The Journey Begins ~ Missive 1

Roger, Linda and Max
Somewhere in France (at present on the south coast near Antibes)
07759 753892
rogerhiggs@hotmail.co.uk

Apologies for the length of this missive, but read what you want and leave the rest for after publication, as it may well form a chapter of the next book!!

Dear All

The Journey Begins

Well, two weeks gone already and the time has flown by, as everyone says, “don’t know how I found time to work before I retired!!”

Well we finally escaped the snow of England, just, on Sunday 8th February, somewhat loaded down with numerous clothes, a boot full of “work” of the pleasurable kind (writing, art, recipes to sort etc, as well as taking some wine back to France!!!) and bicycles on the roof to be overhauled at a suitable time, and carrying, rather strangely a “one-way” ticket. We then arrived in France, Calais to be precise a little earlier than expected as the put us on an earlier ferry, which in some ways was just as well, as the campsite was a bit out of the way and although “Ouvert toute année” was somewhat shut down, with no running water and only one toilet, the cistern of which was well lagged with numerous old coats! But the elderly lady who was running the site made us welcome let us park on the car park outside the loo, as the field was rather wet and filled up our water from the house. Fortunately, the electric was on and we managed to cook a meal, in reasonable warmth (to the initiated 6A of electricity doesn’t allow the heating et al. to be on fully!) and before the temperature plummeted to a point where the camping gas complained and went on a go slow. But more of that later.

After a good night’s sleep we once again hit the long road and using Route National (RN), made our way rather slowly to a camp site to the east of Paris, near Sézanne. Again an open site wasn’t really, with no water other than in the sinks of the toilet block and no lighting in the shower area, so we stayed dirty! We also nearly stayed cold as there were some difficulties sorting out the electricity and with an icy gale blowing up and struggling gas we might have had a very cold night, as well as noisy night, had we not sorted it out.

The next day’s journey was fortunately with the wind, as the gale hadn’t blown out during the night and not only did it seem to speed us up a little, but the petrol consumption was much better!, until we crossed a high barren area with swirls of snow and buffeting cross wind! It was all a bit reminiscence of our last time caravanning in France, in the summer two years ago!! Who said we were off to the sun?

We were a little anxious about the third site, allegedly open, but quite small and out of the way and they were the only site on the way “to the sun” that hadn’t confirmed our booking! However, we were expected and a very jovial Frenchman met us and started to tell us where he wanted us to pitch, and after a bit of rapid French he, much to his lasting amusement, asked us if we spoke English, before looking at the car, thumping his forehead and laughing with great gusto and repeating over and over again “fancy asking you if you speak English!!” At this site we also encountered the first other hardy couple who were holidaying in central France in February!! Here, near a place called Nolay, the jovial Frenchman informed us that snow was forecast for the morning, which we hoped would live up to the name of the place and not lay!!, but we awoke to a very heavy frost, flurries of wintry showers and no heating. So breakfast and packing up was a hasty affair involving lots of layers of clothing and the quick check as to what was wrong with the heating revealed nothing obvious, so we went on our way worrying about the next stop and resolving to sort out, over the three days we were there some better gas, that works efficiently in minus temperatures as it looked like we would need it for heating, rather a shame as the electricity we had booked was 10A, but at least we could use the electric kettle, hot water, fridge and maybe even resort to heating the van with Linda’s hairdryer!!

But having arrived at the site at Vaison de Romaine, a Roman themed site and one of those I imagine being hell on earth in the high season, we pitch on our rather muddy and shabby pitch surrounded by empty static caravans and to our considerable joy the electric heating worked! However, with night time temperatures still dipping below freezing, it meant that cooking the evening meal was a lengthy affair and the steaks were often very rare, we decided that different gas was required. After a pleasant morning looking around the local town and driving three quarters of the way up Mont Ventoux, to where temperatures plummeted to an icy minus 7 and the snowploughs had finally given up trying to shift the six feet of wonderful snow and the local were in their elements, making use of the mini ski-resort complete with ski lifts, toboggan runs and aprés-ski, we went to find the gas cylinder and appropriate fittings. We are now proud owners of a propane gas cube after a slight false start with the connector and having to take one back that didn’t fit. The lady on the till, who professed to speaking little English, spoke better English than the expert who she called, who also seemed to know little about gas pipes, tore open the packet so that we could check the ends, and his only bit of advice was “It might explode!!” Thankfully it fitted and didn’t explode and meals have become considerably quicker to prepare, albeit leisurely to consume!

