The Three Island Tour. The road to Avignon.

“Oi! Kelv, you missed a week!”

“Eh? What? Ah, yes. You’re right. I missed a week.”

We missed a week in many ways.

The 12 hour flight back to London from Colombo was an out of body experience. 

Before take-off all the blinds are dropped, and the cabin remained in near darkness for the whole flight. 

But that wasn’t enough to fool the poor children who’ve been dragged onto the plane for a day of torture.

Torture for the little ones who don’t understand why their ears hurt so much, to which they respond with screams that’d stop an elephant.

Torture for the parents who know everyone hates them for bringing their children on the cripplingly expensive flight.

And torture for everyone within five rows of each little mite belting out its displeasure. Given the distribution of children throughout economy that’s just about all of us.

Food on the flight out with Quatar was the best I’ve experienced on a plane. Food with Sri Lankan on the way back wasn’t.

However, the gin pouring arm of the steward demonstrated the best tilt that I’ve witnessed outside of home. It was only the Brits and a few Germans taking advantage, and two of the best served were in row 22 (Minty and KC).

London.

We haven’t been to the big city for many years. Minty treated us to The Hoxton, just a few minutes’ walk from our old Shoreditch flat. The Hoxton gets it right. A big hotel. A huge bar and grill restaurant. Revered by the creative set in whose heartland it sits central. All the rooms are small, but somehow near perfect. Occasionally you strike lucky and get a south facing window overlooking quiet Willow Street. This time we had that luck.

London was exciting as only a big city can be.

For those who live there the change happens slowly and goes unnoticed. 

For us the changes were massive.

The Elizabeth Line in from Heathrow. Spacious, clean, quiet.

Oxford Street, clean and quiet with its electric buses and taxis traveling at no more than 20mph.

The building work in the areas we thought we knew.

While the city buildings soar to ridiculous heights, they are becoming more interesting. Materials are varied. Residential buildings offer balconies at dizzying heights.

Exciting though it all was, our experience of it all was limited. One of us was almost always asleep.

Exeter.

While it was mostly Minty who slept through London it was me who slept through Exeter.

We stopped for the night super cheap at Exeter St David’s Premier Inn (the most grumpy staff of any British business). I slept through it all.

Cornwall.

Cornwall? You can have most of it. We wanted St Just.

There were so many jobs to fit into three days and nights. There will be friends staying at our house all the time we’re away – we need to leave it at its best for them. There’s building work. Planting to be done. Grass – the grass will be left to grow, and grow it will.

Yet still we slept for 12 hours at a stretch.

Far too soon it was time to leave.

Looking up at our overhead storage in the van I see that we both did emergency packing, i.e. stuff it all in, worry about it later. 

It’s Thursday lunchtime. We’re off again. Already.

Poundbury.

Friends moved to Poundland. What a strange thing.

The then Prince Charles’ model new town now houses over 4,000 people. Yet it still feels like a film set. There are beauty parlours, candle shops, dog parlours and other shops you’d never dream of using. Fortunately there’s also a big Waitrose.

It’s a curious place. It’s very, well, nice. Nice and safe. Nice and neat. With a nice park and a nice school.

Oh, and chuffing massive houses.

St Malo.

The ferry, not the place. The St Malo is the new hybrid boat on the Brittany Ferries fleet. RoRo. Roll on, roll into bed, roll off into France. The new boat is super smart. Yet as people are getting bigger the cabins have got smaller. Squeeze them in baby!

A ferry cabin is as close to a cruise as we’ll get. We love the little beds, the sleep of the gently rocked (we have been thrown out of bed by over energetic rocking, but not this time). Early morning announcements in hard to understand French, then harder to understand English. The vigorous shower. Climb back into the van half asleep, then suddenly you’re cast off, driving at a crazy hour in the morning on the wrong side of the road, with massive impatient lorries all around. 

Just hold your nerve for 15 minutes, by that time you’ll be out on the open road, and you’ll hardly see another car for a few hours.

Chaumont sur Loire.

In June last year we parked near the chateau of Chaumont sur Loire. We had Chenonceau in our sights and passed up on visiting Chaumont. Mistake.

Later I found that Chaumont is not only a state sponsored cultural hub, but that it also hosts an international festival of garden design.

I wanted to see the gardens, and it’s almost on our route. We parked up in last year’s spot on the far side of the wide river Loire, ready to visit on Sunday morning. 

Sunday. Wet Sunday.

Grrrrr. 

The gardens must be good. We enjoyed them despite the rain. 

The chateau was pretty special too.

Traipsing through recreated rooms is interesting enough, but here too there are many works of modern art, including a rather special Quayloa digital interpretation of impressionism.

Sunday motorway.

More empty roads. The French motorway network in the winter is so incredibly empty. At one point we crested a hill and I could see at least two miles in front and a mile behind. There was not a car in sight. The autoroute is expensive, but other than at holiday time it moves you along.

