Our most well trodden route into and out of France takes us round the cathedral city of Chartres. The surrounding countryside is quite flat with big skies, huge fields and little or no hedgerows. It’s pretty darn dull on the whole. Other than farmers monotonously tilling their soil with tractors dwarfed by the scale of the landscape, very little stands out. Very little, that is, other than Chartres’ Cathédrale Notre Dame. It can be seen towering above the countryside and dominating the skyline from miles around. Since the town is reportedly “unremarkable” (according to The Rough Guide to France), we have always stared at this enormous edifice, merely for something to look at, as we approached Chartres, prior to hitting Chartres’ busy ring-road and driving on to our destination.

Not this time. Since we had chosen a more leisurely pace travelling northward in three days instead of our more usual two, after our 200mls/320kms journey from near Limoges we stopped at Chartres to take a look. Conveniently, there is a municipal campsite in town offering a leisurely 3kms/2mls stroll along the river Eure into the town centre. We pitched up around 2:30 PM and took a leisurely stroll along the river Eure. The town seemed rather better than advertized to me. We found a particularly fine-looking cheese shop.

The cathedral is, and I quote (The Rough Guide to France), “… one of the finest examples of Gothic architecture in Europe”. It was built between 1194 and 1260, which was apparently very quick. It’s most intriguing feature has to be its original 13th century labyrinth described on the floor of the knave. The labyrinth is a 260 metre long convoluted path encapsulated within a 13 metre diameter circle. Apparently other cathedrals used to have labyrinths but they were mostly ripped out when the authorities [Ed: presumably religious authorities] saw them as frivolous. Most visitors naturally feel compelled to walk it. Carol did, I didn’t, since you ask.

I’m glad I’ve seen the cathedral but, other than the labyrinth, I found it unscintillating. It’s very dark inside and dimly illuminated. We really needed a tripod which was a leisurely 3kms/2mls stroll along the river Eure back in our car. Duh! Carol found the cathedral much more fascinating than I and consequently took some good representative shots bracing her camera against any solid support she could find. Bravo! The time exposure of the labyrinth with ghostly images of people walking it work well, I think. My brain was off.

Billy would have liked a Chartres Cathédrale sticker but we couldn’t find one. 🙁

It seems we made the correct decision. We awoke to largely overcast skies and were not sorry that we were heading north to supposedly clearer weather. Having to pick places with open campsites from a steadily reducing number, we chose to travel 250mls/400kms north to Limoges to visit the historic village of Oradour-sur-Glane. We’ve driven by signs for it on the autoroute heading south on several occasions but never before arranged the opportunity to visit. Time to correct our oversight.

On 10th June, 1944, just four days after D-Day, the Nazi SS first surrounded and then entered the village of Oradour-sur-Glane about 25kms/15mls northwest of Limoges. The SS proceeded to round up all the inhabitants plus any visitors. The men were then taken in groups to five or six locations within the village where they were all executed and their bodies burned. 500+ women and children were sent to the village church which was then set alight. Machine gunners were stationed outside the church to prevent any escape from the choking fumes. A single woman survived. The village was burned.

Predating a similar massacre on the Vercors Massif by about a month, this was a reprisal massacre by the Nazis because of the continued irritation of the French resistance, the maquisards. The burning seems to me to form a poignant parallel to the treatment of the Cathars in the Languedoc region we have just left. The human race had advanced by 700 years but was no more civilized, apparently.

As a memorial to those massacred, the original village of Oradour-sur-Glane was left and is maintained exactly the way the Nazis left it in June 1944. [Ed: Excepting that some rubble has been cleared presumably in the search for remains] An old tramway still exists with its overhead power lines intact but now runs nowhere. Sewing machines and bedsteads have been left in the burned out carcases of the houses. Particularly disturbingly, near the altar of the now roofless church lies a distorted, rusting pushchair. The most graphic feature to me, though, is the rusting hulks of wartime cars which have been left on the street and in garages exactly where they stood at the time of this incredible act of brutality. Without these cars, ruins such as these could date from almost any time but those rusting cars fixed it for me in history and gave it a chillingly recent timeframe.

The preservation of “the martyr village”, as the French call it, is quite remarkable. How does one preserve a ruin? Workers are employed keeping the weeds down along the uninhabited streets and in what were the rooms of houses and businesses. We even saw scaffolding erected, obviously where ruins needed to be “repaired” or reinforced.

