The lady who owns the camping ground told us about a nice bike ride along an ex-railway line to Lambley Viaduct, only about 3 miles (never sounds as far in miles) so decided to try that. It was far more impressive than either of us expected; a huge, quite beautiful series of arches towering over the river. It seems a shame that it was only used for about 120 years from 1853 to 1976. You could just see the blood and sweat (maybe no tears) that would have gone into building it. There are so many of these tracks all through the country that have been decommissioned and turned into cycle/walkways. Great for us but seems such a terrible waste! It seems somebody didn’t see a great future for railways – I hope they don’t regret that decision. A lot of the British people speak with disgust about the man whose decision it was at the time, can’t remember his name though...
Next stop was York. We parked at a ‘Park & Ride’; we’re getting old hands at these. They have them outside a lot of the cities, especially the ones that are hard to park or drive in. You get free parking and then a cheap/subsidised bus into the city centre. As I was studying the sign, to see whether we could camp overnight in the carpark, a man approached me and said “Do you speak French”. I said, “Not really”, because I could tell that his English was better than my French and we’d get further in English! He wanted to know if they could stay the night to, so I shared my newly acquired knowledge that you had to be out by 8pm or risk a 50 pound fine. He then wanted to know if I knew of a camp nearby, so I explained that we’re from NZ and probably know less than him! He was delighted about that for some reason, went on to explain that France is much cheaper for camping and diesel than England, so that’s good news. We saw him and his wife in York again, she was too scared to talk to us at all, not even a hello, obviously has no English. I even tried a ‘Bonjour’ but my accent’s probably so bad she didn’t realise it was supposed to be French! Will be interesting when the situation is reversed in a few days.
York was interesting, a beautiful cathedral called Yorkminster, it was far too big to do justice to with our camera. York is a walled city, lots of beautiful old buildings, most of the central streets are pedestrian only, and were very busy when were there. Most of the city dates from around the 14th century but there is also a ‘new’ area, built in the Victorian era. In the ‘old’ part, some of the buildings look as though they’re going to fall right into the street at any minute, fortunate that they don’t get earthquakes here! We casually caught the right bus back to the Park & Ride, something that would have terrified us a few weeks ago, and went on to a camping ground at Haltwhistle. We’re back in the Peak District! I’m hoping to see the ‘Well Dressings’ in Tissington tomorrow, we were a bit early last time we were in the area.
In the morning drove into Ashbourne, and found the Tissington trail – paid for parking for 2 hours (good excuse to keep the bike ride short). This is another disused railway, has a long tunnel just next to where we parked the van. The tunnel even had sound effects every now and then so that it sounded like a steam train was coming through. Made Gus look! (I’d already read the sign, so had a giggle at his face).
The rest of the trail was quite lovely, overhung with trees. Very busy on a Sunday morning, these trails are certainly well used. Unfortunately the ‘well dressings’ had been taken down already. This is an ancient custom, peculiar to the Peak District, of decorating the wells with flowers etc, some of the pictures look amazing, but we haven’t been able to get our timing right. Tissington was still a lovely little village though, and the ride was beautiful too, so not too disappointed.
Then decided to drive onto Colchester, this is where Barry’s family comes from. Apparently the Simmons had dockyards at Colchester in generations past so we’ll see what we can find tomorrow. The camp we’ve found tonight is really cute – it’s a farm, we’re the only campervan tonight (possibly the only one this week... or month!). There’s a 7 arch viaduct right next to the farm, we can see it from the campervan. The trains are electric though, so pretty quiet, just as well. Unfortunately, the motorway is also quite close but we’re getting used to ignoring such things. We’re camped in a paddock with an electric hook-up; a toilet in a portacom; and a hose for water – the least facilities we’ve had in a camp. It really doesn’t matter though because The Enterprise is fully self contained, so is a lovely spot, complete with sheep in the paddock with us (don’t tell though because she was going to shift them – apparently you’re not allowed livestock in a camp – we said we wouldn’t tell if she didn’t!). Makes us feel quite at home.
Colchester is a busy city – bigger than we expected so bit of an act finding anything. It’s the oldest recorded town in Britain. Lots of seriously ancient looking buildings. It’s not a tourist town though, so some of the old buildings are quite run down and some have been done up to be used – feels more genuine than some of the tourist towns; some of them feel a bit like they’ve been built just for the tourists (even though we know they haven’t). Colchester has a priory ruin, a castle in the park, and the remains of a roman wall – those Romans really liked their walls!
