A View to a Hill

There were many cats and, indeed, several dogs raining down on Dickie’s roof as we slept in La Courtine last night. They stopped just long enough for us to discover a peaceful lake when we got up this morning. Such a contrast to the less than attractive town with one patisserie, a restaurant fermé, and a one stop tabac. It was amusing to find a route barrée before we’d even left the village.

First and only one of the day

Hugo loving the lake

We managed to find a rainbow on our way along the route des fromage (how appropriate) across the Massif Central to the village of Cheneuges where we are now parked awaiting the next deluge of domestic animals.
The fluffy one found the only parking spot with an obscured view but, after some gentle nudging, he moved to our current spot where we look directly across the river to a basalt abbey on top of a hill.
Yes, we did walk up there and it was exciting to find it open. The carvings inside are particularly splendid. I managed to find a couple of rudie nudies dancing around the top of a column, a griffin, and, of course, a lovely Madonna.
Tomorrow, Richerenches.

A pretty Mary

Not a bad view - eventually

Nudies cavorting

Carved masterpiece 

Farm Tracks and Flambée

The fluffy one is under strict instructions to put the correct latitude longitude numbers into the sat nav after an interesting drive today through extremely skinny roads and tiny farm lanes. After yet another route barrée experience we finally made it to our Aire of choice, La Courtine in the Creuse area of central France.
It’s not a particularly pretty town but there is a military academy nearby so the view is improved by small groups of muscular cadets running past. The fluffy one doesn’t seem to be as interested as me for some reason.
It’s been raining most of the day so we’re happily stuck in The van reading (me) and fiddling with WiFi routers (Graham). Hugo is asleep recovering from the extreme shivering he does whenever the van is moving.
Last night La Flambée restaurant was .... interesting. Whoever thought French chefs cook meat extremely rare have obviously never been to La Flambée in Le Blanc. To use the description ‘leathery’ would be an understatement but their Il Flottante (a custard and meringue dessert) was exceptionally good. The thrill of the evening continued as none of our three credit/debit cards would work in their machine. Thank heavens I had enough cash to get us out of washing the dishes.
Have listened to our arteries’ cries of ‘noooooooo’ so forced the fluffy one to eat squid for lunch today and it looks like baked beans on baguette for dinner as the restaurant here is fermé for Christmas holidays.
To recover from our nerve racking drive today we finished off the advent calendar chocolates. Thanks Suzi.

Round and Round to Roc

The joys of a ‘route barré’ are ... none. We’ve had two in the last couple of days which have led to rather circuitous routes to our destinations. Oh, for an accurate ‘Deviation’ sign! At least we’re not in a hurry and when we’ve arrived the medieval quaintness of the villages has made up for our teeny frustration.
Our arteries are soon going to be blocked just like the roads if we keep on eating the amount of cheese we’ve been thrusting into our mouths. If we listen hard enough we can hear the soft ‘pff pff’ of them furring up as we munch away. Today it’s Le Crémeux de Bourgogne, a buttery soft cheese which tastes, funnily enough, very creamy.
Graham wanted to check out a Palaeolithic site called Roc Aux Sorciéres despite the fact it was closed until March 1st. It was worth going just to check out the lovely 70s style monstrosity of a building that encapsulates the fantastic site within. See below. We may come back next year to have a look inside as the rock carvings look amazing.
We’re currently in a town called Le Blanc and Matt is nowhere to be seen. There’s a massive river nearby and a lovely beardy young chap in the tourist office who is at a loss as to why we are visiting in winter. Dinner tonight in La Flambée so I’m hoping they don’t serve cheese.

Unattractive building

Photo of interior of cave

Hugo’s loving the view

Cheese Yes - Bells No

What better way to spend a Sunday than driving along a quiet road with the Seine on one side and forests on the other. It makes us desperate to return to the frantic English roads that we love so much - NOT.
A daily cheese routine has begun in earnest. Yesterday’s lunch was a baguette and a Picardie Brie that weirdly resembled freshly churned butter and had a pleasingly strong flavour which Mr Fluffy described as off yoghurt - perfect. Today we hoovered up a baguette and a Tricorne de Picardie, a hard yet creamy cheese in a triangular shape - who’d have guessed. Tomorrow Roquefort - oh, and a baguette.
Quasimodo would have loved the Aire we stopped at this afternoon - oh, them bells, them bells. The lakeside location did little to tempt us to stay at La Madeleine Bouvet once three o’clock chimed out from the pretty church adjacent to the parking lot. It wasn’t a total loss, however, as the Fluffy one got his graffiti fix at the church and we are now at a slightly less attractive location just up the road in Breconcelles - with no BreconBELLS.

The Bells End to our Pretty Parking

Not a total loss for Mr Fluffy

Missing Madame BovaRY

As I was choosing which books to take with me on the trip I looked at Flaubert’s ‘Madame Bovary’ sitting on the pile and thought, no, I’ll read that when I get back.
The Fluffy one then goes ahead and chooses Ry, the location where said Madame B was set, for our second night in France. Happily, the Madame Bovary trail around the village tells pretty much the whole story so now I don’t have to read it.
It really is a lovely village in the Seine-Maritime region with stunning houses and countryside. Mr Fluffy has already managed to find some medieval graffiti on the church and the flan is pretty good as well.

Graffiti to keep the old man happy

Mme Bovary was ‘ere

Hot flan action

Back Where We Left Off

When something starts off badly it’s always a good sign; usually anyway. As we set out on our trip to mainland Europe I was delighted to learn that I had forgotten an important piece of paperwork so we had to go back and get it - not too far away but the Fluffy one was not impressed. We were equally thrilled when we clipped the wing mirror on a similarly thrilled (I presume) van and both our tail lights decided to fail.
It all boded very well and the notion of ‘never two without three’ was complete.
Our Eurotunnel crossing on Friday 22nd was without incident and we headed off to where we had spent our last night on our trip last year, Le Crotoy. We were tempted back by the fabulous seafood, amazing sea views from the Aire (motorhome parking) and the proliferation of dog poo (actually you can scrap the last one - I put that in just to amuse myself).
If you ever find yourselves there and you love french seafood you must go to the restaurant, Le Mascaret. Three courses for 30 euros and you won’t need to eat again for a hundred years (slight exaggeration there). The village fromager recommended it so thanks go to him. His cheese was pretty good as well.
Oh, and I found my dream home along the seafront but Fluffy won’t let me buy it.

My dream home - it looks much better in real life

Poo dodging

Picking up scraps

View from Dickie’s window