The memorial village of Oradour-sur-Glane just has to be seen. It’s shocking and it’s magnificently done. Moreover it’s completely free. Excellent!

Another one of farmer Luc’s day excursions for us today; we went further towards the Pyrenees to visit a sleepy little village called Roquefixade. The village of Roquefixade itself, though sleepily French, is relatively unremarkable but towering above it on a seemingly impregnable precipice, is the Chateau Roquefixade, a Cathar castle. It has to be said that there are much more impressive Cathar castles, such as Peyreperteuse and Quéribus, which are more impressive and are in much more seemingly impregnable places but, nonetheless, it was worth the visit and worth the climb up. Bedsides, it was closer.

We’ve seen some of the impressive Cathar castles before, including the aforementioned Peyreperteuse and Quéribus. They are sights to behold, especially when one tries to imagine the effort required building them where they stand. The Cathar sect shunned materialism and caused consternation in the established wealthy (corrupt?) religious powers of northern France in the 13th century. Eventually, led by Simon de Montfort, the financially corrupt powers-that-be, conquered the seemingly impregnable Cathar castles one by one and burned most of the inhabitants.

What a wonderful race the human race is.

We were approaching the time we would need to clamber back north to get our ferry on Sunday at midday. We could leave on Friday but Friday promised strong headwinds in the Languedoc. Together with the possibility of poor weather on Thursday, we elected to travel on Thursday and make the northward journey to Normandy in three comfortable days rather than in two long days.

Monday, the first day of our final week. Mondays are market day in Mirepoix and Mirepoix market is one of those not to be missed. For retired folks en vacance, we left pretty early (about 10:45 AM) to catch the action.

Mirepoix is a fascinating place, both architecturally and culturally. Architecturally it is a 13th century bastide town with a fabulous arcaded market square. Surrounding the market square, forming the arcades, are 13th-15th century timbered buildings, some of which are relatively colourful, shunning the grey and beige colours perhaps more commonly used. Culturally, it seems to be home to goodly collection of older hippie types many of whom are also very colourful, shunning the grey and beige colours perhaps more commonly used. When the market is in full swing with its stalls sporting colourful umbrellas, the place is a kaleidoscopic feast for the eyes. [Ed: What!?]

For a change of pace in the afternoon we chose a cycle ride along part of Le Canal du Midi. We are no strangers to canal engineering in England, with its network of inland waterways built for industrial transport. I believe these were largely built in the Victorian era. The Canal du Midi, though, is an engineering marvel having been started (and completed) in the later 1600s. One of the major tricks seems to have been supplying the canal with water, the canal being relatively high in places. Its highpoint is actually fed by water from Les Montagnes Noires (the Black Mountains). Channelling these waters to the canal required a supply canal, La Rigole, itself 50-60kms long, to be built.

We began our cycle ride at the point where La Rigole meets the tree-lined Canal du Midi. It would have been very peaceful but for the fact that, presumably for similar reasons (i.e. it’s flat), the A61 autoroute takes the same route as the Canal du Midi and thunders alongside it for some of its length. Nonetheless, the noise is so constant that it becomes a background drone and the brain can shut it out – almost.

A British registered camper van arrived yesterday evening and set-up a couple of pitches away from us. It turned out to be owned and driven by a pair of Australians, David and Kay. The van (Bessie) lived in the north of England, poor thing, while David and Kay shared her with another two couples of Ozzies; a sort of syndicate. It seems Bessie had a wheel bearing replaced in Southampton, England, on the way over to France. Bessie had ended up at our slice of heaven in Fanjeaux quite by chance when the same very same wheel bearing failed yet again. Curious! We seemed to share a love of wildlife and wine so we quickly became friends and a little inebriated with our new Ozzie near-neighbours.

Farmer Luc’s father, Marcel, rode down on his monkey bike this morning to say hello. After a brief stilted natter, he spotted mushrooms of some description growing at the base of the poplar trees that surround our prime pitches by the lakeside. A second stilted conversation ensued. “No, the English are generally not great at identifying and gathering edible wild mushrooms”, I said, or words to that effect. These mushrooms were apparently good mushrooms and he picked one. I offered him a bag for more. He declined and rode off with it on the money bike’s headset. Shortly he returned with is own bag and gathered more mushrooms. After a while wandering around various pitches and trees, he came to our caravan and presented us with a bagful of mushrooms. What a host! We gratefully accepted and Carol cycled into town for some eggs so we could put wild mushroom omelette on the menu for lunch. And very good it was, too.

