Le Franco Phoney

I’ve been meaning to write about a few final places from my summer road trip which simply can’t be missed, or that at least deserve some comment.

First of all, Lascaux II. If you’ve ever seen a prehistoric cave painting, chances are it’s from Lascaux. The cave was discovered when four boys and a dog found a hole in 1940 that led to a large underground cave, covered in artwork. The original cave is now closed to visitors because human traits such as breathing and body temperature were damaging the paintings, but a replica has been made using the same techniques as the original. I wonder if it too will suffer the same fate in years to come. Of course, photos, even without a flash, are not allowed, and since this was the start of our trip, we obeyed.

However, we then moved onto the Gouffre de Proumeyssac, where photos were also forbidden (just like in the Gouffre de Padirac). The slide show below has some photos from inside. Yes, by this point, the ‘no photos’ thing was boring, and we clicked away without a flash. This gouffre, or cave, features lots of squid-like staligtites and a very rare triangular rock formation which only occurs in the stillest of waters and with the right chemical conditions. Photos of that are also below.

Since we had already visited La Roque St Christophe and a few smaller rock-shelter villages, we only stopped at Les Eyzies de Tayac to take some photos of the giant man overlooking the town. He’s pictured in the photos below too. The museum does look good there, but we had no time to stop. We had a quick home-made icecream and drove away.

After a long, hot day, we picked a fantastic town to stay in overnight: Sarlat-la-Canéda. The town was full of activity well into the night, with street performers, an open-air theatre, all sorts of restaurants and really narrow, pretty alleyways in the largely pedestrianised town. Famous people have been born in asymmetric houses there, and the medieval feel of the place really adds to the relaxed atmosphere there.

Last, and for me, least, is Collonges la Rouge. This is a tourist town purely because all the buildings are made of red stones. For me, it wasn’t anything special, but my travelling companion loved it, so some photos appear below from that too. Don’t get me wrong, it was very pretty, but the whole ideology of a town being a tourist attraction because they happened to have a lot of red rock to use up makes me feel as if the inhabitants have really just cashed in on the population of non-colour-blind people. Minus points also for a less than tasty sandwich-based lunch with not much choice left at 2pm.

The Coupe Icare (Icarus Cup) was held last weekend, just south of Chambéry. So, in our typical disorganised manner, we decided at 1am on Saturday night to spend Sunday watching the paragliders take part in the annual event. Although a strong wind at the landing area prevented many paragliders from taking off, the day was lots of fun and the entertainment was great. One wing that did take off was a tandem team with an eagle attached to the passenger’s arm. As they took off, so did the eagle, who then flew behind and around the wing as if it was a giant mum. Every now and again, it landed on the passenger’s arm again, and they stayed airborn for quite a long time.

Meanwhile, the on-ground entertainment took over. Adam and Eve featured in a show where a flying apple was offered to them. Eating it, despite God’s warnings, gave them wings, and, had the wind not been as dangerous for landing, they would have flown at that point of the show. Instead, they flapped their arms around like birds and ran around to emulate flight. Airline hostesses (not all females) arrived for the next show, before they handed out free drinks to the crowd in proper airline hostest style. Meanwhile special solar balloons, made by a Brazilian man (pictured  in a photo below) who is now an outlaw after the balloons were banned in Brazil, floated and sank above the crowd and into the distance.

Other notable parts of the day included:

• seeing the famous speed rider (a sport like paragliding, but with skis attached and using a very small wing), Michael Reignier, who spends most of winter speed riding in La Clusaz take off and sink fast with his tiny wing (but apparently landed without a problem);
• watching a replica of an antique NASA test wing be inflated (red, white and blue in photos below);
• checking out the atrociously bad fashion on offer for paragliders needing to stay warm in the air (it was so 80s!); and,
• seeing a photo I took at the Dune du Pilat in a paragliding magazine!

