It is time to leave France again, in love though we are with our new home there. B is working rather too hard on it – we bought a place “needing nothing to do”, moved in and started doing stuff. It is true, we don’t need to as such, but we are (in our minds at least) titivating and improving what is already a fabulous place.
Anyway, B has exhausted himself and I am a bag of stress following moving out, moving in and moving out of our UK home, now waiting to finally sell (fingers crossed) and, guess what, move into another place there. All self-inflicted so I guess I cannot and do not expect much sympathy!
From “chez nous” – Petite Tour – the nearest border is south, to Spain. As we are considering skiing there in the winter – due to proximity and the chance to leave France again – B suggested we go now and view the targeted resort to see what we think. So Horatio gets to go somewhere other than a local camping car park for the night so we can go out and not drink and drive, or Dorset for another MOT, which was looking like his next big trip.
Out came the ever expanding checklist, in went most of what we need (we always miss something, naturally), and we set off via a mixture of N and D roads (Route Nationals and Departmentals). This is an interesting challenge, as we prefer the slightly longer routes which keep us on the better roads, and the Satnag prefers everything else and is constantly trying to cut the corner off using all sorts of unsuitable roads. You cannot get round this on the choices menu – having eliminated motorways and toll roads the choices are then Shortest Route or Fastest Route, the latter often turning into the former, though when you override the instruction its interesting how quickly it can reset to your preference.
But, in the great tradition of Ronnie Corbett and my Dad, I digress….enough of that! We were on the way – B driving and me glued to the map to spot the Satnag’s bad choices hopefully in advance. About 5 hours later we stopped in a small bastide village to the west of Toulouse called Sarrant. A bit nuts really as we could have been in Spain by then, but we had decided to take a more leisurely approach.
Sarrant must be the tiniest bastide (fortified town) I have ever seen. It is a Plus Beau Village with a pretty tower at the entrance with a wooden portcullis and within a curved road (track) which took less than 5 minutes to walk around, which basically encircled the church with the houses ringed around the outside of it facing inwards. No real battlements, the houses formed the walls of the bastide. It’s an artists’ spot, having a local painter called Valerie Dumas, various potteries and sculptors and an art exhibition, but very little in the way of food outlets. Actually, there was a restaurant, a gastronomic boutique and a bar next to a bookshop – but nothing was open. Time to defrost the first emergency meal, a lovely tagine from one of our local markets, excellent with a good bottle of wine from the Gard.
The next day we were off again, we took turns driving so B had to do some of the navigation (not his favourite job) and I had to drive down some narrow (to me) roads (not my forte either). By 2pm we were over the border and indeed pulling into a huge car park in Baquiera, where, it was soon evident, you cannot park overnight in a camping car. We peered up at the mountain top, spotted the gondolas stored ready for the winter transfer of skiers to the slopes above and then headed down looking for a campsite. Top spot on the way up was a site in a pretty village called Arties, but it was closed for the winter, from that day. Doh!
So we drove right back down, continuing to admire the lovely stone houses with wood balconies and shutters and slate rooves which are the preferred style, we assume using local materials, of the region.
We found a site, and got somewhat trapped into staying there due to our lack of Spanish. The land was pretty, full of crocuses (or something similar looking, this being autumn, not spring) which we ran over in their hundreds to park. The sanitaires (we use the french word) were run down and there was only 1 loo for each gender, the showers were archaic. We wouldn’t have minded if it was cheap, but it wasn’t. The electric kettle didn’t trip the power though, so that was a small plus, as was the welcome from the nearly toothless though young waiter/chef who nicely barbecued some chicken and pork for us for dinner and produced a nice bottle of red (that always helps).
The next day we went back up the mountain to Baqueira Beret (2 villages which have merged in name and geography) to look for the hotel we had found on the internet which had deals including dinner for the ski season. We found it, but it was shut! We then followed the road up the mountain and arrived at a huge car park which apparently serves the ski resort lifts (though I wouldn’t fancy the drive in the snow). From there we could see that there will be a plethora of runs of all level available – as the write ups have indicated, but its good to see. B got all excited and we decided we will ski there this winter.
Accomodation – present and future!
The road up – see the protection tunnels
Beyond the car park the road went to gravel. So we backtracked and decided to head for a campsite beyond Baquiera. I programmed it in – the Satnag said 17km when locating it. We forgot to check what that meant in reality once the route was in place – about 35km in fact, most of it hairpin bends, first up to over 2000m, then down, and down, into the valley. Breathtaking views of the mountains and the drops and the snaking road ahead…..
We arrived at La Guingeta to find a lovely site with a restaurant and another up the road – this is a glamping trip – and said to each other we would leave in the other direction. A couple of beers later I looked at the map and showed it to B – the other way would mean about a 200mile trip to cover the 50 we had done from the Spanish border. So we will be going back the way we came, after building up our courage for several days here. Meantime we booked the hotel, remembering my cousins’ great edict – never go on holiday until the next one is already booked. OK, so this was booked while already away, but its close enough to count we feel!
