Surrounded by History

Last Tuesday we left the beautiful lake-side campsite of Lous Suais, and headed back through the porcelain city of Limoges. If you take the D941 and head north-west you will come across one of the best kept secrets from WWII, the decimated town of Oradour-sur-Glane. Over 600 men, women and children were shot or burnt to death by SS troops in a reprisal attack on 10th June 1944, and the remains of the town have been preserved exactly as it was found, and maintained as a national monument to the memory of the dead. Thousands of visitors every year come to pay their respects and learn more about how and why this beautiful French town was singled out for such an atrocity. We began by visiting the exhibition which maps out the events of the war, particularly in relation to the part France played, and then you are guided through a tunnel into the town itself. It was a remarkable and sobering experience to wander through the streets, quietly and respectfully along with other tourists, going inside the church where over 400 women and children were burned as the SS soldiers locked them in and threw hand grenades into the chancel in an abortive attempt to bring down the roof. The various shops and houses are marked with exactly what they used to be; the dentist, the patisserie, the garage, the hotel, the girl’s school etc. Burnt out remains of cars, sewing machines, cash registers, bread ovens, all remain as they were when the outside world discovered the scene days after the attack. Our visit was a very special moment in our journey.

From there we drove on to find our France Passion night stop at Ferme Auberge de Bellevue in the tiny and exquisite village of Chateau de Lastours, just south of Limoges. As we drove up the narrow steep lane to this goose farm with restaurant, we could see across the valley into the village and were amazed to see a ruined castle next to a wooden church with a tall bent steeple! On exploring on foot we found that the village is on the “Route Richard Coeur de Lion”, and that the King stayed at this castle when travelling from England to the Holy Land. As Victor was reading ‘Millennium’ by Tom Holland, an incredible book detailing the events of the first 1000 years since Christ, culminating with the Crusades, this seemed highly appropriate. Imagine our delight to discover an advert telling us that there was to be a show at the castle that very night starting at 10pm, which would give the history of the castle and an insight into the life of a soldier at the time of Richard.

Before that we enjoyed a most spectacular meal at the Auberge, on Madame’s terrace, overlooking the village and the castle (see photo). As it was a goose farm, they specialise in patés and fois gras. Fois gras, in case you have not come across it, and with apologies to vegetarians, is the paté made from goose liver, after the goose has been force fed with maize to engorge his liver and make it particularly tender and tasty. And it does! It was! I can honestly say that the hot starter of goose liver was one of the most delicious plates of food I have ever had! All helped along with local red wine of course. Madame offered us a lift into the village to attend the light show at the castle, and although it was all in French and we understood very little, it was very entertaining and extremely atmospheric, as a group of actors dressed as Knights with lit torches, gave a presentation about the castle, including singing traditional French songs, mock fighting with replica weapons, and an initiation ceremony of a new member of their order. It was nearly one o’clock when we got back to the van that night.

Wednesday was the city of Perigeux and a nightstop at another goose and pig farm, and on Thursday we enjoyed a drive down the length of the Vérzère Valley from Montignac, where they were holding a local festival and the main street was festooned with paper flowers, to Les Eyzies, a little town literally carved out of the rock. The route is the centre of the prehistoric troglodyte area where people over centuries have made their homes in the massive rock formations over the river. We were now in the Dordogne, one of the more wealthy areas of France, full of traditional yellow-stone villages and chateaux. This area is favoured by the British and thousands have sold up and moved out here.

After three days of exploration we were ready to find out next campsite, a small site in the forest just south-east of Sarlat, the capital of the Dordogne. We took a couple of hours to discover Sarlat on our way down and we found a bustling medieval town, with many shops and restaurants, with the accent heavily on tourism. We loved it! So, since Thursday evening we have been at this site, Le Grandes Chenes (the large oaks), a French run family site boasting ‘designer buildings’, reminding us of the sets in The Flintstones, with bulbous cement walls and porthole windows! Sadly, the weather has not been good since last Wednesday morning, and the sun is still struggling to shine. We move on tomorrow morning and the plan is to explore more of the Dordogne for a couple of days before the next campsite. We really do need sunshine by next Wednesday!

Tranquility Base and more Dutch!

As mentioned in the last blog, we have found the most beautiful lake just to the east of Limoges, right in the middle of France, where there is a fabulous, small but perfectly formed, naturist resort built in terraces on a steep wooded hillside leading down to the water’s edge. Lous Suais is Dutch run (again!) and has been going for 23 years under the same Dutch ownership. It is truly a wonderful dot on the globe and we feel privileged to have enjoyed the benefits for nearly eight days.

