{"id":5156,"date":"2024-06-17T13:42:21","date_gmt":"2024-06-17T13:42:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/?p=5156"},"modified":"2025-12-24T22:26:46","modified_gmt":"2025-12-24T22:26:46","slug":"7-bastide-country","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/?p=5156","title":{"rendered":"7. BASTIDE COUNTRY."},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s\u00a0 Monday.\u00a0 Time for a change of scenery.\u00a0 Our pitch has been booked by some perishing Dutch (probably) campers!\u00a0 Moulin de Campech has our name on it.\u00a0 On the very edge of the largest man-made forest in Western Europe.\u00a0 The Landes.\u00a0 10,000 km\u00b2 of trees.\u00a0 Largely maritime pine.\u00a0 Why are we surprised to find ourselves in fairly densely wooded valley?\u00a0 The site is pretty nice if rather too shaded for us.\u00a0 It has very limited morning and evening sunlight and full sunshine in the hottest part of the day.\u00a0 And there’s no real outlook.\u00a0 But that’s trees and valleys for you!<\/p>\n

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Also, the facilities must have been ancient when they were first installed 30 odd years ago.\u00a0 They REALLY do need modernising!<\/p>\n

On the plus side, there is a lovely sunny terrace by the old mill-house.\u00a0 In the evenings, Sue and George serve a very passable menu.\u00a0 Grass snakes were seen two nights in a row at the edge of the patio!<\/p>\n

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… and the pool is at least two degrees warmer than Woulter’s!<\/p>\n

Tuesday is market day in Casteljaloux.\u00a0 It’s small and largely serving locals with stuff they need.\u00a0 Things like veggies, fruit, cheese and meats.\u00a0 Plus some garden flowers.\u00a0 A genuine local event.<\/p>\n

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The town also has the air of a “lived-in” place with real shops, caf\u00e9s and a nice looking auberge restaurant (which, with hindsight, we should have eaten at).<\/p>\n

There was also the compulsory “little” church\u00a0 the eglise Notre-Dame de la Assomption.<\/p>\n

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With it’s massive, vaulted ceiling.<\/p>\n

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The current church was built between 1680 and 1773, and stands on the foundations of an ancient “Collegial”.<\/p>\n

There was also a very French municipal campsite on the edge of town which looked like a good base from which to visit Casteljaloux and the area.\u00a0 Next time, maybe!<\/p>\n

Another tiny bastide is Le Mas d’Argenais, some 15 kms North of Damazan.\u00a0 We decided to live dangerously and drive right into the centre of town.\u00a0 Surely the mayor won’t have banned parking in the middle (see later)!\u00a0 The road got smaller and smaller until it eventually petered out beside the ancient covered market (La Halle) and the (typically) massive church.\u00a0 We didn’t so much park, as abandon the car on the front step to the Eglise Saint-Vincent.<\/p>\n

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Glenda had read that the church is home to a Rembrant masterpiece painted when the artist was just 25 years old.\u00a0 A genuine masterpiece.\u00a0 The church is bound to be locked!\u00a0 But it wasn’t!<\/p>\n

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Not a nice subject for a painting, but there were no queues to get to admire it.\u00a0 The security amounted to a glass screen.\u00a0 Probably pretty tough glass. \u00a0And possibly fitted with surprise anti-theft devices as seen in Indiana Jones movies.\u00a0 Massive rolling stones, collapsing floor, flying swords etc!<\/p>\n

Walking to the edge of town through the tiny deserted streets …<\/p>\n

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… we found ourselves overlooking an “interestingly ” narrow bridge over the canal and the River Baise.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

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That needs exploring!\u00a0 (And I can confirm now that, without our extended wing mirrors, we could indeed cross the bridge – but it was tight!)<\/span><\/p>\n

First we have to extract our car from the church forecourt!\u00a0 A 29 point turn or reverse around the Halle?\u00a0 Reversing wins.\u00a0 But it was an interesting manoeuvre under the watchful gaze of the caf\u00e9 owner and her two cyclist customers (the total living population of Le Mas!).<\/span><\/p>\n

We relocated to a peaceful spot between the river and the canal with the exciting name of ” Le Canal Lateral de la Garonne”.\u00a0 I think it transmogrifies into the Canal du Midi somewhere near Toulouse.<\/p>\n

Time for a quick walk on the tow path<\/p>\n

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… passing rural properties with no visible access routes apart from the canal!<\/p>\n

\"\"p<\/p>\n

Maybe that explains why there was no living soul in these places!<\/p>\n

It’s Tuesday – maybe.\u00a0 Damazan is our nearest bastide.\u00a0 Another very pretty and twee historical centre.<\/p>\n

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If I was elected mayor here, the first thing I would do would be to ban parking in the central square.\u00a0 OK, that’s a pretty unlikely scenario!\u00a0 I’d say the parking spaces are fairly safe!<\/p>\n

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The town well and some old buildings.<\/p>\n

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We had decided to give Buzet-sur-Baise a miss.\u00a0 It’s nearly lunchtime.\u00a0 Vianne (another bastide) looked more likely to have restaurants.\u00a0 In hindsight and retrospectively with 20:20 vision, a bad decision!\u00a0 Vianne did indeed have two eateries on the central square.<\/p>\n

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One was closed, the other too touristy for us!<\/p>\n

Just outside the “city” walls …<\/p>\n

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… we met four Aussies from Melbourne cruising on the canal.\u00a0 They were off for a tourist lunch in town.<\/p>\n

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We headed back to Buzet-sur-Baise where we found a highly recommended auberge – recommended but shut!\u00a0 And a lovely restaurant – packed and “complet”.\u00a0 Looks like it’s food at the caravan this evening!<\/p>\n

Trying to make the best of a gastronomic disaster, we pretended we had only visited the town for another walk on the canal!<\/p>\n

But it’s time to move on – we are off to see Hetty!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s\u00a0 Monday.\u00a0 Time for a change of scenery.\u00a0 Our pitch has been booked by some perishing Dutch (probably) campers!\u00a0 Moulin de Campech has our name on it.\u00a0 On the very edge of the largest man-made forest in Western Europe.\u00a0 The… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spain-and-france-2024"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5156","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5156"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5156\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5438,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5156\/revisions\/5438"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}