A Sou’Westerly Trajectory along the Coast in the South Of France and the Full Time Whistle.

17th Oct – 30th Oct 2023

Recovered from the exertions and extravagance in Marseille we rolled out of Sausset-Les-Pins the next morning. We had been staying in an aire run by a company called Camping Car Park who offer a type of overnight parking that you just don’t find in the USA. The parks are usually on the edge of a town or village and mostly fairly basic, often with no greenery at all. Spaces can be ‘compact’ and one shouldn’t expect a nice private area to sit out and call one’s own but they do have power to each site, fresh water and a place to drain grey and black water. Entry and exit is all controlled with a barrier and a swipe card pre-loaded with credit, so it is reasonably secure, and sites can be pre-booked or you can just turn up. The number of sites available at any one time can be viewed live on their app. It’s genius! And the average cost for a night’s stay at this time of year? €12. Perfect for us, who prefer to be plugged in rather than boondocking on a back street somewhere.

Anyway, we headed out from this Camping Car Park and had picked another one in the Camargue, a civilised 120 km drive away. The town was called Le Grau-du-Roi, a small coastal fishing port on the edge of the marshlands and salt pans of the Camargue National Park. We planned 3 nights here to do some walking and cycling and see some of the local wildlife – namely ponies and flamingos – and there was also a very cool, walled town nearby called Aigues-Mortes, meaning dead, or stagnant, waters that could be easily reached by bike. We found a space and walked to the nearby supermarket to get some provisions. We had tried to stop on the way in, but every entrance to its enormous car park was height restricted to prevent the entry of camper vans. How rude! And how very unlike the USA. After shopping and lunch we headed out for a stroll along the beach and around the town. It was windy and overcast and although not cold, the whole town, that I am sure was lively and bustling with T-shirted tourists only a few weeks ago had the slightly depressed air of an out-of-season holiday destination – which I suppose is was it was.

We did a lap, watched the swivelling bridge let a few big fishing boats into the marina and headed back. The next morning we surfaced and checked the weather before planning what to do for the day. It didn’t look good. Lots of rain and wind were on the way. Then we had a phone call from the admin team at Camping Car Park warning us that this particular campsite was at risk from flooding from rain and from inundation from large seas. This is a low lying marsh, after all. They recommended that we leave. Hmmmm. None of our fellow residents, all French, seemed to be breaking camp. We discussed our options and the pros and cons of staying put. In the end we decided to move on. Even if it didn’t flood here, 48 hours of wild weather was not going to condusive to wafting around the Camargue on bicycles, and we didn’t want to get stuck here, so we decamped.

The whole area was under a severe weather watch, starting that evening, so we headed to a place slightly inland and less liable to fill with water. We settled on a place called Mèze, another small fishing town, but this time on the inland side of the Etang-du-Thau, a large lake famed for its oyster and mussel farms. As we pulled up to the barrier there was a sign saying that the parking area flooded in heavy rain. Jeepers, can we catch a break??! We reversed away from the barrier and pulled in on the side of the road. The heavy rain was still forecast and the sky looked angry, but it was still dry. The area wasn’t exactly on high ground but not in a dip either, and there were no nearby hills or streams. This, coupled with a severe apathy to hunt out another site for the night made us brave, so we pulled in, parked up and plugged in. Let the skies throw what they may at us!

Despite the dark skies the rain remained elusive, the radar showing it pass to our north, so we decided to walk to the centre of the town of Mèze, and the waterfront area. This was about 2 km away through a fairly dull residential area and which would, in retrospect, have been much better to do on the bikes and my esteemed companion might have had less grumbling to do. The town was another of those myriad of small French conurbations that at first glance appears a bit utilitarian and unremarkable, but as you walk through its small winding streets it reveals its beautiful ancient homes, original cobbles and the odd medieval church or 500 year old fortress. Mèze also has a small fishing port and many oyster processing outfits and the Thau is full of the racks of the oyster farms.

