Our first port of call on the journey south was to Villers-Bretoneux to visit the memorial and school. Lee did some fancy navigating to get us there. The cemetery is beautifully maintained and Ross loved the 360˚ degree from the top of the tower. Another of Ross’s great uncles Rheuben Moysey Stewart is remembered on a wall panel.
After lunch at the Kangarou Café, we headed south to by-pass Paris in the peak hour. Now, we knew there would be a tricky change of roads around Versailles……. and it only took one little wrong choice in the peak hour traffic for us to end up in ??????? While the boys checked out the road map, Birg ducked into the local servo to buy a more detailed map and came back with an English speaking angel who patiently explained and drew maps to help us on our way. Voila, we made it, Marie-Helene. Thank you.
South of Paris we expected to be able to pop into any number of small towns and find ‘trois chambers avec grand lit, s’il vous plait’ as we had decided to wing it with accommodation in this area. Bad move in September we found out!! At 8.00pm at the 3rd hotel with no vacancies, a young concierge called Phillipe tried a website with everything he knew within 130 kms. Nothing. So we decided to do an all-nighter and keep driving south toward Montpellier, the only problem being that an unresolved question over car insurance meant that at this stage only Ross could drive. Lee took No Doze so he could stay awake and talk to Ross, Nerida reminded us that the WW1 soldiers had it much worse than us and we visited every second service station called ‘Aire du something’ to keep us awake. When Ross felt he needed to call it day, it was a close call as to whether the decibel level was raised by the trucks coming in and out or the snoring from the Trafic.
In between all of this it was Ross’s birthday… we sang to him at midnight, somewhere south of Orleans!
Between driving and stops, we made it to a random town called Saint-Flour in central southern France, pulled in to the first hotel in the main street at 8.00am, checked into ‘trois chambres’ straight away and had a great breakfast before getting some much needed sleep. Exploration in the afternoon revealed a beautiful medieval town for which the photos do only minimal justice. We stayed at the bottom of the hill, but a trip to the village at the top revealed an amazing community with small laneways, exquisite shops and a 13th century cathedral where we could wander at will. Nez added to the local economy and bought a scarf and shoes!!
Ross’s birthday dinner was at the hotel restaurant. In the spirit of trying local produce, Ross and Birg had escargot in a tasty casserole and retained the adventurous food award.
The hotel is also the venue for the weekly dinner meeting of the local Rotary Club. Birgit, as a Rotarian, took the opportunity to exchange club banners. On finding out why we were in the area and as there is a rugby club in town, there was some great discussion in a mixture of French and English about the relative prospects of Wallabies, All Blacks and Springboks in the World Cup.
The adventures of these 24 hrs (was it ONLY that much time), did lot to dispel for us, the myth that French people are arrogant and unhelpful. We have found nothing but friendliness, good service and an interest in us Aussies. Meanwhile, we are trying hard to use our schoolkid French and find that we are getting better everyday. Of course, body language and gestures help communication a lot… heaven help us though, if we have to use the phone.
And then, home sweet home
With our car insurance problems sorted out, Ross and Bruce shared the driving on the final leg to Soubes. This took us over the magnificent Millau bridge, taller than the Tour de Eiffel and a real highlight in an area of France known for its picturesque mountains and valleys.
We did a quick reconnoitre of Soubes and immediately fell in love with the village and the house before driving to Lodeve to meet with Sally the house manager to get our keys and shop for groceries at the SuperU. Place de La Fontaine is everything we wanted and we expect to have some great experiences in these next weeks.