This site did not overly impress us, as again it was largely shut down for winter the taps not working outside and neither were the outside lights. Water we got from the shower block that was heated but still in the process of being finished and with only barely warm showers. I was also horrified when asking where to empty the chemical closet (toilet to the uninitiated!!) was told to put it down a washing sink complete with grid over the plughole and no running water. It went down one of the toilets in the end, seemed the better option!!

After having had a restful couple of days of sunshine and without travelling and just looking around the immediate area, we hit the road once again for a shortish journey along the autoroute to the sun and indeed our lunch stop was warm enough to sit outside on one of the many aires (picnic spots) that are liberally dotted along French roads until the time comes for lunch and then you can’t find one!!

Early afternoon, surprised by the amount of out of season traffic we arrived at our site for the next two weeks, between Antibes and Cagnes sur Mer for the map watchers amongst you. At first, despite the sunshine and in part to do with the traffic jam we had just encountered along the coast road, we were a little disappointed, as the pitch was rather small and the site very busy, we had obviously got used to sole occupancy!! However, as the last week has gone by, it has grown on us and despite the beach being cut off by a railway line and really only accessible by car, it’s not a particularly nice beach and certainly it’s not beach weather, although the car thermometer did register 19ºC when we came back from the market at Antibes this morning. We thought about the Farmer’s Market in Stroud where we normally have been at that time. There is also a lovely country park wrapped around three sides of the campsite, where Max and I have our early morning walks and are even getting to know some of the regular joggers, dog walkers and the lady on the bicycle with two huskies pulling her along amidst so much cajoling, that I think she gets more exercise than the dogs!! So whilst in the south of France, with daytime temperatures often exceeding 15ºC and mostly pleasant sun and wall to wall blue sky, we have had a mixture of lazy days – reading, eating, drinking, snoozing, publishing (through the wonders of modern technology) the next edition of the Association of Countryside Volunteers (of which I’m absent Chair and Magazine Editor) Magazine, all done and emailed from the comfort of the caravan!!, and some trips out. And still the bikes, although now off the car – there are too many car parks with height restrictions around here and I was convinced we would forget them one day, it’s not so bad when we have the caravan in tow! – are still waiting for their overhaul, I have got as far as buying new inner tubes!!

The trips out have included trying unsuccessfully to visit Grasse, a pretty hillside village that we last passed through some years ago on route to Cannes. Then, there was so much traffic we kept going as we were in danger of not reaching Cannes before breakfast the next day, let alone lunch on this day. Once again, albeit out of season and February, we still failed to find somewhere to park and ended up driving out again, turning off the road back on a whim, La Colle sur Loup sounded rather romantic and proved to be a fantastic gorge and suddenly there above us was the most amazing hilltop village that we just had to find. A little while later we arrived, rather sadly at the same time as a coach load of American tourists – “gee, I must have a shot taken next to that statue (of a rather large nude fat lady), it’ll make me look so good!” However, the village was stunning and large enough to avoid the coach party who were led around crocodile-style and thankfully not at all crowded at this time – mid-week and out of season. Certainly, we felt it was the best time to look around the various art galleries and Max preferred not having to avoid too many legs, for him as well as us, I’m sure in the heat of the summer, heaving with tourists, for St Jean de Vence you could well read “hell on earth!”

Then we, again unsuccessfully, tried to visit Nice, but yes you’ve guessed it found it far from nice (!) and couldn’t park, escaped to the pleasant sanity of Cagnes sur Mer before returning to the caravan for lunch “avec vin” before catching a bus to discover the delights of old Antibes, the modern harbour full of the most staggeringly expensive yachts – quite how the other half lives, and the stunning Picasso Gallery housed in an old castle overlooking the sea. At this point Linda would point out that the building, not the artwork, was stunning, but she doesn’t appreciate, often loudly and in the wrong place!, the merits of modern art!!!

