Day 10 - Saintes to Rennes.

Up nice and early. Checked out of the hotel and went into Saintes for a little look around. It's a really nice little town. The buildings are very reminiscent of a town called Macerata in Italy which also happens to be the town of study or work or residence of my italian crew.

Still I pottered around Saintes for an hour or so and took some pictures. Then I headed off on the very spacious D135 Road towards the town of Rochefort-Sur-Mer. There's no denying that one of the joys of driving through france are the wondefully straight Napoleonic roads which are flanked by rustic houses and the local crops. The traffic is usually pretty light but overtaking is very easy. An absolute joy.

On the way to Rochefort I found a small town called Tonnay-Charente on the banks of the River Charente. A very scenic little place undergoing huge renovation. It's also got a fantastic bridge. Pictures later.

When I reached Rochefort I parked up. Had a little look around and then left again. Nothing really stood out and yet it's still an important marine port. So I got back in the car and told Tom Tom to take me to La Rochelle and not to spare the horses.

But I had another little detour to the Fouras and La Pointe de la Fumée which was nice for the couple of Oysters I tried, a lovely example of a Citroen CX and views of the l'Ille d'Aix, Fort Boyard and Fort Enet. Both Forts were built during Napoleonic years, although Louis XIV did commision his main engineer, Vauban, to see if a construction of a Fort would be feasible back in 1667. Vauban, if nothing but an honest man said "Sire, it would be easier to catch the moon with the teeth than take on such an endeavour in such a location". That sort of defeatism wouldn't wash at Eurostar I can assure you. Fort Enet was built to beef up the defences to the French Fleet at Rochefort at the British Navy inflicted a pretty heavy defeat during the Battle of the Basque Roads. Both Forts were built to bridge the gap between the islands of Oberon and Aix. The cannons on these islands didn't have the range to hit British ships. Unlike the Guns of Navarone of course.

All in all a very interesting place. I have say that I was quite surprised by the Poiteau-Charentes region. Its very varied and very interesting. I have a feeling I'll be coming back soon.

So La Rochelle. The jewel of the West coast. Also reminds me of learning french back in school. La Rochelle was the feature town in our Tricolore textbooks. I found somewhere to park and a nice local lady gave me her car park ticket which was very kind of her. I had a hearty Mussels and chips lunch overlooking the old port, now a marina. The mad giggles and the uncontrolable shoulders kicked in when I saw a very gay looking double of a colleague of mine. I think the bloke thought I was a little tapped in the head. But any man who has the balls to wear perfectly pressed Ice White 3/4 length linen slacks in public deserves maximum respect. La Rochelle was pleasant I have to say. Once you hit the back streets you can tell that they've bent over backwards to cater for the souless English middle classes. A bit like how Padstow has been soulessly branded by Rick Stein. I did treat myself to a Speculoos flavoured Ice Cream. Speculoos is a dutch/flemish cinammon biscuit. Very nice too.

From La Rochelle it was a short hop to the small town of Coulon which is in the heart of the Marais Potevin or the "Green Venice". It's a marshland west of Niort which has a huge amount of canals to explore by boat. Coulon itself is a very pleasant and quiet setting. It has been recently renoavated again and I think it'll take a few years for the moss and character to come back again. Hopefully by then the posh english tourists with their posh inane laughter will piss off as well.

So I then headed towards Nantes where I had a brief search for the Football Ground (conclusion pain in the arse to get to) so I headed towards tonights hotel on the southern outskirts of Rennes, not a million miles away from a very big Peugoet-Citroen factory.

That's also been a joy during my travels to spot as many old retro French cars as possible. I do like french cars an awful lot. Sure the build quality can be a bit iffy, the designs aren't to everybody's taste and their reliability is a bit crap. The average frenchman must a have a love for imperfections in both their woman and their cars. Further evidence of this was seen by the sight of a Rover Montego Estate and a Austin Maestro. Two of the worst cars we've ever produced in the UK. For some reason Frenchmen bought them! I was hoping to see a Renault Fuego, a Renault 15 Coupe, a Renault 16 or a Renault 8 on my travels but alas no. But there has been 2CVs, Renault 4s, Citroen BXs and XMs along with todays fabulous Citroen CX to make up for it.

