24th January 2010 Blasimon to Gastes via The Dunes of Pilat

Today was the day when we headed back toward the Atlantic coast from our little diversion inland, setting us up for the journey into Spain. We were much closer to the coast than I had realised and we arrived at The Dunes of Pilat easily within two hours.

Lorna had wanted to visit the dunes, the largest in Europe, for a while after reading about them I’m a motorhoming book and what a good decision that was. The dunes are amazing, after the steep climb up to the top of the first peak you are treated to a view over the Atlantic ocean and the mass of sand just disappears into the distance with numerous peaks jutting into the skies.

Dunes of Pilat

Jack of course had a wonderful time, running up to the top of the first peak whilst we struggled up, sinking six inches into sand with each step. Once we were at the top he ran around like he hadn’t had any exercise for weeks, coming back to us covered in sand and panting like a good ‘un. We walked all the way along the top of the dunes to the highest peak we could see, stopping ocassionally to take photos as the light from the mid-afternoon sun lit up different parts of the sandy landscape. What an incredible place to be, just stunning. After I ran down the steep side of the dunes like an excited teenager we got back to the motorhome and de-sanded ourselves and headed off to have a look at the aire I’m Gastes.

Kite Flying

One thing that you notice in France is just how straight the roads are. The sat-nav directed me to the D652 and the next instruction was to go straight over the traffic island 12.8km away. For 12.8km the road didn’t bend once, perfectly straight all the way. The same was true for the D46, the next road, but this lost out on the straigtness competition as I had to turn slightly left after about 8km.

We arrived at the aire in Gastes at about 5pm, just in time to watch the sun set over the massive lake that we were parked on the side of, yet another beautiful location, so peaceful and so very relaxing.

23rd January 2010 Blasimon and St. Emilion

I woke up with a bit of a hangover after a bit too much wine last night and we both felt that we wanted to explore the immediate area a bit further, especially St. Emilion. We had a word with our host and booked and paid for an evening meal, this left us knowing where we were stopping and what time we had to be back, leaving us a full day to visit other places.

Lorna must have been suffering a bit too as her first request was to find a McDonalds so she could check her blog hits, I knew that she really wanted a quarter pounder though.

Suprisingly I had received an email from the HP customer support people, a pretty standard reply going through some steps I could take to isolate the problem, but with bits of personalisation in it as well. Though it didn’t answer my question about where I could take the laptop to be fixed it did offer to mail replacement parts to me if needed, things were looking up a little.

After a fairly quick late breakfast/early dinner we drove on to St. Emilion, a small but very pretty village with lovely yellow bricked buildings, terracotta roofs and wine shops everywhere. In the centre of the town stands a tall bell tower where we paid just over one euro to go up, 191 steps but the views from the top were great, looking over the town and all the terracotta roofs. I wished I had taken my longer zoom lens with me as there were masses of abstract shots to be had there.

St. Emilion Roof Tops

We knew that we both wanted to take a shower before our meal and we needed to take on some water to make sure we didn’t run out. We had asked if there was a tap available at the vineyard we were stopping on, there was but there was a five euro charge to use it (I thought this was a bit much considering we had just spent nearly seventy euros on the meal and wine from last night) so we smiled graciously and planned to fill up elsewhere.

On the way to St. Emilion we had passed a service point in a place called Branne, right on the Dordogne. On our way back we stopped, plugged in the electric to recharge Lornas laptop and our phones and then heated the water for our showers. I decided to have another go at starting my laptop as the HP people had asked for feedback as to what the actual error messages were. It started up pretty much in the same way, clicking and scraping noises and then an error with an option to run a startup repair program. I started this running and left it going…..more clicking and scraping. The program finished after about three quarters of an hour saying that the problem couldn’t be fixed. I restarted it and hey presto, it started normally……I got my photos onto a memory stick very quickly!

