France is a huge and varied country; well over twice the size of the UK, and four times the size of England, with only 1.2 times the population.
Driving should be a pleasure, as there are far more roads and far fewer cars. The French police, however, seem to be even more keen to catch you speeding than the British. The national speed limit on normal roads was (until a couple of years ago) 90kmh, but Departments were then allowed to change limits to 80kmh at will. This is one reason that the ‘Gilet Jaunes’ were born in protest. Much vandalism of speed cameras took place. If you suddenly forget whether you are in an 80kmh or 90kmh zone, it’s no use me looking at my car’s SatNav, because it still thinks the national speed limit is universally 90kmh. In the outskirts of villages and past tighter road bends, the speed limit can be reduced to 70kmh. Plus, as soon as you pass the village name on a road sign at the village approach, the limit drops to 50kmh; there are no speed limit signs, it’s a fact that you just have to know. Not to mention the ‘30kmh zones’ in village centres.
So, rather than gazing out over the wonderful scenery we were traversing, Alix and I spend a lot of time looking for speed limit signs, road-side cameras (cunningly painted grey not yellow) and mobile radar units. One thing we didn’t spot is any Brit cars. I think we could count them on the fingers of one hand since we have been over here. One British car driver even waved to us, he was so excited to see another GB registration.
We have just arrived safely back at Aubeterre-sur-Dronne without being flashed, and we did actually manage to enjoy the scenery. We have essentially just driven across a huge and relatively low-lying area of south-western France, between the Massif Central and the Pyrenees. From Narbonne (Aude department), we headed to Minerve (Herault); then to Rouairoux, Castres and Albi (Tarn); then to Cahors (Lot); then to Monpazier (Dordogne); and finally, home (Charente). The departments are named after their major rivers. The Aude and Herault drain into the Mediterranean Sea. The Tarn, Lot, Dordogne and Charente all drain westwards into the Atlantic Ocean, and all (save the Charente) via the Gironde at Bordeaux.
We experienced the coastal landscapes and dry scrub, before crossing the wooded hills of the Black Mountains via switchback roads. We passed pretty villages and bastides (fortified towns) perched on rocky mounds, and we also viewed the huge vertical cliffs of the limestone gorges in the Tarn. In general, we passed through a pleasant, undulating and agricultural countryside, interspersed with forest, woodland, fruit groves and (of course) vines.
We broke our journey in Albi at a hotel called La Reserve, which has a lovely pool and terrace next to the river Tarn. In the bar, there were photographs of the owner alongside famous guests. We now call the hotel ‘The Two Queens’, because the photographs include the Queen Mother and … Elton John. We chatted to the manager about this and she had actually been there when Elton John arrived with his entourage of 10 and two trucks of gear, clothes and shoes. I also spotted, at a distance, a photograph of a chap with a bare torso, that I joked must be Iggy Pop. On closer inspection it was actually he. The manager told us he had hardly worn a shirt for his entire stay. He spent most of his time in the pool and she said that he was ‘like a lizard in the water’.
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We had spent a very useful few days at the coast, shopping for bits and pieces for the boat, such as crockery. We also took a trip down the Vermillion Coast, past Perpignan (like the Cote D’Azur, but less busy and pretentious) to see if we could find the Douanes at Port-Vendres. Port-Vendres is pretty, but, more importantly, it is a formal French Port of Entry. When we are on Missy Bear, we will need the Douanes there to stamp our passports to prove that we have left France. (The terms of our long-term visa mean that we can’t leave Schengen from a country other than France, eg we couldn’t complete our journey from Greece to Turkey.)
For leisure, we had lunch in Les Halles at Narbonne, had a beer on the picturesque seaside village of Peyriac-sur-Mer, and swam at La Franqui-Plage. Even though the French require the wearing of masks indoors at shops and restaurants, they are much luckier than the English with their climate with most of the tables being outside. At Narbonne, we took up two stools at the bar of a brasserie in the indoor market, run by an ex-French rugby player, M. Bebelle, who shouts out orders via a megaphone. We left two seats free between us and our neighbours. We removed our masks. We were quickly instructed to move up next to our neighbours, so that we were almost touching elbows. Very efficient, but not quite the social distancing we had experienced in England. People here seem to be a bit more relaxed about the pandemic; like the Cotswolds and Aubeterre, it seems to have been a plague that has generally only affected somewhere else.
One evening, Sari and Thorne’s neighbours in Portel-des-Corbieres, Jean-Luc and Brigitte, invited Alix and me around for supper. Their home is a massive and charming old coach house, hanging over the top of the river gorge. They ran it as a chambres d’hote until they recently retired. It was the date of the Euro quarter final between England and Ukraine, and supper was planned early at 7pm, so that we could watch the match later on their TV. They are a lovely couple and, like many Belgians, speak perfect English. (I didn’t talk about football, because Italy had eliminated Belgium the night before.) They treated us to mussels flambéed with Ricard (pastis) on a plancha, followed by two-dozen, large and locally-farmed oysters. The oysters were lovely, although we all agreed that we prefer them slightly smaller. Due to the pandemic, the oysters haven’t been picked so often and so have all grown a size larger! Jean-Luc kept our glasses topped up with lovely wines, especially with reds from a friend and local producer called Gillaume Boussens (Domaine de Dernacueillette.)
Unfortunately, they lost their TV signal just after the match started at 9pm. I managed to get BBC iPlayer on my iPhone, but felt a bit rude watching TV on my phone, so I forgot about the football as much as I could. Luckily England had scored quite early to settle my nerves. We stayed chatting (about Brexit, the yacht etc.) until 1:15 am. The time seemed to fly by. France has only just lifted its 11pm curfew, so either Jean-Luc and Brigitte had enjoyed our company so much, or were just being polite in not evicting us, else they were simply taking advantage of their new freedoms.
Needless to say, Alix and I both felt a bit fragile the next morning, so we decided to stay an extra day down south. The weather was also un-seasonally cloudy that day. I ran BBC iPlayer on my laptop and watched the whole football match, including pre-amble and post-match analysis, enjoying the fact that I already knew that we had won 4-0.
The BBC’s rights agreement is quite frustrating. Despite paying our TV licence and having to log on to watch BBC iPlayer, they cannot (or refuse to) let you watch anything if they detect that the server you are using is not in the UK. Our family tech expert has solved this problem over the years by setting up Virtual Private Networks (VPN). This basically allows you to route your data to your foreign server via a UK-based server; the BBC thinks you are physically in the UK, although you could be in Australia. The service we (may have) ended up using is called ExpressVPN, and costs about £8 a month. It may sound a lot, but it means we could now watch UK TV on Missy Bear if we want or need to. Of course, if the BBC simply changed to a subscription service, then we wouldn’t need smart work-arounds.
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Enroute back to Aubeterre, Chris called again (he normally seems to call while I’m driving.) There has been another change of plan! Simon (from Sunbird in Palma) has looked into travelling to Canet and realised that as he has not had both jabs, and so cannot meet us there. Instead, he will meet us in Port Ginesta (Barcelona). He has all our ship’s papers and the electronic card with charts for the chart plotter. Never mind. Beneteau and Sunbird are still legally required to ensure that Missy Bear clears French waters for the purpose of VAT-paperwork. The handover must take place in Spain, not France. They have decided to send a Beneteau skipper (called Miko) at their own cost to help me sail Missy Bear from Canet to Port Ginesta for the ‘official handover’. Miko will need to allow us time to check-out of Port-Vendres, on the way, but we’re generally happy with that plan. Until it changes again...
p.s. Come on England. I’m very nervous about Denmark; I still have nightmares about their Icelandic cousins!