There are also more squirrels in the park than we’ve seen in the rest of the UK put together, they’re everywhere! Unfortunately, although very bold and cheeky, they weren’t very good at staying still long enough for a photo.
Eventually, after several false attempts, we found the remains of the dockyards. They have mostly been replaced by new housing, quite flash apartments overlooking the river. Some of the land is also owned by the university. There is a line of boats permanently moored there; all but one is no longer seaworthy. Postman Pat (all mail delivery vans here are exactly like Postman Pat’s!!) was putting mail into mailboxes next to the boats when we were there – very domesticated. The river wasn’t a thing of beauty when we were there, but it’s heavily tidal, so probably nicer when it’s full tide. We took lots of photos, will send some to you Barry...
Have broken a window on the side of the van – we don’t need to go into how it happened, sufficient to say that it was left open when we were driving. So now we are waiting a couple of days for the new one to arrive and for that to get fixed, kicking our heels waiting to cross over to France... Still having amazing weather – hope it lasts until window is repaired. We’re back at the first campground we stayed in, Canterbury, so have done full circle in 3494 miles!! Can hear a woodpecker in the tree, first one we’ve heard, sounds like a tiny jackhammer – no maniacal laugh though (we grew up with Woody Woodpecker cartoons). Today we’re going to see the Battle of Britain Museum, can’t wait :-).
The museum was even better than I thought! In fact it was so exciting we went to not one, but two Battle of Britain museums (the 2nd one was free and small!). Ok, so it was really boring (Gus enjoyed it) – lots of broken engines and bits of plane they’d found in various fields around Kent. Some of the personal stories were really good though. I think I’ve only ever heard about the effect of the war on London, and not the rest of England. Now that we’ve been to a lot of the places they were talking about, it really brings it home to me how ordinary peoples’ lives were so turned upside down. In NZ, it must have been terrible to send the men off (or to be the men going off!), but in England (and Europe) they were living with the bombs falling; children having to be sent off or taken in; blackouts; heavy rationing. I know you all know this, but it seems more real now I’ve been here – so I guess I did get something from it, and Gus liked seeing this Spitfire. Oh nearly forgot, we booked the ferry to France for 31st (2 days time). Our window has arrived in and should be able to be repaired tomorrow. We were going to take the Chunnel, but with the Queen’s Jubilee weekend there are a lot of people taking advantage of the extra long weekend, so it was very expensive. The ferry should be fun anyway, much better views! We’ll have to come home on the Chunnel though so that we can tell you all about it Tony.
Went to get window repaired, they put it in, but one of the catches was in the wrong place. It was a faulty part, a malfunction with the mould at the factory – there are probably hundreds of them been made. He couldn’t get a replacement until the next day and we already had ferry booked, so decided to put plastic over it, and gave us a website for all the Chausson dealers in France, there are lots. So I’ve been practising ‘Nous avons un fenetre defecteaux’ – ‘We have a broken window’, but I’m sure pointing will do the same thing!
Woke up nice and early – our ferry sails at 7.35, last reporting in time is 7.05, so of course we must be there at 6.30am! Both of us woke up early anyway, me excited to be off to France; and Gus just making sure we weren’t late. We made the crossing without much incident; the sea was very well behaved and stayed flat. Gus drove off the ferry and then had to remember to STAY RIGHT. It was absolutely terrifying going around the first few roundabouts, especially as I’m where the driver should be (our van is right-hand drive) so the trucks etc were flying towards me at what felt like great speeds! Gradually we’re getting used to that, I only reminded Gus once, much later in the day when he pulled back onto a quiet road on the wrong side... We are now at our first ‘free camp’.
We joined a scheme, before we left NZ, called French Passion – I know it had Gus worried too... It isn’t what you’re thinking though... For the price of a guide book, about $30, you get a book and a sticker for the camper windscreen so that, as long as you’re in a self-contained motor home, you can stay at various farms, vineyards etc around France for no charge. Some provide water or rubbish facilities, but otherwise it’s just a place to stay. Most have a shop of some sort, but there is no obligation to buy, so it should save us a lot of money! I’ve already had 3 opportunities to practice my French (such as it is). In a supermarket, I asked the girl at the checkout if she had any bags – she had a small smile on her face when she answered that made me think my accent may not have been quite perfect! Next, we got diesel at a service station, didn’t need much language there. And last, but most satisfactorily, I asked directions to this camp from a man on a tractor in the village. We had already driven past him once and he’d seen us come around again and looked friendly (or was laughing at us, hard to tell). I told him I was looking for this place (in French), pointing to the book... I found with great excitement that I could understand every word of his answer – mind you I think he only said ‘Turn right, along a little, then right again at the sign’. (And there were lots of hand gestures to help). As we pulled out Gus gave him the thumbs up sign, then we hoped it meant the same thing here – and not something much ruder!!