Riom.

Several of my teenage visits to France took me to Clermont Ferrand, tyre town, home of Michelin. Riom is just up the road.

Riom is definitely not the bustling city that Clermont is. It’s historic, but largely empty. 

Le Pet’t Bonheur served us strong beer in the evening and strong coffee in the morning. I’m unlikely to remember much more about the town.

Winter tyres.

As we cruise south along the RN (A) roads of Auvergne and the 80 or so puys (ancient volcanoes) tower to our right we casually notice the signs advising that winter tyres, and the carrying of snow chains is obligatory until April. Living in west Cornwall where we hardly ever have a frost it’s hard to conceive of somewhere 500 miles south needing such precautions. 

But then the snow started.

I glanced down at the temperature gauge, it’s only 4 degrees, 3.5 degrees, 3 degrees. The temperature is falling fast. Huge trucks weighing 40 tonnes and more thunder on oblivious, but we’re immediately nervous.

We crest the col and realise that we have been climbing steadily for some time, we were at 1200m, almost double the height of Harthorpe Moss, the highest road in England.

At Pradelles we snuggle into bed with the outside temperature around 4 degrees. I thought this was a run to the sun? Hopefully that’s tomorrow.

Pradelles. Historic. Attractive. But closed. Only the massive butcher’s shop seems open all year and that offers most human needs. Beer. Wine. Honey. Local lentils, puy lentils – the best! Cheese. And more meat than I have ever seen in one place before. They also run the motorhome camping area – for free! Marvellous.

Back down the hill.

Tuesday started high in the lentil growing country of the Haut Loire, took a few hours meander through the utterly stunning mountains of the Ardèche, saw a stop at the incredible Pont du Gard, before finishing just above sea level in the olive groves and vineyards of Avignon. 4 degrees on waking, 22 degrees before bed.

The Pont du Gard.

Around the time of Christ while our ancestors scratched about in the Cornish dirt, the Romans were living it large across much of Europe. Nimes was particularly fabulous and still has a magnificent amphitheatre and other remains from the period. 

The trouble with all that Roman underfloor heating and bathing was that it took a lot of water and the supply wasn’t always reliable. 

No one wants a senator stuck without a pool sized bath to entertain in, and something needed to be done. 

With a degree of chutzpah that would dwarf any engineering project in the world today, Emperor Augustus’ aide and son-in-law Marcus Agrippa had the answer. He decided to build a canal from the springs of Uzes, 15 miles up the road, to bring a dependable water supply, even though that meant crossing the 150 foot deep valley of the Gardon River.

Built without mortar, or a Macsalvors Crane, the awesome structure (I use the word with caution, but deservedly) of massive carved stones stands today, after some reconstruction work from 1743. Standing beneath its three tiers of arches truly fills you with awe, and leads you to question your own achievements.

Avignon.

Is there a more beautiful city?

We’ve twice visited Avignon in March. Warm sunny March, busy, but not heaving. 

Approach from the west. There’s nothing to dilute the magical first sighting of the city. We learned this by leaving through the sprawling banlieu (suburbs) of the east.

Enclosed by fine walls. The mighty Rhône flows to its west. The light sandstone of its fabulous palaces and churches glows in low light. And within those walls, a degree of quiet. There are few cars, the buses are electric, most people cycle or walk.

The pope’s palace, built over many periods from the early 1300s, dominates the north of the town. On our visit we were among only 50 or so other tourists in a space so generous as to leave us feeling as ants.

I sought out CQFD, a French design store in town. I’d bought my simple leather card wallet there six years ago and I hoped to replace it. The new was 10 euros dearer, but I was delighted to find it, and the shop keeper was delighted by the story, and the patina of the old.

At Au Coeur des Vins (playing Amy Winehouse, Astrid Gilberto, Nina Simone) the scruffy Wanderers had their most upmarket experience in years with the delightful maître d’/owner recommending fine wines and delivering a cheese and charcuterie platter that was beyond compare yet reasonably priced. 

All rich leaves nothing rich.

For balance from the riches of the city my morning walk took me past Trolley Man who was lighting his fire upstream of our campsite. Trolley Man currently lives in his third tent at his little site. Trodden down amongst the reeds, his greasy finds displayed around him. Although his view encompasses the Rhone and all Avignon, including its famous bridge, his concerns are closer to home. Food. Warmth. Water. Rain. On the path his daily use trolley holds various canned foods, a few battered water bottles. Older, now discarded trolleys lie at uncomfortable angles about his domain.

Later we saw Trolley Man on his way over the big bridge to his day’s work in the city, pushing his trolley, his four dogs around him. He’ll work through the tourists’ detritus finding treasures that only he can recognise.

South to the ferry.

On Saturday the adventure truly kicks in. The ferry from Toulon to Corsica.

Before, a couple of nights in Forcalquier where, on arriving many years ago we declared “Let’s live here one day.” We still hope to.