Tag: Auvergne

October 6, 2019 Lyon FR

The jet lag is starting to wear off so we woke a little earlier to head into Lyon.  We purchased an all day pass for public transport in Lyon which is a good deal for €6 as we wanted to cover a lot of ground today.  

On the way to Lyon we asked a young gentlemen to confirm we were at the correct bus stop, and ended up chatting with him most of the way to downtown.  He is trying to start a company to refill wine bottles directly rather than sending them to recycling first and then remolding them.  He told us there is a similar program going on with beer bottles in Oregon that we were not familiar with.  We enjoyed a wide ranging conversation from tax methods to population density of Oregon vs France.  These small contacts are always fun and encouraging.

When we finally arrived in downtown Lyon after a detour due to a market along the route and getting caught in a major traffic jam, we ran into the finish line for the Lyon marathon.  We spent a little time watching the runners finish, and enjoying the good mood of the spectators and runners as they crossed the line.

The finish line of the Lyon Marathon, Ton was trying some tricks with her camera so we caught some ghosts running the marathon.

Our next stop was the Roman theater which was pretty close to the finish line, the problem was it was about 600 feet higher on a pretty steep hill.  There were two funiculars up the hill which were covered by our transit pass, but I could not find them so we ended up climbing the hill.  The Roman theater is quite large and well preserved. It is still used to stage plays during the year, and holds about 6000 people in its current configuration.  During the Roman era there was a second wooden deck that accommodated another 5000 people.

The Roman Theater in Lyon is one of the largest in France.

In the distance we saw a cathedral dedicated to the Virgin Mary and headed over there.  It was a fairly modern cathedral built around 1872.  The story about the cathedral is it is on a hill overlooking the original cathedral in Lyon Saint-Jean.  In the 1500’s when the plague was going thru Europe the town prayed to Mary that if she spared Lyon from the plague they would do an annual procession to the top of the hill, and the plague skipped Lyon.  In the 1600’s there was a cholera epidemic in the area, and the citizens again prayed to Mary and promised a church on top of the hill if Lyon was spared, and it was.  Finally during the Franco-Prussian war in 1870 the citizens asked Mary to spare them from destruction by the Prussians this time promising a cathedral, which was duly built when the Prussians by passed Lyon.

You rub the Lions nose for good luck as you enter the cathedral in Lyon.

We also found the funicular so our trip down to the main city was much quicker and easier on the knee’s.  I have become quite reliant on Google for navigation, and it was at this point that I realized that despite Lyon being the third largest city in France, its transit system was not loaded into Google maps.  So now to get to our next destination I had to go back to the old way of trying to compare a city map with a transit map to figure the best way to get to a food hall with several famous restaurants.  It was not pretty but eventually we arrived just in time to watch all of the restaurants close up for the day.  

The food hall that was just closing up as we arrived.

So instead we headed back to François where Ton prepared me a delicious meal.

October 5, 2019 Lyon FR

We are both battling a little bug coupled with jet lag and a pretty good storm resulted in a poor nights sleep for both of us.  As a result we decided to just jump on the road and get some miles towards our ultimate destination.  

We have been wanting to visit Lyon and it was about half way to Toulon so we decided to head there for the day.  Ton suggested we go ahead and pay to use the Autoroute so it was a very easy day of driving for me, but a little expensive.  By the time we arrived in Lyon we decided to just explore the area around the campground. The area around us appears to have been part of the fortress system for Lyon in the past, so there were a lot of tall walls.  The town center was nice and we gawked at some beautiful French pastries, the French really do pastries right.  

A father and son Petanque game in the village square near our campground.

After stretching our legs we decided to turn in early and get ready to try to take Lyon by storm tomorrow.