Across the Thau, on the Mediterranean, lies Sète, a bigger fishing port town sitting at the base of the only hill in the area. Sète holds a special place in our hearts as we had spent 3 months living here in the summer of 2018. We had spent many an hour wandering its streets, visiting the beach, watching the many bouts of jousting from traditional oar-powered fishing boats-which is nuts! (https://en.tourisme-sete.com/fetes-de-la-saint-louis-2023.html). We had also had a french tutor during our time here. A very lovely lady called Marie-Claude. She had dragged our French from medicocre up to reasonable and we had many, many hours of fun and laughter disguised as classes. Now our language skills had degenerated back to very shabby from disuse, which is a shame.

Our sudden change in plans gave us an opportunity to have a last minute day trip to Sète and the next day we took the 45 minute bus journey from Mèze for a trip down memory lane. We didn’t get in contact with Marie-Claude, thinking that it was too short notice to meet up or that she might not remember us as fondly as we remembered her. We were also a bit embarrassed about the current quality of our French. I sent her an email after our visit, knowing that I would write about it here and knowing that she is still on my Tin Can Travels email list so may still read the blog and discover that we had been in town. Her reply was so warm and she does remember us very fondly, so now I am sad that we didn’t make contact with her. So sorry Marie-Claude, and let that be a lesson to me.

In the end we were in Sète for only about four hours but that was plenty of time to wander around all our old haunts, visit our old appartment (A small fourth floor place with no lift, no aircon and the strangest bathroom layout we have ever seen), and have a tielle. “What is a tielle?” I hear you cry. A tielle is a delicacy specific to Sète and is a pastry topped tart filled with a spicy octopus ragu sauce. The red sauce leeches through the pastry, making the tarts orange and they are delicious. We made a beeline for the tielle seller in the indoor market and bought a small one to share as a pre-lunch snack and then sat at a nearby pavement bar with a glass of rosé each to eat it – this being entirely acceptable behaviour. It did not dissappoint.

We wandered around the port to the lighthouse and then back along the main canal where we had a late lunch before catching the bus home, tired but happy.

The next day we headed to Narbonne, another place that we had visited before but were keen to revisit. It has a very grand, but truncated cathedral, the building of which was started in 1272 but was never completed. Pope Clement IV decided that the city needed a magnificent gothic cathedral to impress people and make him look marvellous and the altar and choir bits were built on a grand scale. Unfortunately lack of money and politics got in the way of its completion, and also it was realised that due to its close proximity to the city walls, there was no way of finishing the building without demolishing part of the city’s defenses. So now there is only space for a choir to sing its heart out with no space for a congregation to listen to them. What a c**K up! Sounds like HS2.

We chose to come to Narbonne for a few reasons:

1. Pretty
2. Old
3. Campsite 2km from city centre with cycle route along canal tow path.
4. Rugby town, so confident could find a bar showing the semi-finals with a bit of atmosphere and small crowd.
5. Nice safe cycle route to beach only 15 km away.

All these proved to be true except 4. Although, yes, this is a rugby town, no, we did not find bar showing the rugby that was a-buzz with a slightly rowdy, rugby-mad crowd. Instead we found O’Brians, an Irish bar, and Molly, one rugby-mad Irish girl who was a lot of fun, but did not constitute a rowdy crowd. The bar had a couple of TVs tuned to the action, but no-one else was interested. Since the French were knocked out in last round the locals seemed to have lost all interest in the rest of the competion. We bowled up in our All Blacks jerseys for the spectacle of NZ vs Argentina and quickly realised that Molly was the only other person watching. We invited ourselves to sit with her, at a small table right in front of the screens and spent a very lovely evening of rugby and non-rugby chit chat, and she forgave us for the fact the the All Blacks had knocked Ireland out of the competion in the last round. She is a nurse, solo travelling around France in her van, driving crazy miles, camping mainly in supermarket car parks and seeing as many of the games as possible having taken all her annual leave in one big lump. Respect to her! History will tell you that NZ won, we celebrated in a conservative manner and the evening was over. Our research had led us to discover that Narbonne (a French Division 2 team) was playing at home the next afternoon and the stadium was right here in town. We all decided to go, met Molly at the next day at the ground and watched a very entertaining game of local rugby.

