Our night in Loches turned out to be our last night in a campsite on this journey. It was a rather cool and wet night and we retreated to Brenda’s basic comfort and warmth to watch an episode of ‘True Detective’.  The episode was called ‘Who Goes There’ in which the search for Reggie Ledoux leads the detectives Martin and Rust to a motorcycle gang called ‘The Iron Crusaders’, for whom Rust worked undercover in the past. As Rust manages to persuade the gang he’s bona fide and to take him deep into the heartland of a drug gang’s territory, all hell breaks loose and the noise level shoots up a few decibels.  Just as we think we should perhaps turn the volume down, loud thumps on the side of the van make us jump. “Fermez ceci!” (Turn that off) says an angry voice in the dark. We open the side door to see a grey haired man a bit older than us starting to walk away.  “D’accord on va baisser” (OK we’ll turn it down) we say.  “Pas baisser, il faut fermer ca.  Ou vous vous croyez?”.  (No, you’ve got to turn it off.  Where do you think you are?)  We turned it off – it was nearly the end anyway and we’d seen it before but only realised half way through. But it left us feeling a bit embarrassed at being told off for anti-social behaviour after 3 months of campervanning but also slightly annoyed – surely he could have asked in a nicer way, we’re all reasonable people, and there was a touch of the ‘you can’t behave like that here, you’re not in England now you know’ in his tone.

We crossed the Pays de la Loire and arrived in the Morbihan region of Brittany in the late afternoon.  The plan had been for us to house and cat-sit for Judith’s sister Lynne and brother-in-law Graham during the whole of September but there was a change of plan and Flavio took a flight back to the UK from Rennes on the 2nd September both to see his mother and to attend a wedding, and Judith followed in Brenda via St Malo on the 10th.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our friends’ Matthew and Abigail’s wedding in Burnham on the 4th September was delightful and we wish them every happiness.  Matt took over from Flavio as Middle East Regional Director at Macmillan when he retired in February and Flavio was very relieved to leave the regional business in such expert hands. He was also very grateful to have had such a great send-off organised by Matt in London in April and with the Cairo team in Cairo earlier – as well as others by the Palestinians in Ramallah and by the Saudis at the London Bookfair.  It was lovely to see Matt and Abi on their big day and to wish them well and a very happy honeymoon (a thoroughly deserved full month) in Italy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This may not be of any direct relevance to the journey but it was a prelude to it. After the decision to retire and therefore leave Cairo we discussed what we should do next and came up with the idea of a 3-month trip around Europe to act as an interlude between full-time work and retirement and to give us time to think about what to do next.  Coming back to attend Matt’s wedding seemed to round things off nicely as he was such an important part of my last few months with Macmillan and indeed made my leaving so much easier and less stressful.

 

Next stop on our way back to Brittany after our first stop there in early June was Vichy where we would stay the night as guests of our friends Steve and Jane Thompson.  Steve and Flavio had been fellow Arabic and linguistics students at PCL (now Westminster University) back in the 1970s and more lately worked together as ELT author / publisher at Macmillan.  Being both ELT freelancers, Steve and Jane had opted for la belle vie in France.  Like us, they too have had spells in the Middle East at different times in their lives so we had much in common to talk about – as well as of course, Steve’s and Flavio’s old days when they would have been wearing flared trousers and denim jackets and playing highly competitive table football to the sound of Comfortably Numb at the PCL cafeteria in Red Lion Square in Holborn. We spent a lovely evening with them at Bellerive in Vichy and dined at the Table d’Antoine Restaurant in the centre ville.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Vichy is known as a spa and resort town but also as the seat of government and de facto capital of ‘Vichy France’ headed by Marshal Petain during the WWII Nazi German occupation from 1940 to 1944.  It lies on the Allier river in Auvergne in central France and its architecture is very much that of a spa town, with many grand villas which would have been built for the well-heeled, though we’re not sure they were to our taste.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The dinner at La Table d’Antoine was very classy and Judith and I felt a little self-conscious in our tatty campers’ clothes!  Antoine didn’t disappoint however – the quality of the food was first-rate and not the sort of thing you can ever hope to emulate at home.  We went for the ‘Decouverte du Terroir’ (Regional Cuisine) 3-course menu which came with ‘mise-en-bouche, pre-dessert et mignardises’ meaning that between the courses we had extra little ‘mouth-teasers’ as well as the regional cheeses before dessert!  In the very best tradition of good restaurants in France, each time our different courses were put in front of  us, the head waiter would decorously stand back, wait for a pause in the conversation, and inform us in detail what each dish consisted of – “Messieurs/dames, la tarte sablee au parmesan, truite marinee avec compote de citron jaune” (lemon and cheese pie with marinated trout) or  “le blanc de poulet fermier d’Auvergne sauce satay avec parfait d’aubergine fumee” (farm-reared Auvergne chicken with satay sauce and smoked aubergine flan) before, ritual over, giving us a little bow and stepping back discreetly.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After saying goodbye to Steve and Jane and wishing them a happy and badly needed holiday in Greece, we put the Tom Tom away and followed the most direct route in the direction of the Morbihan in Brittany, crossing the Indre-et-Loire, Pays de la Loire and Loire Atlantique in the process.  Brittany was just a touch too far though to cover comfortably in one day and so we stopped off for probably what was to be our last campsite stop in a the medieval town of Loches in the Indre-et-Loire, 45 kms southeast of Tours.  Loches has an impressive castle – the Chateau de Loches – which was a residence of the Counts of Anjou then the kings of France, after it was seized from King John of England by Philip Augustus in c AD 1250.

