To make a change from all of these world famous, UNESCO-protected tourist must-sees that we’ve been ticking off the list at the front of our Lonely Planet, we decided to take a day off and go shopping.
Little Marcel, a very strange concept for a shop
This year we’ve generally avoided big cities, and the places we have passed through haven’t been big enough to stroll round with credit card at ready, so Iva got to work on finding a practical middle ground: lead us to the outlet centre! While I drove in an easterly direction from Pau, with Carcassonne in mind as our next “proper” destination, Iva ferociously googled a new plan together.
It didn’t take her long to locate the “Nailloux Fashion Village”, south of Toulouse, and conveniently located not too far off the route we would have driven anyway. Having learnt from previous mistakes before getting excited we (a) checked the times and dates on the website to make sure it would be open and (b) checked elsewhere in the internet to confirm that it still exists. No point in detouring for a now-derelict and most likely haunted ex-fashion village. Again.
Carcassonne, the board game
We arrived after it had already closed and parking was a toss up between sleeping in their enormous parking lot or the next village (logically, Nailloux). We opted for the latter on the hope of finding a wifi connection and planned to come back the next morning first thing. In the end we didn’t buy anything because most of the clothes were both full-price and horrible, but it was a nice change of pace and an experience in its own right.
Next stop, Carcassonne!
The only reason we had heard of Carcassonne was because of the now world-famous board game, the design of which – we found out later – was based on the walled city of Carcassonne in the south of France, near the Pyrenees.
The walls of Carcassonne
In fact, it’s one of France’s most visited tourist destinations, we’d just hadn’t heard of it until then, but after seeing pictures on Google we decided to go.
We found a great campsite and spent the best part of a day walking around the old town, taking photos and enjoying some epic views across the surrounding countryside.
Klara particularly enjoyed barking maniacally at every dog we passed, I think Carcassonne was her favourite so far.
Every evening around 20:00 our evening routine begins. By then it’s started to get dark and we will have already chosen a place to park up for the night.
If we’re staying in a campsite we’ll have put out the table and chairs and walked around the site to get a feel for the place. We close all of the blinds and draw the curtains around the driver and passengers seats and clip them together in the middle, then we turn on the lights – there are four of them – and often I’ll put on a local radio station at a background volume to distract Iva from any peripheral noises outside the van which might get her thinking about camper van murderers or bears.
Galette Complete with Veggie Sausages
Generally it’s me that cooks dinner.
This year we’ve learnt from our previous experience and so on most mornings we stop at a supermarket to buy food (and diesel) for that day. I love cooking in the van because it’s a culinary and logistical master-challenge that demands nimble fingers, nerves of steel and a heat-resistant face.
The hob has two rings, the chopping board and sink can only be used one a time, water and space are in limited supply and anything that gets dropped on the floor disappears immediately into Klara.
Shopping each day for that day this year has meant that we’ve eaten much better and thrown a lot less food away.
Asparagus with Mushroom and Potato
In 2010 we were so excited about setting out on our trip that we completely filled the van with food on the very first day and ended up constantly having to use things up (and throw quite a lot of stuff away). Today for example we bought green asparagus and we ate it tonight with fresh mushrooms and chives, and potatoes and crème fraiche from yesterday.
Another advantage is that we can keep our eyes open for local produce available only in that part of the country. I had quite a bit of fun experimenting with Galettes in Brittany, and we’ve also been working our way through the various cheeses which differ from town to town.
But mainly we just love going to supermarkets and do that almost every day.
Paprika Ragout and Veggie Meatballs
After dinner, we wash the dishes, put everything away and one of us will feed Klara and then take her out for her evening constitutional (i.e. walking in circles on the nearest patch of grass until she pees).
You have to be pretty organised living in such a small place because every surface serves multiple purposes. We have about 6m³ to play with and depending on the time of day it’s our bedroom, kitchen, living room and dining room. Oh, and of course our car. You don’t want dirty pots in your bedroom, or dirty undies in your kitchen and you definitely don’t want your living room to stink of diesel and wet dog.
Le Grande Tasting du Cheese
Most evenings we put the heating on full blast for 10 minutes which raises the temperature very quickly and is enough for the rest of the evening. Since finding out that we can’t replace or refill our gas bottles here in France we’ve been rationing our gas a little bit, but the van is well insulated and it hasn’t been a problem fortunately. Once that’s taken care of we watch a film or an episode of whichever TV series we’re currently ploughing our way through (currently Downton Abbey, mixed feelings on that one), I drink some beer and Iva eats some chocolate biscuits. Eventually I usually also eat some chocolate biscuits and in mean time it’s gone 23:00 and we’re ready for some magical sleepy time.
The last bit of the routine is also the best bit.
Chickpea Fajitas
The roof of the van folds down and extends to create a sleeping space above the living area. It’s claustrophobic and cosy in equal measure, and learning to get up there elegantly (and safely) took quite a bit of practice: left foot on the bench, right foot on the work surface, pull, swivel … and with a bit of luck you’re cocooned in for the night.