We are the only people here who are NOT Dutch (apart from one Flemish family and they speak a form of Dutch anyway!), so sometimes we have felt a little isolated as we listen to incomprehensible conversations, and try to decipher the notices which are written in Dutch and French, but NOT English! But all this does not matter a jot when you consider that as I write this, with the laptop perched on my knee, following a delicious BBQ dinner of lamb steaks and Mediterranean vegetables, in the dying light of the evening sun, I can gaze down the hillside to a peaceful, still lake, flanked by pine trees. The downside to this camp is the enormous flight of stone and wood steps which challenge us every time we want to get down to the cafe/bar and the tiny beach by the side of the water. As our motor home is too big to drive down the hillside, we have been assigned a spot on the top level, which means a 10 minute hike down to the centre of the action. Not that there is much action, and that is how we prefer it now that we are becoming totally chilled!

The terrain here is very hilly, so the bikes are not much use to us. We did walk to a nearby village the other day, and the countryside is stunning, but it was over an hour each way, and the final incline homeward was a killer! We have taken a “pied a l’eau”, (Pedalo to us Brits) out twice, swum in the lake, played boules and had a welcome lift to a farmer’s market/picnic at the aforementioned village. It was joyful just to be out in the real world for a short while! The problem we are finding is that once we have parked the van on our pitch at a camp, wound out the awning, set up the kitchen table with BBQ, put out the lounger chairs, and let down the feet under the van to steady it; we really do not want to move it again until we go. This can be frustrating when there are so many beautiful little French towns and villages to discover.

So, Victor has come up with a plan (again) and once we leave here on Tuesday morning, after a wonderful relaxing week, we will start to explore much more of the real France, particularly the wine areas. We plan to achieve this by taking two nights at a time parking at vineyards and farms, under the French Passion system, when we will not put out the awning etc, and use the daytime to poddle around taking in the sights. Then we will have four or five nights at a campsite to recharge our batteries and service the van, before repeating the pattern. As long as we are clear when we exit the van, which are ‘textile days’ and which are ‘naturist days’, then everything should be fine!

Le Mans Mayhem and Magic

So much has happened since Le Colombier and our last blog I hardly know where to begin! On our journey between the campsite and Le Mans, we parked overnight in the middle of a huge field of vines and experienced possibly the most amazing electrical storm I have ever seen. It is very humbling in a tiny tin box, all alone in the middle of France, gazing in wonder at the forked and sheet lightning dancing across a huge black sky like a procession of comets flashing horizontally, following deafening claps of thunder. Happily, the following morning the sun shone and some hours later we entered the famous Circuit des 24 Heures de Le Mans.

So much confusion, so many organisational cock-ups, so many people, so many beautiful classic cars, so much sun! Inflated prices, beautiful people, enthusiasts and anoraks, noise and more noise, speed and excitement. The overheard technical conversations were fascinating – what on earth is a manifold anyway? The place was incredible, and a difficult culture shock for two intrepid travellers now used to the calm and tranquillity of the French countryside. It was a home from home with thousands of Brits, all camping in enormous fields, showing off their precious classic vehicles, with far too few basic facilities for the numbers who gather at this Mecca every two years. We were assigned to a grassy plot right on the final bend before the last straight to the finish line – from Saturday at 4pm until Sunday at 4pm there was continual racing with the associated noise and lights. We had brilliant tickets for the grandstand right on the start and finish line and enjoyed the unique spectacle of the Le Mans start when the drivers line up opposite their cars and run across the track.

After an initial adjustment period we were swept along with the tradition and adrenaline. We met some lovely French people at the French Mercedes Club site where we were treated to free food and drink, took a trip around the track on one of the vintage buses, spoke at length in the Pits with one of the proud volunteers supporting a lovely 1965 red MGB, a past Le Mans winner, drank champagne at £10 a slurp and sat up until gone midnight watching the night races with the headlamps visible from nearly a mile away.

Unfortunately, the walk from our pitch to The Village, the centre of the action, was nearly an hour so with that and the continual noise, we were totally exhausted by the Monday morning when we drove south. Some days later we are now settling into our new campsite, Lous Suais, just east of Limoges. More of this beautiful peaceful place in the next blog. The lake is quite spectacular!

Little Holland and Very Friendly Sheep!