We have also had pleasant walks around the nearby villages of Biot, again on a hilltop and fairly quiet and Villeneuve Loubet, the birthplace of Auguste Escoffier, who for the uninitiated amongst you created such well known dishes as; peach melba, salade Tosca and tournedos Rossini and developed meals where each course arrives one after the other rather than all at once, as apparently used to be all the rage!! We have still to visit the museum named after him but hope to early next week.

Finally, yesterday we did a number of firsts. First, I took Linda and indeed Max on their first ever visits to Italy, where we visited a supposedly famous market, but much the same as that held on Cheltenham racecourse each week!, except for the food stalls bearing huge rings of parmesan and the azure coloured Mediterranean behind the stalls. Having walked the stalls, we got Max out of the car and went in search of food, ending up sitting outside a café behind glass screens that seemed to magnify the sun, watching the market goers stroll by with the Med behind them.

Eating out at a restaurant was certainly a first for Max, but he was more that happy to watch what was going on, receive the odd piece of bread and a piece of freshly cut Parmesan than fell for the table next door. This was occupied by two young couples, one English couple recently married and the other and English man and Italian girlfriend, who had bought a large salami and an enormous piece of cheese, which we hadn’t realised and thankfully neither had Max was on the floor, at her feet and perilously close to Max! However, she couldn’t wait to try it and produced it at the table and offered it around to her party as well as us. Once we knew it was there we were more careful where Max sniffed, but he had obviously got a liking for fresh Parmesan, as on the way back through the market he got one sniff of some dropped on the floor by a cheese stall and nearly wretched my arm off, and nearly sent a number of unsuspecting shoppers flying, in his quest to retrieve it! Max as you may have gathered has rather taken to his new traveller existence, hopping deftly in and out of the caravan, but finding the slippery plastic of the car more difficult, so now has his own anti-slip mat! He fair struts around the park, the hilltop villages and markets not wanting to miss out on anything, particularly all the new and exotic smells!!

The day ended with a trip back into France over the mountains, up and down several very twisty hairpin roads, finding quite the most delightful hilltop village yet. Piéne Haute quite literally hangs on a hillside, straggling a narrow ridge, overlooking the Italian border on one side and at this time of year the snow capped mountains above the Roya Valley on the other. It is quite simply a village lost in a time warp, if you ignore the satellite dishes, with narrow streets passing between tiny terracotta tiled houses that open to a miniscule village square with a small lamp lit chapel at one end and a primary school, seemingly unused on one side, with further roads and passage ways leading to an ornate church and all overlooked by the ramparts of a ruined castle. Apart from a elderly battered car and an even more elderly old lady sitting in the sunlit square, an older man carrying two old metal bed springs and two other couples also visiting the village there was nothing else; no shop, no bar, no sign of life and the streets that were barely wide enough to allow a car to pass, were so tight onto the front doors and windows of the haphazard houses, that you almost felt you were intruding into peoples houses and shouldn’t really be there. I couldn’t help but wonder two things; how do you get to live in such an amazingly idyllic place and what a great party you could have in the small square with all your neighbours, having barricaded off the approach roads, to avoid gatecrashers, first!!

Having climbed, in the car, to this village at 613 metres above sea level we negotiated another windy twisty road, not good on a very full four course lunch!, down into the large town of Sospel, nestling amongst the mountains and there originally as it was on the salt route from the coast, but now more a centre for mountain pursuits. It still however, had something of a backwater feel to it, and a couple of young children running over the bridge, as we passed, were amazed by a car with the steering wheel on the wrong side and giggled helplessly when I said a cheery “hello” out of the open driver’s window. However, although Nice was only about 30 kilometres away the best way back was to drive up another amazingly tortuous route over the Col de Braus at 1002 metres and down the other side. It was quite a culture shock to get back to civilisation and the tunnels and interconnecting viaducts of the amazingly engineered A8, the autoroute into Italy that we had travelled earlier in the day before encountering life from a past era.

Well that’s all for now folks, hopefully you’ll await the next missive with baited breath!!

Kind regards, Best Wishes and Love

Roger, Linda and Max!