Photos.

Saintes........

The Ampitheatre.

A narrow sidestreet in Saintes.

And another..

I wonder who the son of a bitch is?

The Arch of Germanicus.

Mk2 Ford Cortina and someone who's seen Waltz with Bashir.

The bridge at Tonnay-Charente.

Fort Boyard on the left, Aix Island on the right and the Fort Enat in the middle.

Catching Oysters I guess.

Citroen CX! Very very nice indeed.

La Rochelle.
The old port.

Noxon, you're a hard task-master. It's the best I could do for Richenswatch.

Although.........

Old port/Marina

Coulon. It the Marais Potevin

Complete Punts!!

Day 9 - Luz SS to Saintes

Well, my last morning in the Pyrenees. I got out of Luz by 10am and headed towards Pau. I drove though the town pretty quickly but it seemed to be quite pleasant. You can always tell a nice French town. It usually doesn't have graffitied Renault Traffic vans on every street and doesn't have groups of 15 year old chavs riding mopeds wearing the obligatory Sergio Tacchini tracksuit tops causing mayhem outside Pizza joints. Pau had neither. With a bit more time I would've spent more time here. I first heard of it back in the 1980s when I watched the Tour de France on Channel 4 and an Irishman called Martin Earley won the stage in Pau. Although I think I searched for the name "Po" for a couple of days before discovering the real french spelling.

From Pau I headed north on the N134 towards Mont De Marsan passing the very grand looking racecouse in northern Pau. I reached Mont de Marsan and had a little drive around. The town is the birthplace of Alain Juppe (the disastrous 164th Prime Minister of France), Joel Bats (French goalkeeper in 1986 world cup) and Romain Larrieu (goalkeeper of the evil green scum down the road). The Tom Tom was getting confused and every sign saying "Centre Ville" also had a "deviation" following closely behind. So I got out of Dodge and headed towards the Atlantic coast in search of memory lane on very straight and long roads flanked by partially destroyed forests.

First up was Arcachon and the Dune de Pilat. I came here in 1988 during a French Correspondance with my secondary school. 21 years ago. Jesus wept. First to stop me was a 4,60 Euro charge for the car park and I had no change on me. I had a quick glimpse of the dune and then headed back into Arcachon which was absolutely rammed with locals, tourists and some drunk bloke who looked like Fish from Marillion. I couldn't park anywhere. So I got out of Dodge again and headed towards the town of Saint Jean d'Illac which was where I stayed in my two weeks.

My french correspondant, Julien was a knob, but his mum was quite sweet and his older sister was the answer to all my adolescent dreams. Never has a woman worn a perm so well. Black permed hair and white dungarees she used to wear. I think I hung out with her more than Le Knob. He just stayed in his room sulking and looking at his Conan the Barbarian posters. I think I still have the tape she made for me with U2's Joshua Tree on it.

When I got to the town I have to say that absolutely nothing looked familiar but I managed to find, after 20 minutes, the road to the remote village where there house was, but then after the first five minutes absolutely nothing looked familiar, then the road got a bit Colin McCrae on me and I turned back satisfied that at least I made an effort to find a little bit of the past.

So I headed past the airport at Merignac and then towards the Bordeaux Rocade where I had a slight bit of road rage with some prat in a Avocado coloured Renault Twingo. Twingo drivers are the worst in France. They drive like they've lost the gift of sight and sound.

Once I got past Bordeaux and over the Pont d'Aquitaine it was then a short hop up to the town of Saintes. Birth place of one Dr Joseph-Ignace Guillotin who championed the use of the Guillotine but interestingly didn't invent it. He just suggested it might be a good way to execute people. Saintes is also twinned with Salisbury in England and Timbuktu in Mali.

As its Sunday night nothing was open or busy in the centre of Saintes so I decided to go to the MacDonalds down the road from the Hotel. It was rammed. All of Saintes seemed to be in there. No Melanie Blatt though, much to my chagrin.

Photos

On the road to Mont de Marsan

Bordeaux, Pissos and Sore?

A nice Forest scene. almost Autumnal colours.

That's how straight the roads were.