We were sorry to drive away from Chateau Guiton last Saturday morning, but new pastures beckoned, quite literally as it happens! The Sat Nav took us up to the west coast via La Rochelle, and we arrived here at Le Colombier, some sixty miles inland. We were not disappointed. This Dutch-run camp is one of the best known on the naturist circuit, and was built some 18 years ago from a derelict farm complex. It consists of a bar and restaurant complex built in an old barn (see photo), a really lovely large pool, and fields and fields for tents, caravans and campers, plus the usual static chalets.

It is still early in the season so it is relatively quiet, but we are surrounded by a good number of Dutch couples and families which made last night’s semi-final against Uruguay a very noisy and happy affair! We will have had five nights here when we leave tomorrow morning, and it has been a most relaxing stay in lovely sunshine. We picked a pitch overlooking a large pasture which is home to six white sheep. It is their ‘good morning baaas’ that welcome us, as the most greedy sheep calls out for the remains of the previous days French stick. We were delighted to find that she will eat from our hands (again, see photo), which makes a change from feeding swans! We have also been swimming and walking in the woodland surrounding the camp, and keeping the bar profits up!

Naturist camps are extremely peaceful places, particularly before the schools break up. Although there are usually facilities laid on, most people simply want to soak up the sun outside their own caravans, walk their dogs or float idly in the pool. Everyone is very friendly, but also very respectful of everyone’s desire for privacy and quiet. Unlike a hotel holiday there are always chores to do, but by mid-morning when everything in and around the van are shipshape, then we can read, plan future weeks, or check out the internet (if we can find a signal). Tomorrow it will all change. We are planning one day and night exploring the Loire Valley wine region, including towns such as Saumur and Chinon. Then on Friday morning it’s off to Le Mans to join the queue into the race track. Our next report will probably be early next week (wi-fi allowing) when we will attempt to describe the madness!

Medieval City and Paradise found!

July already – we can hardly believe it! We left the hedonist extremes of Cap d’Agde last Saturday. There is no doubt that the resort offers fun and distraction but you would never see such ‘carryings on’ on Brighton naturist beach, that’s for sure! It had been an experience, but we now yearned for the peaceful relaxation we had promised ourselves. On our way west we called in at Carcassone, the beautiful walled citadel of the Knights Templar, dating back to the 11th century. It looks exactly like a Disney film set, but is genuine, and they just manage to avoid spoiling the magic. High on a hill, overlooking glorious countryside, the city gives a glimpse of times past, while offering the facilities expected by the modern tourist. We enjoyed a typical French lunch, walked around the walls, took the obligatory photos and wished we had had the forethought to buy tickets for the Bob Dylan concert, due to be held high on the ramparts the following evening! What a venue! We drove on in glorious sunshine towards our next destination, and called in at one of those enormous French supermarkets which sells just about everything, to stock up on essentials of life – meat, veg and, especially for Victor, wine! We then looked for Chateau Guiton, our next naturist camp, nestling in the hills just east of Bordeaux, right in the middle of the Entre des Mers wine region. I have never seen so many vines – every square inch is packed with them and everyone has a go at making their own special recipe. Every shop seems to sell wine, be it a baker, butcher or general store. After going round in circles for a while and arguing again with the Sat Nav, we came across the gate at the end of a track. This place is amazing! Very simple, very beautiful, very relaxed. A young French couple have bought up an old crumbling Chateau and created a naturist environment in the wooded grounds. Each pitch is delineated with shrubs, hedging or vines and the space is very generous. It is refreshingly small, with relatively few visitors at present, and you are woken by birdsong and the sound of Madam’s car horn as she arrives with fresh bread from her boulangerie in Frontenac, a local village. We are lulled to sleep by the chirruping of crickets. Multi-coloured butterflies jockey for position in the long grass and the area is a positive arboretum. The buildings are original and fascinating with little cut-out windows in the stone walls. The couple are clearly artistic as we have found statues, paintings and hanging tapestries dotted around. Despite its apparent simplistic approach, the wi-fi is free within a few meters of the office which makes the blog a lot easier. The pool is the first we have found which is not cold, is in a fabulous setting right outside the Chateau, and we have had it all to ourselves on several occasions. Yesterday we made a bit of a blunder and took our second major bike ride to the next relatively large town of Sauveterre. As usual we left too late – what did Noel Coward say about ‘mad dogs and Englishmen’? We ended up cycling a total of nearly four hours there and back, in the heat of the day. Crazy or what? Lovely town, nice lunch but we were totally shattered last evening. Today we plan to do very little! We leave here on Saturday morning and plan to take in St Emilion, before heading for our next campsite, the last one before Le Mans Classic 24 hour race. Victor cannot wait!