What’s a road trip around a European country if it doesn’t involve a castle? Chateau de Beynac can now be added to the long list of castles I’ve visited. The castle overlooks the Dordogne river, and its prime position has made it a popular castle to attack. The British declared it as British territory at one point, and Richard the Lionheart was rumoured to have climbed through the toilet holes to take the castle by storm. Most recently, the castle, in ruins, was (from memory) bought in the Seventies by a French man for around €30,000 (again, from memory). He was told he was crazy for buying a ruined castle and that land it sat on was more valuable. He started restoring it without commercialising it with tourist traps like gift shops: all entry fees went — and still go — towards the restoration of the castle.

Although the French man passed away in July 2008, the castle, now in great shape, is still being restored. Guided tours given by volunteers are free and a great way to see the castle. All the usual topics are covered: life in a castle, toilets in a castle, how to heat and light a castle, a kitchen in a castle, and defense mechanisms of a castle. One thing that I had not seen before was a table in the kitchen with a long hole at one end for the men to put their swords (see photo below). This was the only place where they could relax without fear of attack, and one of the few times they removed their swords from their bodies during the day.

If you visit this castle, remember these important bits of information:

1. They do charge for public parking on Sundays, despite what French travel partners say.
2. If you don’t want to do the fifteen-minute heart-starting (or stopping) walk to the castle from the road below, you can drive to the car park right outside it the castle entrance.

We discovered both these things the hard way.

In a bit of a role reversal, I went to England for the weekend with a French man. Hearing his observations about London and Cambridge — the two cities we visited — brought a smile to my face as I remembered thinking some of those same thoughts when I first moved to the UK years ago. The full English breakfast, or ‘fry-up‘, was a big hit, as was Camden market. The new, funky Stables area of the market, complete with wi-fi café and private stables for each group, decked out with chairs and tables, impressed us both.

A low point was using the Tube. I asked why. He said it was the smell. I no longer notice the smell and I had forgotten it had one. He noticed a tube stop called Ealing Broadway and said: ‘Ealing. Does that mean you can go there and get better?’ If you add an ‘h’ to the front of Ealing, you will see what he was getting at. French people don’t pronounce ‘h’s, so he had figured out that Ealing Broadway was a place you could go to for healing.

Once in town, he didn’t understand why people queued when there was room further ahead or why nobody in the shops replied to him when he said ‘bye bye’ to them on our way out. In France, it’s polite to say hello and goodbye, and even nicer to thank the shopkeeper whether you buy something or not. In England, shop staff don’t bother making eye contact with you, let alone greet you on your way in or out! Regardless, he could not break the habit and I heard ‘bye bye’ followed by silence many times over the weekend.

Walking in central London, the French man was weary and he wanted to stop for a drink in a ‘traditional English pub’, so I took him to the first small, dark pub we came across. ‘No,’ he said, ‘this is too dark.’ So, I took him to a trendy wine bar. ‘But this doesn’t feel like a pub,’ he said. I explained that English pubs were traditionally small and dark, but he wasn’t happy until we found a less-dark pub. He tried a half-pint of London Pride, commenting that it was warm before falling asleep in his chair with a few drops left in the glass. I was on the phone arranging to meet a friend and hadn’t noticed his closed eyes. Within minutes, the pub landlord was hassling me to wake him up or get out. The sleepy French man felt refreshed from his few minutes of respite and we continued on to Trafalgar Square. Any beer he consumed after that point was always something marked as Extra Cold.

In Cambridge, he wanted to find out more about a product created by university students. We split so that I could shop while he went to a college for more information. We met an hour later and he looked dejected. ‘I see that British red tape is as bad as French,’ he said, explaining that he had been told from one college to go to another college, who then told him to go back to the first one. He was, however, given a course outline for post-graduate studies! He has no intention to study in Cambridge, but it’s good to see the British staff are on the ball for luring in foreign students. Highlights were, apparently, the Mathematical Bridge on our punting trip, bacon, and brown sauce (thanks to the lovely Railway Lodge, where we stayed). Speaking of food, Marmite joined warm beer, the Tube and British weather as elements of the UK that the French man hopes to avoid on his next UK visit. Fry-ups and Krispy Kreme donuts will, however, be sought out!