Many times I have been intrigued/baffled by fellow campers’ thought processes when selecting a pitch on a campsite. We and our new Ozzie pals were the only two units on a 25 pitch camping à la ferme site. There are five large pitches by the lakeside and together, we occupied two of them. All remaining pitches were completely empty. Some were by the lakeside, some were behind but would have provided a lake view by virtue of the fact that nobody else was there to obscure the view. A Belgian couple with a very small caravan arrived. Did they select another of the “prime” lakeside pitches? No. Did they set-up in another pitch with a view of the lake? No. Did they pitch a considerable distance from us and our new Ozzie pals for seclusion? No. No, not at all, they chose the one pitch directly behind us, the only pitch with a view of nothing but the back of someone else’s van and car. Why, for God’s sake, with an almost completely empty campsite, would someone choose to pitch as close to the only other campers as possible and with nothing but them for a view? I simply don’t understand it.

Belgian pitch choice aside, the evening peace and tranquillity was destroyed momentarily by the deafening report of a 12-bore shotgun. A group of four chasseurs (hunters) had entered the grounds and one, a teenager, had very bravely and skilfully blasted one of the poor harmless, inedible coots on our lake. I was cooking. The gun went off about 40 metres from our van, only about 15 metres from our new Ozzie pals’ disabled camper van. The hapless coot was, as they say, a sitting duck. It would not have been flying, just swimming on the lake, and these senseless bastards just blew it away from a distance no greater than 10 metres for no reason other than fun. Its body is still floating on the lake. Luc’s father, Marcel of the mushrooms, to his credit, was soon on the scene chastising the armed arseholes but they were already moving on, the damage had already been done.

There are times when the human race really disappoints me.

Carol found a leaflet of balades (walks, outings) in the information room on our campsite. One, a route for walkers or cyclists along an old dismantled railway between Mirepoix and Lavalanet, grabbed our interest so we loaded the bikes on the car and set off to look for it. We are near the Mirepoix end so we began our search there. Regrettably, signs were there none; at least, none that we could see. The route supposedly passed near the village of Camon so we headed in that direction. Success, signs at last for the voie verte (literally, green road).

We set off pedalling towards Lavelanet passing an old station now seemingly used as a  house and cycling through an interestingly illuminated tunnel. Next we came across another rather spookily dark tunnel, the end of which was not visible due to its going round a curve. At its darkest point, the surface wasn’t visible either. Pedalling along without being able to see the surface one is cycling on gets a little disconcerting. Eventually we emerged unscathed at the far end and spotted two other cyclists approaching the tunnel from the opposite direction. One of them stopped at the entrance to the dark tunnel, lent over and … switched on the tunnel’s lights. Live and learn.

We chose to return along the road rather than the voie verte. Turning old disused railway lines into cycle tracks is a common practice – we’ve cycled some of the Camel Trail in Cornwall – and seems like a grand idea. The truth of the mater is, though, that the tracks most often go through cuttings or dense trees and you end up actually seeing very little. Our route back along the road took us through a couple of sleepy villages and proved to be considerably more interesting. The tunnels were fun, though, especially those with lights, so let’s keep up the practice.

Camon, our point of departure, sported a particularly bizarre and fascinating construction of iron and wood. It appeared to be something resembling stocks for locking up local villains. Fortunately there was an explanation of its actual purpose provided to put ignorant tourists’ minds to rest. It turned out to be a restraint for shoeing bulls. I’ve never heard of shoeing bulls; horses, yes, but bulls? Bulls were used to pull carts along paved roads, I imagine. Live and learn.

We had considered a picnic out for lunch but had missed the local shops’ trading hours. Instead we called into a Super-U supermarket where we couldn’t resist a pack of mussels for lunch. We returned to camp and I did my best to make moules caravanière, Billy’s version of the French classic, moules marinière. The mussels were utterly delicious. Given our location, why would we have contemplated a picnic elsewhere?

