Tapp's Travels

We are heading more or less due east towards Saint-Point.  Madamme sat-nav took us (correctly) to Pont-de-Vaux, then across the Saône.  Simple enough, just one road really.  Then she took us onto the road from Fleurville to Cluny.  She did this while the onboard navigator was otherwise distracted.  The road to Cluny is almost continous bends and hills.  Not the best plan.  Better to go south past Mâcon then turn sharp right on the excellent road (the A71) which takes us to within a few kilometres of our target.  So, a quick pause, a new risk assessment, an about turn and back to Fleurville to correct my mistake of total reliance on the on-board computer!  An easy drive – apart from negotiating of the traffic-rich environment of the outskirts of Mâcon!

After arriving at Camping Saint-Point and trying to optimise shading (difficult) on an interestingly slopey pitch …

… we elected to get back in the car and go on a tour of local villages to get our bearings (and to keep cool!).

In Milley-Lamartine, a tiny hamlet in the hills, we find the smallest church we have seen on this trip.  L’Église-Saint-Jaques Le Majeur.

Truly tiny – and if this is “Le Majeur”, I’d like to see Le Minor!

Cluny is one of the main attractions of the area.  Home to Cluny Abbey which, if you remember, was listed as the “parent” of  the Priory/Abbey in La-Charité-sur-Loire.

The Tour des Fromages (originally called the Tower of Beans!) has 120 steps to a spectacular outlook – allegedly.  It was too hot to check the view!

Cluny Abbey is next door.

The Paschal Lamb is the centerpiece of the fifth bay of the narthex of the Abbey and has been adopted as the symbol on the in-pavement markers of the town trail.

The Abbey comes complete with its famous cloisters.

The street winding through the town was pretty “étroit” in places!  Narrow AND hot! …

… with some amazing relics of ancient architecture …

Cluny was also notable for providing us with the one and only worst meal of the trip!  At the Cheval Blanc.  Highly un-recommended.

We went for an air-conditioned drive in the hilly country north-east of Cluny and discovered the small settlement of Donzy-le-Pertuis perched on steeply sloping ground just off the “main” road.  A lot of the buildings seemed to be from an era predating civilisation.  And they were charming!

And, as you can see, we have a threatening storm developing behind the Église-Saint-Julien!  Hope we left the roof hatches closed!

This place was a definite contender for the sleepiest settlement in France.  Although, to be fair, we have accumulated a long list of such contenders.

As we had driven south towards Mâcon a few days previously, we had seen a rather interesting port with lots of river craft moored.  One of us was enthusiastic to relocate this marina and investigate on foot.  We found ourselves back at Fleurville having traversed (without the caravan) the road from Cluny, that I had started to drive with caravan a few days earlier.  I’m sure that we would have made the “crossing of the hills”, but it would have been an “interesting” challenge.

Anyway, we drove up and down the banks of the Saône to all the places we thought might have been the location of the boating hub.  We even visited some parts of the river that, in all honesty, we knew were not the right place.   In the end we gave up and parked on the riverside road adjacent to the narrow bridge with limited headroom that we had crossed to get to and from the last campsite – the imaginatively named Pont de Fleurville.

While sitting there with the a/c going full blast, we decided that what we were looking for was probably at Pont-de-Vaux on the canal that meets the Saône immediately next to the bridge in front of us.  We can’t be bothered.  It’s too hot and we need to get home!  In time for a visit to the small restaurant, the “O Berges du Lac” (really!).  For a beer at sunset with a commanding view of the lake as well as the last rays of the setting sun.  It was open last night, but not tonight!  So instead it’s a gentle stroll on the bank of the lake as the sun sets above three enthusiastic swimmers.  Luckily, I just happened to have a couple of cans of beer in the rucksack!

The weather forecast is getting worse.  The six days of “over 35°” predicted earlier has morphed into a fortnight “vague de chaleur” culminating in a couple of days at 47°.  We didn’t see anything like that in our trip to Australia earlier in the year.  I’m not easily rattled by hot weather, but this is getting seriously serious!  We decide to go to the only part of France which might escape temperatures in excess of 40° …  Normandy and Brittany.  We are off to the “Camping Fruits de Passau” a little north of Montluçon.

The trip started interestingly with the access road onto the A71 closed.  Fermée.  Barricaded.  We NEED the A71.  The marked deviation took us 15 km the WRONG way back towards Montluçon!  So after nearly an hour driving we were passing the end of the road to Saint-Point!  Not helpful.

On the A71 we pass a couple of toll sections with no toll booths, just overhead cameras with ANPR (Automatic Number Plate Recognition).  In France this is known as LAPI (Lecture Automatique de Plaques d’Immatriculation).  Either way this means another on-line learning exercise (and payment) to be completed within 72 hours!  Neither our car’s sat nav (2019), nor our map (2006!) had any knowledge of these payage sections.  Perhaps we need to update our navigational assets!

The A71 merges with the A79 just southwest of Montluçon.  The last exit from the autoroute before we get hit with more tolls is “exceptionally closed” to traffic.  Although we had no escape option, the route to the outskirts of the city and subsequent ring road was probably much easier on the autoroute.  So smile and pay.

About 10 – 15 kms short of our destination we passed a road-side restaurant with lots of parking.  The place looked to be called the Relais des Tightasses!  Just our sort of place!  About turn at the next roundabout, conveniently located less than 500 m up the road, and we were just in time for a late lunch.  “Not cooking in the caravan tonight, Barry!”  It was actually called the Relais des Tartasses, but why let the truth get in the way of a good story!

The final approach to the camping was on tiny country roads just wide enough for a caravan and the occasional tractor – but not at the same time.

Lovely swimming pool on a huge site but sadly with only one properly shaded pitch.  An occupied shady pitch.  Perishing Dutchman!  We just collapsed in a heap after sorting out the caravan for a night’s stop and we only came to as the sun set behind us.

As the sun rose at 6 am the next morning …

… we were off!  “Turn right out of the site, second right, next left and right at the main road.  Don’t take any gravel track – you’ll be fine at this time of day.  There’s almost no traffic here!”

We were almost out of the network of tiny, single track lanes south of the tiny settlement of Saint-Désiré when we came face to face with a tractor at a cross roads.  Luckily he wanted to turn left.  We met one car which kindly drove into a field to let us pass.  Finally, just as we turned onto the main road we met a gas delivery lorry.  We escaped, but it would have been VERY interesting had we got to that junction twenty seconds later!  No traffic in the early hours???

We had an overnight stay in the municipal camping at Sablé-sur-Sarthe.  Not our sort of establishment,  but they had space and a nice, clean swimming pool with no children!

One sunset …

… and one sunrise later, we were back on the road again on the last stage of our exodus from central eastern France.  The shortest stage.

By late afternoon we were ensconced on an big grassy area with a lovely open aspect.  We discovered that we had been “upgraded” to a fully serviced pitch.  No carrying water about the place!  The caravan is plumbed into the mains!

We are in Normandy, just south of Granville.  At Camping Lez Eaux.  In one of the least hot parts of France.  At last!