One of the most amazing marriages between nature and humanity is la Roque Saint Christophe: Europe’s largest and oldest cave dwelling site. As uninteresting as a long, shallow dent in a rock sounds, la Roque Saint Christophe is actually really interesting. To help the imagination, a miniature version of part of the limestone village rests half way along the ‘main road’, just before the indented steeple of a long-gone church. The bell-tower allowed a series of similarly carved villages dotted along the Vézère river to warn each other of danger within minutes. The site has been restored in some areas and the entrance fee includes a booklet (in English if you want) explaining each of the different areas of interest, including an abattoir. Thankfully, that part of the village has not been restored.

[Show as slideshow]

Before I tell you about this place I visited, I have to tell you a few other things.

Firstly, my mum likes gardens. If I was to go on holiday with my mum, I would tell her that I don’t want to visit any gardens. Gardens are not my ‘thing’.

Secondly, I don’t see the point in quoting poetry. People might think it’s clever, but I don’t. It’s not original and it put me off liking a rather attractive French boy a few years ago when he thought he would quote Shakespeare in front of his French friends who all looked rather confused during his performance. You may think I am shallow for judging, and maybe I am.

So, where did I go? Well, in a completely hypocritical moment, I went to a garden called Marqueyssac which immediately led me to quote Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “Kubla Khan” to an equally confused French boy as we wandered around the sinuous rills of the fertile ground. This garden was made for Mr C’s poem! Although not quite ‘twice five miles of fertile ground’, there’s six kilometres of greenery full of nooks and crannies to visit: a tower; a playground; a lookout point which shows a village below with some buildings carved in the stone cliffs above it; lots of different walks; a water feature; an enormous length of hedge; interesting plants and trees abounding with wildlife; a chapel; and even a poet’s hut! Maybe Mr C wrote “Kubla Khan” at Marqueyssac after all. I did not, however, see any damsels with dulcimers, caves of ice or blokes who looked like they had been fed on honeydew and the milk of paradise, so maybe not.

Anyway, my mum will be pleased that I’ve visited a garden. Even I am pleased that I visited this one!

If you suffer from vertigo or if you’re scared of heights, you might want to avoid the massive bridge near Millau and take the road underneath it, as I did, instead. From the road below, you can see the eight pylons clearly: they fork open about half way up to allow the wind to pass through. If they did not, the bridge, apparently, would collapse. These pylons are the tallest in the world. It should therefore come as no surprise that the road bridge they support is the tallest in the world.

Travelling under the bridge means that you can stop at the information centre. We stopped there at around lunchtime — with a picnic which we planned to enjoy under the cool shade of a tree. However, a security guard is employed to walk around the ‘grounds’ (a car park) and point out the sign that says no picnics are allowed. In addition, the centre has no tourist display area: you have to pay for a guided tour of the small building.

We jumped back into the car and drove about ten seconds away to the pylon on the other side of the road. We parked in the shade provided by the bridge above, grabbed the picnic rug from the boot of the car, and cooled down with a great view of the bridge right across the valley while we ate. If the weather hadn’t been so hot, I probably would have walked over to the security guard to thank him for making our visit more enjoyable (and free).

Instead, we took the obligatory ‘pretend you’re holding up the bridge with your hand’ photo before driving on.

Le Gouffre de Padirac is possibly the most beautiful natural landmark I have ever seen. A gouffre (pronounced ‘goof-rrr’) is a cave, and this one is massive. Apart from stalictites and staligmites, the gouffre offers an underground boat ride at a constant 12°C. So, remember your jumper even on a hot day, and remember to laugh when the man steering your boat pretends to rock it a bit too much: if you were stuck underground in a damp cave for many hours each day, you’d want the tourists to humour you too.