The sun was shining, the brass band playing, the team mascot goofing and many tries were scored. We hoped that some of the 5000 spectators might stay in town to watch the other semi-final, South Africa vs England, thus creating a bit of atmosphere, but no. Off home they all popped. Never mind. We ate pizza together and then headed back to O’Brians, watching the game sat at the same table. A crowd of three again. Molly was supporting South Africa and we weren’t supporting England, so the Springbok’s victory was acceptable all round. We bade our goodbyes and promised to look her up as-and-when we hit Ireland in Davide.

We had the day out on our bikes and headed out to the beach at Guissan, only about 15km away. The compact electric machines continue to impress us and aside from not having any suspension so being bone rattlers on rough terrain, thay have made cruising around town and countryside a dream. Guissan has a small ‘old town’ which is seperate from ‘Guissan Chalets’, a large collection of stilted, beach-front holiday homes along a sand spit, best known as a set location for the 1986 French erotic psychological drama film, Betty Blue. Nowadays all the chalets have filled in their lower levels changing the look of the place a bit. It was quiet when we were here, eating our picnic baguettes on the sea wall, but I can imagine this place is very lively in the summer.

The rain that had been threatening for about a week finally caught up with us on our penultimate night in Narbonne and it chucked down from dusk until dawn. Heavy rain is very noisy on the roof and precludes all TV viewing or the enjoyment of any audio entertainment. Sleep was possible with ear plugs and in the morning the campsite was covered with large puddles. But not a flood. We had planned a quiet day but in the end it was incredibly social with long camp site conversations with passing Brits and several video chats with friends and family. We were exhausted!

The next day we rolled on again. This time along to Carcassone. This was another revisit but it is so beautiful that I wanted to go back again. The Cité, the older part, is built up on a small hill with the original settlement initially fortified by the Romans in about 100 BCE. Numerous chaps fought wars in the area, including the splendidly named Visigoths, and the city was an important stronghold, being incrementally enlarged and fortified. It was renovated in the 19th C back to it’s medieval glory and now looks like somewhere Harry Potter would live after he decided to live his life as a princess. It is also a complete and deserved tourist trap. The fortified Bastide, built on the lower ground in the 13th C is still referred to as the ‘new city’ and for a long time was a rival to it’s elevated, older neighbour. Our camp was a local authority run aire only about 1.5km from La Cité, also digitally controlled with a gate. This we couldn’t book ahead and all reports had said that to assure yourself of a spot you had to arrive early. This was good advice and we arrived at about midday, having only driven about 70km from Narbonne. Already spaces were running out. Happily we secured a spot and parked up. There was no power here, meaning we were relying on our two house batteries and solar panel, but that’s what Davide is designed for. We can live without the coffee machine and hair dryer for a couple of nights but we haven’t yet worked out how to charge the laptops when on 12v power. I suspect an inverter will be on the shopping list soon.

We strolled down the river and climbed up to La Cité to do our usual touristing technique of ‘walking around everywhere’. This included a basic lunch of panini and chips (excellent) sat in a courtyard suntrap with some shelter from the chilly wind and doing several laps of the streets whilst looking for the restaurant that we had eaten at on last visit. (Never found it). This area is renowned for its local dish, Cassoulet. Classically this is a slow cooked stew of beans, confit goose, mutton and sausage. We didn’t partake during this visit, but have bought a can as an ’emergency dinner’ for when hearty food is needed at short notice. For this it is perfect. On our second day here we wandered around the Bastide and found lunch in an interesting locals place down a back street. Here the ongoing cool wind outside and our lack of warm clothes were forgotten as we walked in and were met with a wall of heat created by the enormous open fire in the heart of the restaurant, at which Monsieur Le Chef was cooking sausages and steaks.

It was toasty warm, we were starving, they served wine, the menu de jour involved a double starter of soup and chicken mayonaise salad and then the main course consisted of succulent sausages being cooked in front of our very eyes. It is these things that make us very happy. We dragged ourselves and our full tummies home after I bought a pair of shoes. My current inventory of footwear includes flipflops and boots with not much inbetween. These last few days has reminded me that even if we are heading south, it is still winter and colder days are coming.