SOS...Forest in Distress?

I wonder why........

No, I didn't imagine it.....

Arcachon.

A town of my past..

Haute cuisine.

Day 8 - Rest. Luz and a dose of imodium.

I finished day 7 feeling a bit crap, quite literally. Not very pleasant. Les Armitages Shanks took an overnight battering.

I managed to get up quite late, struggle into Luz, struggle to park as the town was chock-a-block with sheepskin hunting tourists and a drunk brass band. Once in town I visited the Artisan Boulangerie and bought a couple of nice baguettes. Solid simple food being the order of the day. It took 15 minutes to buy bread. The locals like a little chat with the one woman serving and they like to be a little fussy when ordering. The old timer in front of me said "Can I have 3 well cooked, very crusty baguettes please?.........no not that one.......the eighth one from the left....actually no, could I have the one next to it". I hope that they had strong denture cream. They looked so crusty that I think you could open the batting with them. The woman behind the counter look quite relieved when I just asked for "two baguettes please, you choose for me treacle".

So fancy baguettes, apricot jam and coca cola. By 8:47pm I was able to fart with confidence again.

In the end it was quite nice just to do nothing really. It's been a very busy week.

A couple of pictures of Luz-Saint-Sauveur.

Day 7 - Pic du Midi de Bigorre

Day 7. It's absolutely flown past already. I had a decent nights sleep and I woke up without a headache. I decided to go and see the Pic du Midi which is quite near to Luz. There's just a small matter of going up the Col du Tourmalet one last time to get there. I drove straight up this time. I was doing a steady 40 mph in third gear when I got overtaken by a Porsche and then quickly followed by an Audi R8 both with German plates marked with TUT! How dare these upstarts from Tuttlingen out-horsepower my old crate! In overtaking me the bloke in the Audi R8 almost took out a cyclist coming the other way. The cyclist shook his fist in anger. I wonder if they were the German Top Gear team? Or D Motor!

Anyway, I went over the top of the Col and back down towards La Mongie. This is where you get the cable car from to the top of the Pic du Midi which is 2,877 metres high or 1,918 Smithys! It's normally 30 euros to go up but I got in for 27 euros. I had a coupon from the visit to Pont d'Espagne earlier in the week. Mum will be proud.

So up, up and away I went in the cable car with a motley crew of French and Flemish. One of the french guys had a rather superb Don Corleone type voice. We arrived a few minutes later to a collective show of silent apathy until the cable car operator told us that this was the middle station and not the final destination. Cue a collective sigh of relief.

I'm usually quite good with heights but today was a little different. After the middle station there's another mountain to clear first and then there's a drop of about 900 metres in between that mountain and the Pic du Midi for the last 5 minutes or so. The wind picked up and the cable car shook a couple of times. It reminded me of Where Eagles Dare a little bit.

Still we made it in one piece. Sitting on top of the mountain is the Observatoire du Pic du Midi de Bigorre, which is home to France's largest telescope and a huge amount of Astronomical Research. It's position is also very close to the Greenwich Meridian.

So I hung out there for a little while whilst breaking my own personal altitude record and the family record for eating soup at altitude. It was mushroom today. It's a breaktaking place to be. You could briefly see the Vignemale, the Munia and Monte Perdido in the background which are some of the biggests peaks the Pyrenees could offer. It also looks directly down on the Col du Tourmalet which looks much lower than just the 763 metres it actually is. The weather wasn't perfect for viewing but the clouds move around so quickly that it must be rare to have the perfect view of everything.

After that it was the return journey back to La Mongie. Then a slightly longer but far less hilly route back home via Bagnères-de-Bigorre and then heading back towards Lourdes but thankfully bypassing it before returning to Luz.

Anyway fotos du jour.

Firstly one for you Alpaca fans out there...at least I think it's an Alpaca.

Then the approach to the summit.

The view from the top

London is zhat way!

The Observatory.

The two oblong shapes in the middle of the picture is the summit of the Col du Tourmalet.

The cable car.

Another sizeable bird. Christ knows what it is though. A Black Kite maybe.

On the way back down.

Shadders? On me lungs?

La Mongie. Ski resort.

and home of the lunch time rush.