April 15, 2018 Albi FR

The day started out with a visit to the cheese shop under the supervision of Patrick the campsite owner.  He also had a French couple in tow who turned out to be from the Yonne department of Burgundy which is our honorary  French home, as that is where François the RV is based.  We ended up with about 1/3 of a kilo each of three Cantal cheeses, one is called Cantal, one was called Salers, and the last was a blue cheese from the area which one food critic labeled the best he had ever tasted.  The Salers cheese is a variant of Cantal that is only produced in two months when a certain flower is in bloom in the region, as the flowers mixed with the grass makes the cows milk that much better, you have got to love the French!  We will give you a report later if the flowers make a big difference.

Patrick leading us down the road to the cheese store.

After two days of cold and damp weather we decided to head south in search of sun and heat.  We had originally picked out a target of a town that was about 130km  as the crow flies.  But when Ron punched it into the GPS, the route said it was over 400km’s.  Ron cursed and figured he had punched in the coordinates wrong.  But after some further study of the map it turned out that this was really a case of the proverbial you can’t get there from here.  

This cow is a Cantal whicn is a breed unique to the area around Salers.
Ton likes Cows and this calf is the cutest she has ever seen, it almost looks like a sheep.

Now it was Ton’s turns to study maps, she proposed the town of Albi as a destination.  It was south, the roads looked reasonable, and best of all it was the hometown of Toulouse-Lautrec which is both of our favorite French Artist.  

The bridge in the foreground was built around 1300 and is still used for traffic today.

The plan for the night was to stay in the Aire in Albi.  The GPS led us close to the medieval old town down increasingly narrow roads, and only about 500 yards from the final destination we came to an arch that the road was going under, but the road under the arch was filled with construction equipment.  After some studying of the map, and a little maneuvering in tight quarters we headed to our alternative route to the aire.  About half way there we fell in behind a Dutch RV that appeared to be going to the same place.  Again within about 500 meters of the aire we ran into some more construction and the Dutch pulled over and parked.  Ron parked up behind them and knowing that almost all Dutch speak English he walked up and asked them about the aire.  It turns out that the road to the aire is under construction and while you can barely make it there, it was full anyway.  The husband said that they were thinking about parking for the night at a site we had passed on the way in, but the wife switched from English to Dutch and told him no way they were parking there.  I don’t speak a word of Dutch but I didn’t need to to understand that conversation.

Ton and I decided to just leave François where he was and head into Albi to have a look around.  Albi turned out to be a real Gem.  This is why you do these trips without agendas,  to find places like this.  Our first stop was  the Toulouse-Lautrec museum.  The museum has an incredible collection of his art, because apparently the Louvre turned down the collection when his parents offered it to them.  The museum is housed in the Palais de la Berbie which is the old palace of the archbishop of Albi.  The building is as impressive as the art collection.

An example of the art in the Toulouse-Lautrec museum.
The exterior of the Toulouse-Lautrec museum which is in the old palace of the archbishop.

Next door is the Cathedral of Albi, which is the largest brick church in the world.  We went into the Cathedral and it was as impressive as the outside.  We got a break as one half which usually costs 5 euro to get in was open in preperation for a concert so we got a free look at it.

A view of the ceiling of the cathedral in Albi.

April 14, 2018 Salers FR

The plan today was to hit two villages in the Cantal region of France.  Cantal is famous for it’s cheese and the ruggedness of it’s mountains.  We experienced the ruggedness of the mountains and enjoyed the least populated part of France we have been in so far.  At one point we went almost 15 kilometers between two towns which is a record for us in France.

Passed by this castle very early in the day.  It is really striking, do not know anything at all about the history of the place though.

We stopped up in Cheylade to visit their church which is famous for its roof and nave.  It was a nice spot and while we were in there we had a good conversation with a group of Belgians who showed up to take in the church.

A shot of the ceiling of the church in Cheylade.  The ceiling tiles are from the 15th century after the church was rebuilt.

After getting confirmation from the Belgians that the pass was open we headed towards Salers.  Salers is considered one of the most beautiful villages in France.  It has retained almost all of it’s medieval structure.  After years of obscurity that allowed it to stay virtually unchanged for centuries it has been discovered, and last year had over 400,000 visitors.