On the way to Loches, we passed the pretty little towns of Saint-Poucain-sur-Sioule and Vallon-en-Sully. By then, the weather had well and truly turned and we had a wet and coldish night, which came as a bit of a shock after the sizzling temperatures of less than a week earlier.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In Saint-Pourcain, we had stopped for a light lunch and also visited the Eglise Sainte Croix (Church of the Holy Cross) where, as if pre-destined to do so now that we’d almost reached the end of our journey, we saw a statue of St Christopher (the saint of travellers) bearing the inscription “Merci a St Christophe” underneath. Yes indeed, we were thankful.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was already quite late when we left Lomazzo. But the drive out of Lombardy, through Piemonte and across the Alps took much longer than we’d expected and this was not helped by a severe bottleneck at the entrance to the Frejus tunnel at Bardonecchia.  It was just our luck that we’d hit the busiest week in the year for returning French holiday-makers.  We thought the congestion was caused by passport or customs controls but it turned out to be just the queues at the toll booths.  56 Euros for the crossing seemed a bit steep but then this was Europe and all the technical expertise and orderliness doesn’t come cheap. With the wait, it took nearly two hours to get across.

The tunnel emerges in the Savoie in France, one of the departements of the Rhone-Alpes region.

The Rhône-Alpes borders Switzerland as well as Italy. Its Massif Central mountains and dramatic canyons carved by the Ardèche River are popular for hiking and rafting. Both the Rhone and the Saone also flow through the region and meet at Lyon.   Lyon, the regional capital, is a cultural and gastronomic hub with Renaissance and medieval buildings in its centre. 

Shortly after reaching France, it was 9.30pm and we had not found a suitable campsite on our route.  Instead, Judith found a cheap B&B near Chambery through lastminute.com which we paid for in advance.  When we finally found the place though at 11pm it was sunk in darkness and no one was there.  We rang the hotel number only to be told there must have been a mistake and they were full.  Several phone calls to lastminute.com proved a waste of time; it was far too late to start looking for campsites or other accommodation and, finally giving up at nearly 1pm we resorted to spending the night in an ‘aire’ (a temporary rest stop with toilet facilities) on the side of the motorway mostly used by lorry drivers but also desperate campervanners!  This had to rank as one of our worst nights of the journey and unfortunately Catherine was also with us so it may well have tarnished her view of campervanning for quite a long time!  In the morning, after a strong coffee from the motorway cafe, we were ready to get back on the road.

