Final coddiwomple through France

Wednesday 6 March 2023 

I’m home having left Dave in France. We haven’t fallen out, that was always the plan as he is spending a week snowboarding in the Alps, happy that fresh snow is falling on the slopes.

When we left San Sebastián in Spain we had about 10 days to work our way towards Geneva airport for me to get my flight home. We’ve been caught out before when driving through central France in winter and had to sit out a snow storm, waiting for the roads to be cleared. So we were definitely keeping a watchful eye on the weather as we headed north east on the National Road network.


The drive up the coast to Bordeaux was lovely, the sand dunes there are massive - the Dune du Pilat is said to be the largest in Europe. This dune section, between the sea and the forests, is approx 100 meters high, 500m wide and the ridge extends for 2.7km. Definitely somewhere we’ll return to when it’s not hailing, blowing a gale and the van is being sandblasted!



Heading inland we explored the Dordogne region (the river, the valley and the department). The area is characterised by Chateau’s sitting high on hilltops, houses perched on the rivers edge and against rock faces, car-free villages, cobbled streets and bastide towns with their fortress gates, market squares and geometric design. 


Monpazier

Beynac-et-Cazenac

La Roque-Gageac

Sarlat-La-Caneda


It was an interesting area but the weather was wet, cold and dreary so we checked the forecast again and decided to completely change direction, put in some big miles and drove to the south coast. The sun was out down there and the temperature was 10 degrees warmer than it was in the Dordogne area. 


Carro Point


We headed for the Camargue region exploring the coastal towns and sandy plains whilst soaking up the sunshine, before changing course again and heading back north.
 

Camargue region


Le Grau-du-Roi

Aigues-Mortes 

Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer

Martigues


So that’s definitely the end of this particular road trip - 3 countries, 6700 miles and 9 wonderful weeks. Just going with the flow, no fixed plan, occasionally doubling back and detouring and quite a bit of ‘coddiwompling’ - travelling in a purposeful manner towards a vague destination. 



‘The path that takes us straight to its destination is a dull one indeed. It carries only the one message and when we have read it, we have read it. The winding road, however, is a continuous story. Each bend is a mystery and rounding it a discovery.’ ~ C.R.Milne.

“Dancing Across The Valley”

Thursday 29 February 2024

“Dancing across the valley” - Lord Norman Fosters’ words to describe the beautiful Millau bridge he designed, which connects two plateaus in central France. 


It may be ‘just’ a motorway bridge on the A75 but its beauty and elegance sets it apart from so many others. The seven pillars are huge and they taper and split at the top, like massive tuning forks.




As a teenager back in the 70’s I remember having a full page newspaper pull out of the first Severn Bridge on my bedroom wall (in between the pin ups of Donny Osmond and Mud!!). It must have been a special supplement, possibly commemorating 10 years since it opened in 1966, and it was a beautiful image of it at sunset. That fondness for bridges continues to this day and Dave & I love them - from the ancient Roman ones to the ultra modern ones. The Millau Viaduct has been on our wish list to see since it opened 20 years ago.


To make the most of our time here we firstly drove under the bridge along the River Tarn and its valley, with the viaduct towering 343 meters above us. Then onto the nearby town of Millau which, thanks to the traffic now using the bridge, no longer grinds to a halt during July and August when most of Paris’s population heads south to the coast (which is where we are now!). 


From Millau we then headed up to the viewpoint and excellent visitor centre on the northern plateau. With videos and drone footage there is a step by step explanation of the design vision, the decades of planning and the 3 years of construction at a cost of £220 million.



The sun was trying to break through and small shafts of light occasionally lit up the mighty white steel cables but the skies remained stubbornly grey. If you check Google images there are some amazing photos of the bridge with blue sky above and low white cloud in the valley - very ethereal.



Driving over the tallest bridge in the world only takes a couple of minutes - just about enough time to admire the beautiful design elements as it unfolds before you. The gentle curve, the sleek lines of the pillars and cables, the massive scale of the engineering, the absence of unnecessary signage and the tantalising glimpses of the distant valleys.



When submitting his design Norman Foster said he was "definitely NOT the person that they should choose if they wanted to build a bridge across the river. I wanted to build a bridge to cross the whole valley, the entire space between the two high plateaux on either side, something that would be elegant and uniform and delicate and take account of the grandeur and sweep of the landscape."