The gouffre was formed over time naturally. It has something to do with acid rain, but the explanation was in French so I didn’t quite catch, well, any of it. What I did understand was that rainwater has since washed down some seeds, and there is now a tiny fern growing under one of the courtesy lights - the first plant life there. Looking at it is a bit look like looking at your friend’s baby scan: it’s tiny; it doesn’t seem real; but you’re still meant to say ‘wow’.

Of course, photography — even without a flash — is not allowed. So none of the photos below were actually taken, and none of the guides were tipped well for not noticing any blatant photography that was going on before, during and after the tour.

One thing to bare in mind before arriving is that this tourist attraction closes earlier than most others in France. It takes a good hour and a half to see everything, and perhaps a bit longer if you choose to mount the hundreds of stairs instead of using the three separate escalators to get back to the top. So, if you turn up at 6.03pm (like we did), the gates will be shut and the restaurant next to the gouffre that sells gauffres (waffles, pronouced ‘goff-rrr’) has probably run out of gauffres, making the early closure even more disappointing. We returned the next morning and the queue was massive, but fast. When we left just before midday, the queue had vanished and those arriving had the added benefit of cooling down during the hottest part of the day at the busiest time of summer. We did not stop for a gauffre. It was too hot and we had a red village to see.

The Dune du Pilat is Europe’s largest sand dune, but, like Europe’s highest road, there is some confusion: signposts for Dune du Pilat are often twinned with signposts for Dune de Pyla . What? Are there two giant dunes next to each other? Nope: the village next to the Dune du Pilat is called Pyla-sur-Mer (which means ‘Pyla by the sea’) and over time, the dune has been misspelt to match the village, and now, both spellings are acceptable. At least, this is what Wikipedia told me, but my travel partner swears that he saw signposts for Pilat-sur-Mer as well!

Climbing the dune is hard work, but well worth the effort, with lovely views of the beach front from the top including a sand bar with lots of moored boats that are completely out of the water at low tide. In fact, you can see from some of the photos below just how steep the dune is, but once you’re at the top, the side leading down to the beach is far easier (phew!). Annoyingly, I saw one guy run up the steep side of the dune and tumble down at least twice while I was walking up it slowly. I can only imagine he was doing some sort of Rocky 4 endurance training (think back to Sylvester Stallone in snow-covered Russia, running with logs of wood and pulling carts around as if he was a horse and you’ve got an idea how silly this guy also looked). Meanwhile, I stopped every ten steps to ‘look at the view’. It had nothing to do with my aching leg muscles or over-inflated lungs feeling like they might collapse. No, it was all about the view.

We managed to camp within fifteen metres of the dune at the Pyla Camping (or should that be Pilat?) caravan park (lots of French entertainment thrown in for free: we witnessed a foam party which kids were literally lost in). The dune gets the big thumbs up from me: I really enjoyed it.

[Show as slideshow]

I’m doing a road trip from the South East of France to the South West, and I’ve noticed a few things. Only in rural France…

…do you see the rebelious elderly block off a car park by parking their car across the entrance so they can play patonque (a bit like lawn bowls but without the grass);

…can you speed through a village (30km/h zone) at almost double the limit and have the police wave a thanks to you when you slow down because they’re crossing at a zebra crossing;

…are you required to stop when travelling on some main roads to give way to traffic from a side street on your right because of an ancient French law;

…do you see every signpost framed and mounted on wood just because they’ve got so much of the stuff;

…do they set up automated lights for a ten-metre stretch of roadwork, which the locals ignore and drive through when the light is red because the lights take five minutes to change to roadwork-green (ie, orange);

…do you see a family of four park their car by the side of the road, fold out their picnic table/chair set and have a picnic next to their car when there is a perfectly good nature reserve right next to them (with a picnic table free for use).