If you've got this far well done! I've been keeping a diary each night and haven't had internet available for a while to publish, so that's why it's so long!!
Today we went and visited the Palace of Versailles – wow! You can’t imagine a more over-the-top palace – every room was more sumptuous than the last. The ceilings were beautifully painted with many chandeliers and beautiful cornices; every room was filled with huge portraits; statues everywhere and the furnishings were gorgeous. They are gradually tracing as many of the original pieces of furniture as they can to put back in its original position – it was all stolen in the revolution of course.
The bedrooms are over luxurious but the beds are still small by our standards.
Outside, the gardens are huge – here’s me trying to replicate a photo Mum had taken in the same spot (I think) in 1954 (except you looked a lot more elegant, Mum!) – got to keep up with family tradition!
There are two other small palaces in the gardens as well – we were quite exhausted by the time we walked to those and back. Apparently the smaller one was a favourite of Marie Antoinette’s. Gus found a room he could relate to.
It really is no wonder that the people of France got a little upset with their royal family and decided to have a revolution – bit of a shame they had to guillotine them but they were hard times! The shamelessly over-luxurious way they lived must have been hard for the starving peasants to stomach.
Today we hadn’t really planned to do another chateau so soon, but we are in the Loire Valley and there was one I’d read about... so Gus being very long suffering, went along with it. This one is called Chambord and was used mainly as a hunting lodge – various kings enjoyed a spot of hunting.
It’s got some quite unique features. One of these is a double-helix staircase, so that one person can be going up at the same time as someone else is coming down, and they won’t ever meet – very tricky. They believe Leonardo da Vinci may have had a hand in designing it; he lived in the area not long before it was built, and some of his illustrations match the layout of the chateau as well as the staircase.
The chateau is designed with four identical corners – all the rooms are laid out in a Spanish Cross (?), so that there are four identical wings, each with a turret at the end. It makes it very difficult to find your way around – every side looks the same.
They have some very old tapestries on the walls, although they said that the chateau wouldn’t have been furnished all the time – the Kings moved around their kingdom to keep the peace. The servants had to pack up each time and get ahead of the royal party to prepare the next chateau – they put up tapestries, installed furniture (all of which had to be carried with them), and lit the fires to get the place warmed up and welcoming for the royals – must have been a hell of a job!
It has a very complex roofline; Gus reckoned it would be a roofer’s nightmare. The original hunting estate, like the chateau is now publicly owned, and covers 5440 hectares (the same area as Paris), and is surrounded by a wall. There are 800 hectares open to the public, we went for a bike ride through a little of it.
Apparently there are wild boar and deer in the park – we didn’t see any, but plenty of sign – they must be big pigs judging from the mess they’d made of the ground in places. There are a lot of trophy heads in the Chateau from its hunting lodge days – some of the antlers are bizarrely mounted on ‘gold’ heads. Gus had to admit he did enjoy Chambord but still had enough of chateaux for now.
The rest of the day we followed the Loire River to Saumur. It was a beautiful drive, lots of chateaux – I think Gus put his foot down every time he saw one. He did stop though to take a photo of this chateau across La Loire.
Today we visited a Troglodyte Village – I had visions of something like a troll with a stalactite coming out of its head. The truth is luckily slightly less bizarre – it’s a Greek word for a cave dwelling. This particular village, Rochemenier, is in an old quarry from the early 1800’s and was lived in until the 1970’s. There are also dwellings, mainly used as sheds now, cut into the rock along the main road near Saumur, which we drove past yesterday.
Rochemenier is now a farm museum, as for a lot of its life it was lived in by 2-3 farming families. There are 2 kitchen/dwellings with deep ovens; a wine cellar; barns and an underground chapel – all built into the limestone. The church is on the surface above the chapel. The original church was burned to the ground in some raid so they decided to put the chapel underground, but then rebuilt the church in more peaceful times. As well as the ‘buildings’ themselves, there is also a really good collection of farm and kitchen implements; and wine making equipment from the 19th century. The grapes were sent down a shoot into the room below where they were crushed etc., all very ingenious.
