at the market town of St-Omer, and after leaving the toll system at Reims, we stopped at Chalons-en-Champagne. We were now in the champagne area, and this town is quite delightful, but not as small and cutesy as our final destination, Croix Badeau. To discover the campsite was adjacent to a very lovely little town, was a bonus. But the surprises did not stop there. At the far end of the little village was the Venise Verte restaurant; what a fabulous find!