One of the many medieval buildings in Salers that are still in use today.

It is certainly a nice place in a nice location, but maybe it was the bad weather (cold and wet), but we were both a little let down by the town.  It felt a little too touristy and more commercial than we expected.  (I think our bad taste started by having to pay 3euro to park François when the parking lot was empty.)

The city walls of Salers.  Salers is considered one of the five most beautiful villages in France.

When we first arrived we went over to the city campground for the night, but were totally perplexed about how it worked.  There was what appeared to be a proper campground, but it did not appear to have any water on site, but it did have electricity.  There was also an aire next door.  The perplexing part was there was not a soul on site to take money or give directions.  After wandering around for a while we decided to head into town and come back later and see if we could figure the place out.  When we returned a couple of hours later the situation was the same, no one on site and no one using the facility.  We decided we would grab a spot in the area that looked like an aire.  While we were eating the Gendarme (national police) passed thru a couple of times without moving us on so we figured we must be legal and free.  When Ron went out for his evening walk he ran into a gentleman who turned out to be the campground manager.  Patrick is quite a character and we ended up talking to him for quite a while and he is going to take us into town for cheese tomorrow.  But our free site turned into 13 euro when he collected the fee.

Sunset from the campsite.

April 13, 2018 Orcines FR

Today we reluctantly left Burgundy.  But before leaving we wanted to take a look at some more of the Beaujolais country.  Somewhere around Julien we made a wrong turn and quickly found ourselves on some small mountain roads heading into the Haute Beaujolais.  It turned out to be a nice mistake as it is beautiful country.  The Haute Beaujolais looks like it is dairy country with lots of valleys full of pastures and a pure white breed of cow we do not have in the US.  After a while of wandering around and completely unsure of exactly where we were (reminds me of a line from Band of Brothers when one soldier asks if they are lost, the officer replies we are not lost, we are in France), we decided to punch in our final destination for the day and let the GPS take us there.  

This breed of white cow is pretty large and all over Burgundy.  We have never seen anything like this breed in the US.  The background is typical of the country we drove thru today.

After a couple of hours and our first accidental experience of a French A road (think interstate with tolls) we ended up at Le Puy de Dome.  It is an inactive volcano cone, where you are supposed to be able to see 11 departments of France from.  The weather was not ideal as it was cold and windy, with high clouds.  But the views were there to see, just a little gray from the clouds.  The wind made it a little uncomfortable but we completed the circuit around the dome.

The view from the top of the Puy de Dome.  Not a great day for photography but we will not be back on this trip.  We think it would be spectacular on a bright day.

At the top is the ruins of a roman temple to Mercury built around 124 AD.  The Puy de Dome apparently has been a tourist attraction for quite sometime.

Some of the ruins of the Temple of Mercury on Puy de Dome.  Puy means volcanic hill in French.

After a week with Francoise it was time to fill up for the first time.  The cost was $129 for 19 gallons which is $6.78/gallon.  The good news is the distances between things to do are a lot less, so our daily cost of fuel so far is less than at home.  On this trip our biggest cost has been admission to sites.  Interestingly we are spending less per night than at home for campgrounds and we have not really tried to find free spots which abound around here.

François is the RV in the middle.  Taken from the top Puy de Dome.

April 12, 2018 Rommaneche-Thorins FR

We woke up to a pretty steady rain in our Aire in Cluny.  Ton pointed out that I had been throwing the term Aire around in the blog when there is nothing like it in the US.  An Aire is a very basic place for RV’s to park up for the night.  There are thousands of them in France and they range from designated areas in parking lots with no services, to parking areas with electric, water, and dump stations.  Most of them do not provide electric, but do provide a place to get rid of the waste water.  A surprising amount of them are free, and the rest charge a nominal amount.  The towns put them in figuring if you park up for the night you will end up dropping a few Euro somewhere in town.

Typical countryside in Beaujolais.  It is as green as Oregon this time of year.