We both showered (there is something quite strange about showering parked up on the side of a busy road) and then I went to refil the water, put the token in the machine (as I had done previously for the electric), connected the hose and turned on the tap….nothing. Upon investigation the button to start the electric supply was stuck in and as soon as I put the token in the supply came back on, another hour of electric then. The laptop started up again and I was able to edit a few photographs without a hitch!

It was dark by the time we returned to Domaine de Grand Homme, we relaxed for a while before going to eat our home cooked meal.

Lorna and I sat down for our five course meal with four French adults and one of their children. Only one of the five spoke English so I had a quiet night of nodding and smiling where appropriate. I understood a little but not being very good with spoken French remained quiet for most of the night. We had, soup, salad, stuffed calamari, green salad and cheese and to finish off a creme caramel, all washed down with various types of wine. The one guy there (the one that spoke English) was clearly a bit of a wine buff, completely failing to just drink the wine, rather to wash it around the glass to see how it stuck, sniffing it before doing that slurping thing (most rude at a table thought I) before finally swallowing it and then commenting on it to the bloke that grew the grapes and made the wine, it reminded me if the scene in Pulp Fiction at Quentin Tarantinos’ house with the coffee. It’s probably that I am not into wine that much that I found this a little odd….just enjoy it for Gods sake! When I have a pint of a different real ale in England, I just drink it, if it tastes nice I’ll have another. Between all seven of us there must have been five bottles of wine opened, not one of them were finished and I doubt if I had half a bottle all evening despite having five empty glasses in front if me by the end of the meal, the most sober I have been at 11pm since we left the UK. Still, I had a good night, great food, a few different wines and no washing up.

22nd January 2010 Monbazillac to a vineyard just outside Blasimon

We had already decided to rise slightly earlier than normal as we wanted to have a nose around Bergerac so we managed to be on the road for the short trip into the centre by 10.30. We parked up at the aire that we decided not to stay at last night and walked into the old town of Bergerac which was very quaint.

The newer part of the town kind of creeps upon you as one minute you are in narrow streets with ornate houses and shops and then it changes to a bustling busy town. Lorna went shopping and bought a birthday present for her friends daughter Alex whilst I looked after Jack and prevented him from pissing up the outside displays of clothes for sale at various shops. We then walked over the bridge to another part of town and came across a market so we bought some fresh prawns, salmon and a large baguette for our dinner/tea.

We had planned to stop at Frontenac for the night, after driving through what seemed like endless grape fields we noticed a sign for a vineyard that accepted motorhomes so we thought that would be a great back up plan if we didn’t fancy Frontenac. Typically, we arrived at Frontenac and decided to have a look at the other place we had seen so made our way back. Frontenac was fine, a small village with the aire directly behind the Mairie, a little isolated maybe but fine for a nights stay. I think the experience of staying at Monbazillac spurred us on for another night on a vineyard!

We followed the sign back to the vineyard but on arriving the gate was closed and there was no answer on the intercom. Deciding that the aire would be fine we started our way back. The roads we were on were narrow, just enough room for two cars and I am in the habit of pulling over if there is a car behind me just to make my driving more relaxing. Pretty much as soon as we reversed out of the driveway of the vineyard a car was behind me so I pulled over to let them past. The car behind didn’t pass, instead the lady driver wound her window down and started talking to us. Lorna got out and within seconds I gathered that she was inviting us to her house! She gave us directions and then drove off saying she would see us later on. The place she invited us to, Domaine de Grande Homme, was her and her husbands vineyard which was in the France Passion book (page 181) and we were greeted by a very large barking dog.

Her husband, Bertrand, welcomed us and showed us around his little shop and then some bedrooms where he has people staying, pretty much like a small bed and breakfast. We were invited for tea but we declined as we had some lovely salmon to enjoy.

The sun was out and it was about 15 degrees outside so out came the deck chairs and the wine and we spent a very pleasurable afternoon sat outside with Jack. Garlic prawns and pan fried salmon for tea. Hard life!