The final words of this blog post should go to the bridges French engineer, Michel Virlogeux, who said “Transparence, Simplicité, Elegance”. 

Homeward Bound - Adios España

Thursday 22 February 2024

All too quickly our road trip has, sadly, come to an end. Our Spain - Portugal - Spain sandwich has ended in San Sebastián, the weather is taking a turn for the worse and it’s time to head for home.


Our first couple of weeks in Spain, at the beginning of January, were spent driving south of the Pyrenees and heading west along the north coast towards Galicia. My sister asked me for our itinerary before we left, we knew which direction we were going in but not where the road would take us. This was what I sent her for our first month!



After leaving Portugal just over 2 weeks ago we’ve driven 1750 miles through some amazing scenery in central Spain. We’ve visited sophisticated cities, imposing fortress protected towns, medieval settlements and the remains of Roman era sites.


La Alberca

Ávila City Walls at night 


The landscape has varied enormously from stubby vineyards to lush olive groves, terraces of cherry trees to vast wheat fields. There’s been mountains, rivers, hot springs, waterfalls, palaces, castles, monasteries and museums - but there’s still so much more to see. 


Jaén Castle

Toledo

Waterfalls in Jerte Valley

Rioja Region


I couldn’t have done even a rough itinerary of this last part of our trip for my sister but looking back at where we’ve been it would look vaguely like this! 


Our very rough route through central Spain


Below are a few more photographs to hopefully give you a flavour of the last part of our road trip.

Seville Cathedral 

Segovia Aqueduct 

Segovia Cathedral at sunset

Rock formations in Autol 

Free hot thermal baths in Arnedillo


Dinosaur Route from Enciso

Dinosaur footprint (my dainty size 7 for comparison)

San Sebastián 


We’ll come back to Spain I’m sure to explore the eastern and southern parts of the country and, who knows, we may even venture into Morocco! I hope you’ve enjoyed my little musings and photographs - thanks for coming along for the ride with us. 


Small van - big world (he did come back to get me!)



Olive Oil - Liquid Gold

Tuesday 20 February 2024

A couple of days ago we stayed overnight at a private campervan site owned by a small family business producing organic olive oil called Aceite Artejo. Parked by a little lake we were surrounded by relatively young olive trees in a very peaceful setting miles away from traffic.



Throughout our trip we’ve driven past miles and miles of olive groves. We were even diverted off-road through an olive tree plantation on one occasion when the main carriageway was closed without any pre-warning. We drove through Jaén, a province in Andalusia, known as the world's "olive oil capital" due to its production of high-quality olive oil. We also visited Extremadura and Castilla-La Mancha, regions famous for producing some full-bodied oils.
 





Figures vary but it is said that Spain produces between 40% and 50% of the world’s olive oil, twice as much as Italy and four times as much as Greece. Thankfully the trees in Spain have been resistant to the disease which has blighted trees in other countries. When we drove around southern Italy last year we witnessed the dead and dying olive trees in Puglia - such a sad sight. Spittlebugs, a common insect, spread a bacteria called Xylella which clogs the vessels carrying water from the roots to the leaves, slowly choking the tree to death. Puglia used to produce 50% of Italy’s olive oil but the disease killed 21 million trees, over a third in the region.


Back to the healthy thriving Spanish olive oil economy. Not only are there many different types of olive trees, which result in different flavours, but the way the olives are managed and harvested also varies enormously. From the traditional shaking of the old mature trees and collection of olives from the ground to the most modern techniques where smaller trees are planted in straight rows and mechanical picking methods are used.




The little business we stayed at offered free olive oil tasting sessions, so at 10am (shortly after finishing breakfast!!) we tuned up at the little shop. An array of bottles were lined up and the young lady explained that the 12 different varieties of olive trees they grow on their estate produce oils with quite differing flavours. They are very proud of the fact that the olives are picked and pressed on the same day and they bottle and package all their own oil.



In the ancient world, virgin olive oil was called “liquid gold” by Homer and “the great healer” by Hippocrates. Dave chose his favourite and we left with 3 litres of gorgeous liquid gold.