Wow, it's been hot. Seriously hot. We managed to get in a run/walk before breakfast, closely followed by a visit from our tenants-to-be from October onwards. They wanted to see how they could organise televising German channels on our TV. They stayed for an hour, during which time they also gave us many good ideas of places to visit while we are in the Colmar area, as Daniele came from Alsace.
We put the finishing touches on readying the apartment and did our final packing just half an hour before our guests from Nelson arrived mid-afternoon. They brought with them a thunderstorm and very heavy rain. We opened a bottle of bubbly and offered them a 'welcome to Ceret' pastry before we all went to the car park in between showers to collect their bags and drop off most of ours. Unfortunately the heavens opened again while we were in the carpark and we all got soaked. Nevertheless, John and I were keen to hit the road by 5pm, so soon jumped in the car, turned up the temperature (that felt really weird) and pointed the car in the direction of Sète, two hours away to the north.
We soon dried out and 'warmed' to being on the road (apologies for the pun), using the toll road for once so that we made good time and also didn't get too bogged down in holiday traffic. Since the start of July France has started going on holiday and it will be totally shut down and clogged up by August. There's definitely a lot of traffic but most of it seemed to be heading south. That's why we are heading north, although Sète is in fact on the coast so it was getting its fair share of seaside-heading traffic. Our trip went well until the last 5 kilometres, which took us 20 minutes.
We had been to Sète twice before. It's very picturesque, with a marina, canals and a working fishing port. We'd booked a hotel for the night, over the hill from the centre. It was a shambles trying to get into our room at 5pm. First the reception wasn't open (was supposed to be until 7pm), the 24hr automatic machine by the door that was supposed to let you register and enter the locked doors wouldn't let us do so either by Option 1, entering our name, Option 2, inserting our credit card, nor Option 3, typing in our reservation number. The last resort was the after-hours telephone number posted on the door, but no-one was answering. After half an hour we were getting pretty frustrated. Thankfully a nice guy who was going in asked if we were having problems. He said he had had issues too when he tried to register a few weeks ago. He hadn't seen any of the breakfasts he had ordered for himself or others for the past three weeks either. Anyway, he tried ringing up the after-hours number on his phone and got a response. No idea why we didn't - we use an ordinary French phone card when in France. The guy on the other end just said go up to Room 324 and the key will be on the bed inside. So, at least we had a bed for the night. We were envisaging having to sleep in the car, since we'd never get a bed anywhere near in the busy holiday season. By 8:30pm our plans to have a long quiet meal out had disappeared. We were too tired. Instead we jumped in the car, drove to the closest bunch of cheap restaurants, chose one that still had a vacant table and ordered some skewers of meat and frites and one moule-frites. We tossed that down, couldn't get enthused to spend 7 Euro per dessert (it's definitely holiday prices here) so walked to the supermarket nearby and came away with a box of 6 ice cream trumpets for 2 Euros! They started to melt instantly, but we manfully got through them OK. By 9:30pm we were in bed!
With yesterday's rather abortive start to our holiday under our belt, we figured we'd start the trip afresh in the morning. With just a brief stop at a boulanger to pick up some pastries for breakfast, we drove round the hill to the central canal of Sète. We managed to fluke a carpark so decided to stop and have a coffee before putting some miles under our belt. A great coffee it was too, and a pleasant half hour watching the boat traffic. We are sure Sete could be a lovely place to live, except it has a much hotter and windier climate than Ceret, and the landscape around about is flat and marshy. We love the hills too much to consider it.
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| Looking along the main canal of Sète |
Onward through very pretty country, with the roads often lined with tall plane trees on either side, dappling the road in shade. Around midday we knew the holiday travellers would be sitting down to lunch in the restaurants en route so we set to looking for one ourselves. We soon spotted a routier restaurant (a roadside restaurant) - the Route 66 Restaurant. There were a number of trucks parked outside so we knew the food must be good. Trucks and workers' vehicles are always a sign to look for when you are after a good feed in France. Indeed it was extremely tasty, bountiful and cheap. The menu de jour consisted of a salad and quiche, followed by incredibly tender roast pork with lentils, and fruit salad and coffee to finish. All for 14 Euros. With that meal we knew we wouldn't have to worry much about dinner!
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| Roast pork and lentils - not flash in any way but delicious and honest |
On the way again by 1pm, soon passing beside the Plateau de Valensole. This was supposed to give us unsurpassed views of extensive lavender fields in full bloom. We saw a small field of young scruffy bushes but virtually nothing else. We know we are definitely in lavender country, but were just below the Plateau itself where they must grow. It was rather disappointing. I'd also tried to take some photos of fields of sunflowers but they were all facing the wrong way, as they invariably do.
The only other waypoint on this trip was to see the 'Penitents de Mees'. This is a very high, very long deeply eroded cliff-face which borders the town of Mees. Legend has it that the eroded mounds are monks that were turned to stone because they got a little over-excited observing some charming Muslim women.
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| Some of the Penitents de Mees |
Only another half hour and we arrived in Digne-les-Bains, our stop for the next 3 nights. It was still 35 degrees when we arrived at 4pm, having been 38 degrees a little earlier. We didn't expect the temperature to be so high because we have been climbing steadily on our way north and were already well elevated above the coast. We puffed into the Tourist Info Centre and picked up some maps. Unfortunately one of the walks we were planning to do, to see a fossilised ichthyosaur, was closed off for renovation work. It being 4:30pm, and us hot and weary, we opted to look through the geological museum another day and just head to our accommodation.
Unfortunately, this turned into another bit of a drama. We'd booked the Gambetta Apartments Airbnb, thought we had found the address OK, and after a few false starts tracked down the route to enter the car park area at the rear of that building. We had apparently been sent a parking map that morning by email but we hadn't had data on. We'd also been phoned earlier to say they were giving us a different room in the apartment block, just climb the stairs and the key is in the room on Level 2. However, the apartment block was huge and had four doors. We rang back - which door and stairwell do we use? "Oh, you're at the wrong building. You're actually not staying at those Gambetta apartments, you're staying a few doors down." Thanks for telling us. Reversed, found the accessway for a block further down signposted Fontainbleu apartments, and followed the directions to the building next door to this. Thankfully there was only one entrance, so up the stairs to Level 2, opened the door and inside was a nice little apartment, plus a door key. We then tried to find the key to lock the main door when we went out. No luck. Rang up again - "Oh, we don't have a key for the main door. It's never locked." Thanks for telling us. Airbnb is great, but so often there are issues meeting the managers, or finding the place. There's something to be said for hotels, though not those with defunct auto check-ins obviously!
Not a problem in the end, after a cool shower to let our temperatures cool off a little, we walked the few hundred metres (still 34 degrees) to the local supermarket to buy some yoghurt, some bread and a few odd and sods. Needless to say it was bread and cheese for dinner and an early night.
Remarkably, the temperature dropped a lot during the night and we were actually a bit cold with just a sheet on the bed. It dropped to about 18 degrees, I guess because we are in an alpine area now. Back in Ceret the temperature was often only getting down to the low-20s each night.
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