Tonight we’re staying at a Passion Scheme place. At the risk of sounding ungrateful, it’s easily the roughest farm we’ve ever seen, and we've seen some roughies over the years... Doors hanging off the shed and even the house; farm equipment lying all around the front paddock with long grass growing all through it – you get the picture. Quite strange really because we’ve noticed how immaculate most French farms are. Anyway the people are very friendly. We’ve had a visit from a little dog that lives here – how cute is he. Tomorrow we’re planning on going into the ‘Massif Central’ which is very mountainous, we’re both looking forward to that as all of France that we’ve seen so far has been very flat – it’s amazing but true that we miss having ranges in the distance. I wouldn’t have even thought I was very aware of them most of the time.
We had one of those big turnarounds you can only do with this type of travel and changed our plans completely – we decided to go down to the Dordogne Valley first and see the caves – then go up towards the Massif Central tomorrow, and bigger than that, not to go down to Spain after all. There is just too much we still want to see in France and we decided we’d rather enjoy the journey than start to feel too rushed – so the new plan is in action. The countryside has become rolling to hilly rather than completely flat. It was a very pretty drive with lots of villages on the slopes.
Tonight we are at a camping place for 5 euro’s – great value camping in France! Not a campground as such but more a place campervans are allowed to park. Is quiet, apart from the train that just went past, my god who put that there!! We can’t see the tracks for the trees. We are at Les Eyzies de-Tayac-Sireuil. The town has these overhanging cliffs with dwellings set into them – more troglodytes!
This afternoon we went to see Grotte Grand Roc, literally Big Rock Cave – you probably could have worked that out for yourselves... It was really beautiful, packed with stalactites and stalagmites; and a new word for me - damn I’ve forgotten it, anyway it meant ones that stick out in all different directions. There were so many different formations: some that looked like coral, some like pipes and others like crystals.
Even the ticket office was built into the cliff; I think the rock looks like a big soft pillow pressing down on the building. Tomorrow we’re hoping to go to a cave that has prehistoric cave art, the best still open to the public, we’ve been told to be there by 9am though because they only sell a few tickets for the day. The most famous cave, Lascaux, has been closed to the public since 1963 – I think because of damage to the art, so they have ‘recreated’ it 200 metres away at Lascaux II. Doesn’t sound at all the same to me, I really don’t want to see a copy – like seeing prints of Da Vinci’s work hanging in the Louvre (as long as it weren’t a Tuesday).
We did it, got tickets to Grotte de Font de Gaume! Was a bit of an experience in itself. We arrived at about 8.45 and were about the fifth lot there. It was pouring with rain and no shelter; luckily we had put on full wet weather gear... When the doors opened at 9.30 there was a general push for the door, luckily I was ready for them and pushed in to about where we should have been, no orderly queue here! Anyway we got tickets to the second tour starting at 10.30 – the 10am ones sold out just two people in front of me. The rock art was quite amazing – the tour lasted about 30 minutes, it was through quite a narrow cave passage – don’t ever agree to this if you are claustrophobic because there are no wide parts. There were about 15 people in our tour, and the guide showed us the various paintings as we came to them. There were lines of bison, horses, reindeer etc. Unfortunately I can’t show you any photos because we weren’t allowed to take any. This and the limited groups is all part of the conservation of the site. It was amazing to think that people from so long ago had really painted these images though, how their life might have been, and how the surroundings would have looked then. They don’t really know why they did these paintings, they didn’t live in the caves as such but in the rock overhangs like we saw yesterday. The other interesting thing is that there were huge stalactites/mites but there was no moisture in the cave. Gus pointed out that the cave must have already been dry when the paintings were done or they would have been ruined over time, but that there must have originally been moisture in the cave, as the stalactites/mites are formed by dripping water from the limestone.
The rest of the day we drove up into the Massif Central to see all the volcanoes and mountainous terrain. Unfortunately, it has poured with rain all day and we haven’t seen a thing, c’est la vie! We are now just past the volcanoes at Neussargues (in case any of you are following us on a really good map!) Tomorrow we’re going to head towards Le Puy (supposed to be a beautiful village) and then down to the Millau Viaduct. This is the only thing that Gus knew he wanted to see in France – the highest bridge in the world, only a few years old so we’ll check it out and keep you posted – women reading this may wish to skip that bit :-)
By the way the photos don't seem to be appearing beside their relevant text anymore - not sure what's happened there - hopefully you can work it out!