After a quick check of the weather and seeing that it was supposed to clear up shortly, we hit the road.  The intent was to follow the route of one of the scenic drives in Ton’s DK Backroads France book.  The drive was called the heart of France and was about 60km’s.  We managed to keep on it for most of the trip though there were a couple of unexpected detours caused by missed turns.

Typical vineyard just as the bud is breaking on the vine.

Around lunch we came to Chateau de la Greffirere that advertised tasting and a museum.  When we arrived we were met by a lady who asked if we spoke any French at all, when we said no, she looked a little flustered but began pouring us wine.  A couple of minutes later we were greeted by another lady who completed the tasting and gave us a tour of the facilities.  At the end she opened up the real prize for us and as it was lunch time handed us an English book and went off to lunch. The museum was fantastic as it was full of antique wine production equipment.  We spent about an hour wandering around and really enjoyed ourselves.  

Antique wine making equipment.

Leaving we continued following the Heart of France drive, but went amiss somewhere and ended up in the town of Macon.  It felt more urban than anything else we have encountered so we punched in the place we planned to stop for the night and let Garmin guide us from there.  

For the night we are staying at a France Passion site on a winery called Domaine Mortet.  We were greeted by Jean Pierre Mortet after we parked up for the night.  He was just in from the fields, but took us down into his cellar for a personal tasting.  It was fun and very interesting speaking to Jean as he is a literally a one man show.  He is the owner, winemaker, vineyard manager, and sales manager.  He took over the winery from his father, who dropped in while we were tasting.  We want to thank Jean Pierre for his hospitality.

Jean Pierre and Ton in the cave of Domaine Mortet.  Thanks so much Jean Pierre.

October 6, 2019 Lyon FR

The jet lag is starting to wear off so we woke a little earlier to head into Lyon.  We purchased an all day pass for public transport in Lyon which is a good deal for €6 as we wanted to cover a lot of ground today.  

On the way to Lyon we asked a young gentlemen to confirm we were at the correct bus stop, and ended up chatting with him most of the way to downtown.  He is trying to start a company to refill wine bottles directly rather than sending them to recycling first and then remolding them.  He told us there is a similar program going on with beer bottles in Oregon that we were not familiar with.  We enjoyed a wide ranging conversation from tax methods to population density of Oregon vs France.  These small contacts are always fun and encouraging.

The finish line of the Lyon Marathon, Ton was trying some tricks with her camera so we caught some ghosts running the marathon.

When we finally arrived in downtown Lyon after a detour due to a market along the route and getting caught in a major traffic jam, we ran into the finish line for the Lyon marathon.  We spent a little time watching the runners finish, and enjoying the good mood of the spectators and runners as they crossed the line.

Our next stop was the Roman theater which was pretty close to the finish line, the problem was it was about 600 feet higher on a pretty steep hill.  There were two funiculars up the hill which were covered by our transit pass, but I could not find them so we ended up climbing the hill.  The Roman theater is quite large and well preserved. It is still used to stage plays during the year, and holds about 6000 people in its current configuration.  During the Roman era there was a second wooden deck that accommodated another 5000 people.

The Roman Theater in Lyon is one of the largest in France.

In the distance we saw a cathedral dedicated to the Virgin Mary and headed over there.  It was a fairly modern cathedral built around 1872.  The story about the cathedral is it is on a hill overlooking the original cathedral in Lyon Saint-Jean.  In the 1500’s when the plague was going thru Europe the town prayed to Mary that if she spared Lyon from the plague they would do an annual procession to the top of the hill, and the plague skipped Lyon.  In the 1600’s there was a cholera epidemic in the area, and the citizens again prayed to Mary and promised a church on top of the hill if Lyon was spared, and it was.  Finally during the Franco-Prussian war in 1870 the citizens asked Mary to spare them from destruction by the Prussians this time promising a cathedral, which was duly built when the Prussians by passed Lyon.

You rub the Lions nose for good luck as you enter the cathedral in Lyon.