After Carcassone we were then looking for a place where we could watch the Rugby World Cup final between the All Blacks and South Africa. Perpignan is another rugby mad town along our route towards Spain, so we found ourselves in a village called Elne, which was near the city and had a train link into the centre. We could surely find a lively bar there to watch the game. On our way into camp we had one of those necessary stops of being on the road: the visit to the laundrette. The reality of doing laundry whilst travelling is that a) you do it much less often and so there is a lot more to do and b) it has a reasonable cost associated with it, but c) it is incredibly satisfying! Also we found a particulaly good (and deserted), clean and modern facility with parking right outside so we could hang out in Davide and have lunch whilst waiting. This sort of thing also makes us quite happy.

There was some confusion as we arrived at our next aire as the power was out and nothing (barrier, payment, water, hook ups) was working. Many people were leaving. We were going to find somewhere else too but spent enough time faffing around looking at the internet for an alternative option that it gave the electrician enough time to arrive and fix it. So we stayed. The next day we checked out the village of Elne to find it had unexpectedly pretty and historic centre with a church on a little hill in the middle. We had also caught market day which is always a feast for the eyes, even if we manage to resist the feast for the stomach.

After a blither about on foot we cycled up to the train station to ascertain its location (quite a way from camp so not really walkable) and to check the timetable. We could get to the city for the game, but the late finish would mean that we would have to get an Uber back. Not ideal, but do-able. Next we decided to have a trundle out to the coast, about 7km away. Here we found the coastal town of Saint Cyprien Plage, a quite delightful stretch of beach with a marina, a forgiveable array of unattractive, 70s built, boxy appartment blocks and a generous offering of restaurants and bars that were still open for business. Some mild investigative work revealed another motorhome aire here with views of the marina and a bar/restaurant that was showing the rugby final the next night. An alternative plan was hatched – one that didn’t involve a bike ride, a train, an Uber back to the station and then a bike ride back in the dark. We booked a table at the restaurant for the match and shifted camp the next day. The pitches in this next place were a bit snug, but its location was perfect. It was also only €10 for 24 hours. We spent our afternoon cyling up the beach a bit and stopped for a lounge and a (short) swim. Not bad for the 28th October!

The game. Let’s just get it over with and acknowledge that New Zealand were beaten.

It wasn’t due to some questionable refereeing decisions. It wasn’t for lack of us being correctly dressed and adorned with flags. It wasn’t because the restaurant’s big screen wasn’t big enough or that we weren’t sat close enough to it.

It wasn’t because we ate too much entrecôte and frites and it wasn’t because there were only five other supporters sitting with us. I think that South Africa were a bit better on the night an deserved to win, the outcome that Nick had predicted before the competion had even started. Our evening ended with a short cycle home rather than the alternative epic journey, which, in defeat, was easier to bear. Now it was all over, we could get on with some ‘normal’ travelling.

Perpignan was still so close and it would have been a shame not to see it, so we decided to go in the next day. This involved us moving back to the Elne aire, cycling to the station, leaving the bikes in a secure locker and taking a short 8 minute train journey.. This small city of about 120,000 is tucked into the corner of Catalan France and is the last major conurbation before Spain. It was the continental capital of the Kingdom of Majorca in the 13th and 14th centuries and has a nicely preserved old centre with narrow streets surfaced with polished stone. Unusually these narrow streets contitue the main retail area of the city although it was a Sunday when we visitied so everything was shut. The highlight of the day was a visit to the beautifully preserved Palace of the Kings of Majorca, an amazingly fortified chateau sitting up on a hill overlooking the city, giving some great views.

Now that the rugby was finished it was time to leave France and move into Spain and although it was only 40 km to the border we were finding the concept of this a bit hard. France is a comfortable place for us as we can speak enough French to communicate and it is very familiar. Spain, not so much. I had started learning a bit of Spanish with Babbel, but “¡Mucho Gusto!” wasn’t going to get us very far. Our decision? Mañana! It was another beautiful day, far too lovely to be driving. So what did we do? The next morning we moved back to Saint Cyprien Plage to be by the beach again. Yes, 100% delaying tactics. We spent the day cycling up the long coastal bike path to the next town, Canet-en-Rousssillon, a bigger version of Saint Cyprien. Here we found a mini golf course which was quite challenging, which is why my superior talent led to me being the (deserved but most gracious) victor.

Now we were ready to go to Spain.