the charm continues
Leaving a space of a few days between my comments presents quite a problem: we are travelling through countryside of such charm that I really cannot decide what to include and what to leave out.
A couple of days ago we arrived at Cordes-sur-Ciel – a fabulously old, incredible town built on a very steep hill – or should I say mountain-top. We arrived here by driving down a country lane weaving its way through acres of sunflowers.
We took a walk up through the township – labouring up steep cobble-stone streets.
We would repeatedly come to a corner and think ‘this must be the top’, only to find the street continuing to wind its way upwards. Which led us to surmise that maybe the “sur-ciel” bit did not refer to the town being on the river Ciel (couldn’t find a river) but more to the fact that the town really does reach to the sky.
The old buildings, dating back to the 1300’s, are being lived in (and many are being carefully restored) and fill me yet again with an admirati9on for the skill of the artisans of those days.
The top of the hill/mountain had been flattened and incredibly, a chateau , a civic building and a covered market-place were all sitting on that flat area.
The view from that eagle’s nest position was fabulous and one could have been sitting in an aircraft looking down on the picture-book landscape below. The warriors of old must have quite secure, looking down from such lofty heights and espying every move for miles around.
Then today we have moved on – thrusting ever-south in this surprisingly large country. As R remarked to me today, ‘no wonder the Tour de France lasts for 3 weeks – they would never get around it in less’. (in fact the Tour includes a few airline hops between Stages, because this is a big country!)
Today’s journey has again taken us through yet more acres of sunflower fields
over rolling hills which gradually increased in intensity until we were making kilometer-long ascents and descents of 10% gradients.
The vans certainly worked hard today, earning their keep in no small way. (incidentally, at a motor-home dealership that we stopped at today, we saw for sale, a van of similar vintage to our two, in similar condition. The asking price was about 3 times what we had paid, so we feel that we made pretty good purchases back in Berlin)
Our journey which took us through more impressive towns
was interrupted midday to call in a the motor home dealers to look for a spare part for our hand basin tap (the switch was on the blink) We arrived at 12.10. Walking into the shop, the two men in there shrugged their shoulders expressively and said it was lunch time. Being now familiar with French lunchtimes I said, so you open again at 2.0pm? Correct! They could not bend their lunchtime by 10mins. to accommodate a potential customer, so we waited in the 30C sun for 2 hours. And you may have guessed right – they did not have the part that we needed! Fortunately R had another address up his sleeve, so off he and I went in one van, leaving the rest to have a game of Carcassonne. (very aptly as it happened since tomorrow we hope to visit this historic town)
In spite of detours down impossibly-narrow streets (we always pick them) and traffic jams on the way back, we found the part and returned in triumph.
Eventually we were off again and almost immediately into an 8km climb, twisting its way up into the mountains. R radio-ed back to us “if we can see a likely spot, I think we should pull over and call it a day” Moments later, as we crested the top of the mountain and curved around the next bend – there was this perfect picnic area, waiting to be used.
I have said it before but I say it again – we have been incredibly fortunate with the places we have found, to rest for the night.
Tags: Transport, Travel, Weather, Tag Index
kiwijoe