We also found the funicular so our trip down to the main city was much quicker and easier on the knee’s.  I have become quite reliant on Google for navigation, and it was at this point that I realized that despite Lyon being the third largest city in France, its transit system was not loaded into Google maps.  So now to get to our next destination I had to go back to the old way of trying to compare a city map with a transit map to figure the best way to get to a food hall with several famous restaurants.  It was not pretty but eventually we arrived just in time to watch all of the restaurants close up for the day.  

The food hall that was just closing up as we arrived.

So instead we headed back to François where Ton prepared me a delicious meal.

October 5, 2019 Lyon FR

We are both battling a little bug coupled with jet lag and a pretty good storm resulted in a poor nights sleep for both of us.  As a result we decided to just jump on the road and get some miles towards our ultimate destination.  

We have been wanting to visit Lyon and it was about half way to Toulon so we decided to head there for the day.  Ton suggested we go ahead and pay to use the Autoroute so it was a very easy day of driving for me, but a little expensive.  By the time we arrived in Lyon we decided to just explore the area around the campground. The area around us appears to have been part of the fortress system for Lyon in the past, so there were a lot of tall walls.  The town center was nice and we gawked at some beautiful French pastries, the French really do pastries right.  

A father and son Petanque game in the village square near our campground.

After stretching our legs we decided to turn in early and get ready to try to take Lyon by storm tomorrow.

April 14, 2018 Salers FR

The plan today was to hit two villages in the Cantal region of France.  Cantal is famous for its cheese and the ruggedness of its mountains.  We experienced the ruggedness of the mountains and enjoyed the least populated part of France we have been in so far.  At one point we went almost 15 kilometers between two towns which is a record for us in France.

Passed by this castle very early in the day.  It is really striking, do not know anything at all about the history of the place though.

We stopped up in Cheylade to visit their church which is famous for its roof and nave.  It was a nice spot and while we were in there we had a good conversation with a group of Belgians who showed up to take in the church.

A shot of the ceiling of the church in Cheylade.  The ceiling tiles are from the 15th century after the church was rebuilt.

After getting confirmation from the Belgians that the pass was open we headed towards Salers.  Salers is considered one of the most beautiful villages in France.  It has retained almost all of it’s medieval structure.  After years of obscurity that allowed it to stay virtually unchanged for centuries it has been discovered, and last year had over 400,000 visitors.

One of the many medieval buildings in Saler that are stil in use today.

It is certainly a nice place in a nice location, but maybe it was the bad weather (cold and wet), but we were both a little let down by the town.  It felt a little too touristy and more commercial than we expected.  (I think our bad taste started by having to pay 3euro to park François when the parking lot was empty.)

The city walls of Saler.  Saler is considered one of the five most beautiful villages in France.

When we first arrived we went over to the city campground for the night, but were totally perplexed about how it worked.  There was what appeared to be a proper campground, but it did not appear to have any water on site, but it did have electricity.  There was also an aire next door.  The perplexing part was there was not a soul on site to take money or give directions.  After wandering around for a while we decided to head into town and come back later and see if we could figure the place out.  When we returned a couple of hours later the situation was the same, no one on site and no one using the facility.  We decided we would grab a spot in the area that looked like an aire.  While we were eating the Gendarme (national police) passed thru a couple of times without moving us on so we figured we must be legal and free.  When Ron went out for his evening walk he ran into a gentleman who turned out to be the campground manager.  Patrick is quite a character and we ended up talking to him for quite a while and he is going to take us into town for cheese tomorrow.  But our free site turned into 13 euro when he collected the fee.

Sunset from the campsite.


April 13, 2018 Orcines FR

Today we reluctantly left Burgundy.  But before leaving we wanted to take a look at some more of the Beaujolais country.  Somewhere around Julien we made a wrong turn and quickly found ourselves on some small mountain roads heading into the Haute Beaujolais.  It turned out to be a nice mistake as it is beautiful country.  The Haute Beaujolais looks like it is dairy country with lots of valleys full of pastures and a pure white breed of cow we do not have in the US.  After a while of wandering around and completely unsure of exactly where we were (reminds me of a line from Band of Brothers when one soldier asks if they are lost, the officer replies we are not lost, we are in France), we decided to punch in our final destination for the day and let the GPS take us there.  