Then it’s lights off and sleep, which pretty much always comes easily after a day of travelling.
Enjoyed just reading about your night time routine – did think of Iva getting into the bunk! Have emailed you a doggy joke. Hope it makes you smile as we thought it was very funny. Looking forward to the next tales of Camperissimo. xx
After spending the morning walking around La Rochelle, we returned to the van to drop Klara off and give us a couple of hours of human time.
Since we usually drive on every day – at least a little bit – we tend to develop general impressions of regions and areas of a country, rather than specific opinions on towns or cities. Still, we both really liked the town, which was pretty much exactly as described in the guidebook (well-preserved, charming, lively), but were looking forward to moving on later that afternoon.
Us
Eating out has been a bit of a challenge so far in France. Although we’ve seen countless young, modern-looking restaurants, they tend to offer fixed menus, which I just assume contain rabbit or partridge or langoustine, thanks to a recent over-consumption of Masterchef. Our experiences over the last two weeks have confirmed overwhelmingly: nobody in France speaks English* and our attempts to translate menus have been fairly fruitless. In this case, however, we happened upon a Tunisian restaurant with a more formulaic menu and had no problems ordering vegetarian couscous, which was great.
* I don’t expect anyone to speak any language except for their own, and I truly wish I spoke any real French, but this is the first country we’ve travelled through communication has been a real challenge, despite our collective knowledge of English, German, Italian and Croatian. I should add that people have always been friendly and very willing to wildly gesticulate in lieu of verbal communication.
Iva on the dune
We had parked the van just across the street from two museums we were planning on visiting: the Museum of Automaton and the Museum of Scale Models. Joint entry was €12 per person and ultimately I was pretty disappointed with both, although in some regards they were impressive. Despite their names, neither was really a museum, but rather both were exhibitions of one man’s enormous toy collection. Still, the overall presentation was cheerful and they let me use their toilet.
Back in the van, we had a moment of tiredness and doubt.
Don't worry, I'll watch your shoes
After two weeks on the road and almost 3000km on the clock, neither of us was sure that we wanted to continue driving south.
The next step of our journey should have been a further 350km down to Irun on the Spanish border to meet up with David and Oihana, friends that we had met in Romania in 2010, but continuing as planned would now definitely leave us with 2 or 3 very long days of driving at the end of our trip.
After some deliberation we decided to drive on as far as Bordeaux to visit Europe’s biggest sand dune, the Dune du Pilat, and then take a sharp left and head west.
At the very top
Feeling better for having made a clear decision we left La Rochelle and parked up about an hour south in the entirely unspectacular village of Samussac. We parked in a public car park in the town centre and managed to give Klara a 20 minute walk before the rain started, together with weather that reminded us that it’s still only just the beginning of spring. Blinds down, heating on, feed the dog and then some dinner.
Not forgetting the compulsory – but thus far entirely unsuccessful – search for unprotected wifi connections in the area in the hope that we would be able to use Skype and download some episodes to watch. As usual, all that we could see were private networks and the standard French Telecom connection for their mobile customers.
Iva, Iva and Iva
Somewhat frustrated and not one to give up easily, I used my phone to do a little online research and after a little while found a post in a French forum with a list of user accounts and passwords for the FT wifi network, which we’ve been using every night since then …
Klara was here
The drive to Bordeaux the following morning found us in mixed feelings, because the weather was looking very dodgy and climbing up a massive heap of sand in the rain sounded more like punishment than pleasure. Still, we persisted, and so did the run of luck we’ve had with the weather gods for the entire trip so far; by the time we were within a few kilometres of the dune it was sunny and bright.
When I was a kid, my family visited France on camping holidays every year for several years, each time venturing a little further south. I’m not sure of the exact year, but about 15 years previously we had visited the dune and a few other places in this region, including a huge water park, “Aqualand”. For old times’ sake we stopped there for a couple of photos before arriving at the car park at the foot of the Dune du Pilat. By this point, Iva had started to realised how absolutely massive the thing is … until then I suspect her agreeing to visit a sand dune had been partly out of politeness.
Quick snooze after all that action
Anyway, it’s MASSIVE. From the top it feels pretty much standing at the top of a ski slope, and the views out across the Atlantic and back inland are breathtaking. We took our shoes off to feel the sand on our toes and Klara ran like a mad thing in circles up and down the sides of the dune until she was so tired that she actually started eating the sand.
After such a fantastic experience we were both left feeling partly recharged and we decided not to completely skip the very south-west of France. Our next stop would be the town of Pau, and then on to Carcassone, before heading back through the Massif Central.
Loved today’s description of campervan routines.
The French have a beautiful expressive word meaning ‘tasting of’.
The word is la dégustation.
You may see this on a board by the road.
It implies ‘come taste our produce’ – and maybe but some.
Enjoyed just reading about your night time routine – did think of Iva getting into the bunk! Have emailed you a doggy joke. Hope it makes you smile as we thought it was very funny. Looking forward to the next tales of Camperissimo. xx