We’d been invited up to the farm house yesterday evening for wine and homemade pate, and very good it was, too. Luc now has publicly accessible Wi-Fi which I wanted to put through its paces so I spent much of the morning writing blog entries for our three preceding days so that we had something to post. Then we were back off to the farm house veranda to connect. Luc brought us another glass of wine while we sat there surfing. What a charming host and what a pleasant change from a McEspresso. Hic!

We were approaching penultimate weekend and thinking about making a decision about location for our last week. We’d like to stay here in Billy’s paradise if the weather holds and assuming no more groups of enfants terribles arrive so we went in search of supplies and an Aujourd’hui for some weather forecasts. Unfortunately things were looking a bit damp for the next couple of days over the area of the Pyrenees. We’re a bit close to the Pyrenees so, in our usual fashion, indecision took hold. Slightly further north looked like a safer bet and we considered heading for the west coast but eventually, since we love it here, we decided to stay and see what tomorrow brings.

A bit if a lazy day, really, but then we are on holiday.

Another sunny day dawned and it looked as though things could get quite warm later so we set out fairly early on farmer Luc’s longer walk before, about 10mls/16kms, before things got uncomfortably warm for walking uphill. When I say early, I mean 11:00 AM which is quite early enough for retired folks on vacation. 🙂 There was a very pleasant cooling breeze and we spent a most enjoyable three hours sauntering along collecting walnuts which had fallen to the ground as we went. We also managed to grab a bit of instant energy harvesting a few wild figs about half way around.

We returned to find that our personal nature reserve was no longer personal. Someone else had arrived and booked in. The cheek of it! I had become very used to the fact that we were all alone on our favourite campsite and had convinced myself that things would stay that way until we left.  The invader seemed harmless enough, though, so there was no cause for concern.

On our return from the short walk yesterday I’d spotted some butterflies that I didn’t completely recognize so I sallied forth armed with camera and monopod to try and capture them for identification. I had suspicions that they were Fritillaries of some kind but needed a better shot. It took me a while to arrive at the correct spot because I noticed a different dragonfly zooming hither and thither and spent ages stalking it. It was a very handsome Black-Tailed Skimmer. Eventually I did tear myself away from the water’s edge to find my butterfly which, it turns out, rejoices in the name of Queen of Spain Frittilary. The underside markings are quite spectacular.

There really was a large cause for concern when I returned. Our no-longer-private nature reserve really had been invaded by a group of 14 particularly unruly teenagers. There’s something about sanitary blocks that always makes kids regard them as playgrounds. I hope they are only here for one night. If not, we’re off.

The day started well in that the sun had returned. Wednesday is market day in nearby Bram and, being a pleasantly sized market, not too big not too small, we decided to do some shopping for supplies there. The meat shopping went well and we came away with paupiettes de veau (stuffed veal parcels) and some pork chops. The day was shaping up nicely for a lunch of barbecued sardines but we had to get those from a supermarket, unfortunately. They were a little too big for my liking, too, but we’d be waiting a while to barbecue since hitting the south so we got them anyway.

The good day began to fall apart. First of all, Carol returned from les sanitaires excitedly announcing that she had found some interesting lizards so I went off with her to snap them if I could. I could. Excitement levels increased as a praying mantis clambered up a wall then posed looking straight at me and my camera. Snap, snap! Wonderful! Maddening depression set in as I realized that I had stupidly left my camera set to manual following a few previous flash photography experiments. The mantis was horribly overexposed. Maybe I’d be able to salvage something in post-processing. I re-snapped a few lizards with my camera correctly set.

Secondly, while the charcoal was firing up, I went chasing dragonflies with my camera and managed to slip on and fall into some mud at the margins of farmer Luc’s lake. The life of the uncoordinated! Fortunately I saved my camera but I missed the dragonfly and got my trousers caked in sticky mud. Not a pleasant laundry job.

Thirdly, my fears over the size of the sardines proved to be well-founded and they oozed large amounts of oil causing the coals to flare ferociously. My portable Weber’s lid did its best to snuff out the flames but we still ended up with a slight petrochemical-like taint and lunch wasn’t my greatest of successes.

Farmer Luc has marked two walks through the surrounding countryside from his campsite. In an attempt to help me start doing things right again, we spent the later afternoon on the shorter of these. It’s about 5mls/8kms and was an enjoyable way to spend about 2 hours unwinding from the stresses of falling over and cooking lunch.