This breed of white cow is pretty large and all over Burgundy.  We have never seen anything like this breed in the US.  The background is typical of the country we drove thru today.

After a couple of hours and our first experience of a French A road (think interstate with tolls) we ended up at Le Puy de Dome.  It is an inactive volcano cone, where you are supposed to be able to see 11 departments of France from.  The weather was not ideal as it was cold and windy, with high clouds.  But the views were there to see, just a little gray from the clouds.  The wind made it a little uncomfortable but we completed the circuit around the dome.

The view from the top of the Puy de Dome.  Not a great day for photography but we will not be back on this trip.  We think it would be spectacular on a bright day.

At the top is the ruins of a roman temple to Mercury built around 124 AD.  The Puy de Dome apparently has been a tourist attraction for quite sometime.

Some of the ruins of the Temple of Mercury on Puy de Dome.  Puy means volcanic hill in French.

After a week with François it was time to fill up for the first time.  The cost was $129 for 19 gallons which is $6.78/gallon.  The good news is the distances between things to do are a lot less, so our daily cost of fuel so far is less than at home.  On this trip our biggest cost has been admission to sites.  Interestingly we are spending less per night than at home for campgrounds and we have not really tried to find free spots which abound around here.

François is the RV in the middle.  Taken from the top Puy de Dome.


April 12, 2018 Rommaneche-Thorins FR

We woke up to a pretty steady rain in our Aire in Cluny.  Ton pointed out that I had been throwing the term Aire around in the blog when there is nothing like it in the US.  An Aire is a very basic place for RV’s to park up for the night.  There are thousands of them in France and they range from designated areas in parking lots with no services, to parking areas with electric, water, and dump stations.  Most of them do not provide electric, but do provide a place to get rid of the waste water.  A surprising amount of them are free, and the rest charge a nominal amount.  The towns put them in figuring if you park up for the night you will end up dropping a few Euro somewhere in town.

Typical coutryside in Beaujolais.  It is as green as Oregon this time of year.

After a quick check of the weather and seeing that it was supposed to clear up shortly, we hit the road.  The intent was to follow the route of one of the scenic drives in Ton’s DK Backroads France book.  The drive was called the heart of France and was about 60km’s.  We managed to keep on it for most of the trip though there were a couple of unexpected detours caused by missed turns.

Typical vineyard just as the bud is breaking on the vine.

Around lunch we came to Chateau de la Greffirere that advertised tasting and a museum.  When we arrived we were met by a lady who asked if we spoke any French at all when we said no, she looked a little flustered but began pouring us wine.  A couple of minutes later we were greeted by another lady who completed the tasting and gave us a tour of the facilities.  At the end she opened up the real prize for us and as it was lunch time handed us an English guidebook and went off to lunch. The museum was fantastic  as it was full of antique wine production equipment.  We spent about an hour wandering around and really enjoyed ourselves.  

Antique wine making equipment.

Leaving we continued following the Heart of France drive, but went amiss somewhere and ended up in the town of Macon.  It felt more urban than anything else we have encountered so we punched in the place we planned to stop for the night and let Garmin guide us from there.  

For the night we are staying at a France Passion site on a winery called Domaine Mortet.  We were greeted by Jean Pierre Mortet after we parked up for the night.  He was just in from the fields, but took us down into his cellar for a personal tasting.  It was fun and very interesting speaking to Jean as he is a literally a one man show.  He is the owner, winemaker, vineyard manager, and sales manager.  He took over the winery from his father, who dropped in while we were tasting.  We want to thank Jean Pierre for his hospitality.

Jean Pierre and Ton in the cave of Domaine Mortet.  Thanks so much Jean Pierre