Tapp's Travels

Leaving Sunbilla was “downhill” all the way.  Decrease in altitude, increase in traffic, increase in the price of fuel … and toll roads!  Toll roads!  I said last time we drove into France from Spain on the ordinary roads (through Urrugne, St Jean de Luz, Bidart, Biarritz and Bayonne), that I’d never do that again while towing a caravan.  Far too many roundabouts, traffic lights, speed bumps, traffic calming measures AND just too much traffic.  It’s the motorway and payage for us.  It’ll save hours!

We turn onto the motorway – and immediately hit the first toll station.  On the border with France.  We haven’t used any road yet and we are being asked to pay!  So we shuffle forwards with the traffic and select a wide-looking lane.  Wishful thinking – they are all the same width.  Just wide enough for a truck – so that will be just over 8 feet (2.5 m).  We select “English” as our language of choice.  Seems a good plan.  Instructions flash up on the screen.  1 to 5.

1. Insert card.     2. Enter PIN.  3. Retrieve card  4.  Take receipt  5. Drive off!

… we didn’t get to “2”!

The machine swallowed the card and shut down.

Nowhere to enter a pin or to cancel the transaction.  No-one to assist.  Just us and a growing queue of traffic behind.  The red emergency button eventually connected us with a distant voice.  “Use another card – that one is ‘in opposition’???”  There’s no way we are going to lose another card.  “It’s our only card, we want it back!”  “It’ll be sent to your bank in England!”  “No thanks, please come and retrieve it now.”  There’s no one here that can do that!”  Twenty minutes have past by now.

The traffic mayhem behind is growing.  Coaches are reversing.  Lorries are swerving.  The queue has extended out of sight.  Then a lorry next to us gets stuck.  That REALLY helps the situation behind!  I put a bollard behind us as a warning.  The swerving and reversing gets more extreme.  The queue presumably is reaching back well into Spain, although, of course we can’t see that far back.

Our “helpful” (not very) “assistant” comes back on the blower to say that someone from Paris is on the way with keys.  He’ll be with you in 30 minutes.  OK, he’s coming from Biarritz not Paris.  15 minutes later, a lady appears with a bunch of keys.  She sounds VERY like the lady we have been conversing with for the last 40 minutes.  Certainly not a man from Biarritz!

She’s brought the wrong bloody keys!

By now three campervans have parked behind us, put up their awnings and got a brew going.  A dozen customs officers parading in front of the toll boothes looking for smugglers (presumably) drop by, one by one, for a chat with ‘les Anglais strandés’.  All very entertaining, but what about the smugglers?

Our ‘charming non-man from Biarritz’ reappears out of the rabbit hole beside us.  Right keys!  Gets to work extracting our card.  “Ahh!  Mastercard.  They don’t work in France!”  “Cobblers”.  “It’s in opposition (no credit).”  “Still more cobblers!”

“We’ve changed the system in France.  No more PIN codes needed.  Just use contact-less.  Like this.”  She waves our card at the machine.  Beep.  Out comes a receipt.  Up goes the barrier.  “So why are the instructions wrong?”  “No one has got round to changing them yet.  I see your card is not in opposition and Mastercard DOES work in France after all.  Off you go.  Have a nice day!”

By this time our friendly campers behind us have got their barbecues going.  We left the lorry driver eating his packed lunch.  We exchanged contact details with the border guards and moved off into France.  We also left the bollard behind, blocking access to what we now think of as OUR booth.  Maybe it’s still there!

Toll roads quicker?  Not always!

The next ‘difficulty’ occurred half an hour later when we pulled into the driveway of the campsite we had selected for the night.  Gate closed.  Locked tight shut.  Nobody about.  Closed.  Fermée!

The sign says “Come back in 90 minutes after we finish our lunch!”  Blow that for a game of soldiers.  So we leave a rude message on their answerphone, reverse back out onto the main road and head onwards to Rivière-Sass-et-Gourby.  We stayed here last year in the front garden of a little rural house.  Quick phone call to make sure they have space.  No English spoken here by Patron Edith and daughter Sylvie.

We parked exactly where we did last year!

Very peaceful except when Sylvie started pressure washing round the pool, and Farmer Giles moved in to harrow the field behind …

… and Farmer Giles’ son started turning the hay in front of us!

When Edith’s gardener started cutting the hedge we left for a walk along the Ardour River at Saubusse.

Not sure how I got the river looking so.blue.  A more realistic colour was a dilicate shade of brown!

Glenda spots the first stork of the trip:

Driving around the country roads we see quite a number of village name signs turned upside down.

The crossing out is normal – that just tells you that you have left town.  But why are town names upside down?

Apparently, and we haven’t seen this, they are sometimes accompanied by the slogan ‘Nous marchons sur la tête’ (we’re walking on our heads) to signal a world turned upside down or a policy that makes no sense.  The reason for these strange happenings?  It’s a protest, largely orchestrated by the farming union that represents young agricultural workers.  French farmers do like a protest!

While we are on the subject of road signs, there is an interesting anachronism.  If you remember the Moroccan stop sign looked like a sleigh…

Well, the French signs look just like proper Stop signs:

Curiously, stop signs in France use only the English word “STOP,” an artifact of European Union standardisation

We totally failed to find anywhere of quality to book for Sunday lunch.  So we sulked and had it a day early at the Gnàc et Pause restaurant in St-Lon-les-Mines

Travelling South towards Salies-de-Béarn we passed the smelliest wall in this part of France.

Totally covered in Jasmin.  You could smell it a mile away – well, at least 50 m away!

Salies, as it’s name suggests, sits on a saline spring.  Water ten times saltier than seawater emerges in a crypt under what is now the Place du Bayaà.  There are, apparently, a lot of rules (well, this is France!) dictating who can extract the “white gold”.  Evidence shows the salt from this source was used to preserve food at least as long ago as the 11th century BC.  How on earth do they find such “evidence”!

According to legend, a wild boar wounded by medieval hunters had the bright idea of hiding in muddy marshland.

He was found dead but covered in salt crystals. It was then that people realised that under Salies-de-Béarn ran a spring of salt water.

Before dying, the boar uttered these words: “If I hadn’t died, no one would live here.”

Well, that is just a legend.  A bit like parts of this blog!  Clearly, boars can’t really talk.

The town is very lovely.  Well worth the visit!

Heading further South, we arrived at Sauveterre-de-Béarn.  By then we were half way back to the Pyrenees!

The Eglise-Saint-André and, opposite that, the town hall with it’s neatly tended garden:

Down by the Gave d’Oloron, a tributary of the River Adour, there’s a small campsite and a riverside walk to the Pont de la Légende.

Eagle-eyed readers may have noticed it’s actually only half a bridge.  In fact, the river has split into two streams here.  So the bridge would only have got to an island.  Really, it’s only a quarter of a bridge!  It was originally constructed between the 12th and 13th century.  An arch and a fortified gate are still standing, the rest was destroyed by a flood in the 18th century.

As far as I can see, there are two legends that appear to be connected with this bridge.

According to one, the original bridge was built by the very Devil himself, as it was too difficult for mortals to build.  Apparently, this story is attached to a number of bridges which are lnown collectively as “Devil Bridges”.

The second story is more tragic!  It’s also a long story.  But in short…

In 1169, Gaston V, viscount of Béarn married Sancie of Navarre.  Gaston got sent off to war.  Sancie was already pregnant.  Her child was born really ugly.  The locals all thought she had been at it with the devil.  Tried by being bound and chucked off the bridge.  Found not guilty by surviving the “execution”.  Totally vindicated and forgiven.  Lived happily ever after.

Your choice of Legend.  Vote one or two with reasons by commenting on this post.

I must remember to tell you about the break in at toilets in Spain!)