We would have liked to spend a bit of time in Lyon but we we had to get to Brittany by the 27th and fit in two visits to friends in-between and friends are more important.  First, we were headed for Blace in the Beaujolais area, about 70 kms north west of Lyon to see Blandine and Laurent who we’d been friends with when we lived in Clapham Park in the 90s. Judith and Blandine worked well together as active members of their respective PTAs and Laurent was a Master of Wine working on several projects. They bought a lovely big but run-down house in Blace with acres of vineyards and eventually moved there in the 2000s. Shortly afterwards, a major fire destroyed large parts of the house but the insurance money enabled them to rebuild it all beautifully.  They called it the ‘Chateau de l’Hestrange’.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blace is situated in the Beaujolais region of the Rhone.  For some reason, Beaujolais has for a while now been out of fashion and doesn’t sell well – in fact, there had been 6 suicides amongst winegrowers in the region in the past year alone. Very wisely, Laurent has over the past few years diversified his vineyards by growing Chardonnay as well as Gamay Noir grapes and producing Cremant, Chardonnay and aged Beaujolais, all of which we tried and were quite superb.  Laurent had even approached Buckingham Palace asking if he could dedicate his 2012 Chardonnay to the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee and he got a letter back saying yes and ordering several cases!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We spent two very pleasant days with Blandine and Laurent as well as two of their grown-up children Delphine and Elzear and trusty border collie Merlot at Chateau de l’Hestrange.  The grape-picking harvest was due to start the next day, first for the Cremant and a week later for the rest of the vines and they were glad to have had a bit of rain in the last few days to give the grapes that last boost after a very hot summer.  It sounded exciting and it was tempting to stay and help with the harvest (the last time Flavio did the vendange was after the very hot summer of 1976 in Blois). But we had to move on so we promised to come back and help with next year’s harvest.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Because of the rain, Laurent had put off the start of the grape-picking by a day but on the morning of the second day, grape-pickers could be seen on the slopes adjoining l’Hestrange. A walk to take a closer look seemed a compelling thought.  There was something satisfying and timeless in the sight of this essentially quiet, almost religious activity.  The long months of pruning and tending the vines and hoping for the right weather at the right time were finally over and it was now time to gather the grapes.  It was not only an economic activity (for many winegrowers it’s not particularly profitable) – it was a preservation of a way of life.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We really liked the countryside around Blace and Villefranche – the vine-covered undulating hills interspersed with coppices are irresistibly gentle and seductive. It was a joy just to take a walk surrounded by vines and tranquil vistas all around. We decided that of all the regions we’d seen in France we liked the Rhone, the Languedoc-Roussillon, the Loire, the Aquitaine and other wine-growing areas best – something about doing something for the love and preservation of that way of life – though there is something very relaxing about Brittany too, despite the weather!

Another thing we really liked was Merlot the dog – aren’t border collies great?  But no, we’re not getting a dog when we get back.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Greek ferry from Igoumenitsa in the north western corner of Greece to Ancona in Italy was due to leave at 9pm on the 18th.  The most expedient thing was to leave in the late morning and complete the 6-hour drive in one day – besides, it allowed us to squeeze one extra day in Milina.  The drive took us back through Agria and Volos and past Trikala, Kalabaka and Ionnina.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The ferry arrived an hour later than its scheduled departure time but the seemingly impossible number of vehicles waiting at the terminal were ushered on board impressively quickly if a little shambolically.   We headed straight for our cabin and settled in for the night crossing which was smooth apart from a thunderstorm in the morning – that, and another dose of offhand service from the surly waiters at breakfast – what is it with waiters on ferries? Perhaps because of the storm, arrival in (a very wet) Ancona was two hours later than scheduled and we had less time than we’d planned to make it to our next destination – Bologna, for the second time, where we would spend the night and show Catherine our favourite spots.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our next destination was Lake Como to visit relatives of Flavio’s who’d moved back to Italy from Egypt.  Our route however took us very close to Milan and it seemed a shame to miss the opportunity to take a quick look at Italy’s most elegant and sophisticated city. That it certainly was, with prices to match – 30-odd Euros for two (very fancy) ice-creams, a fancy jam-tart and coffees! Shamefully, we didn’t research the history of the city but were impressed by the magnificent Gothic extravagance of the Duomo but less so by the Scala which was a surprisingly dull building.  More interesting was the statue of Leonardo da Vinci across the road from it, with the simple inscription “Leonardo”.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The campsite we’d plumped for was not the most convenient in terms of proximity to Flavio’s relatives but it enabled us to see a part of Italy that was new to us.  It was at Piano Porlezza, at the top end of Lake Como, very close to Lake Lugano and the Swiss border but it was one of just two campsites in the area so we had little choice.  The drive to it through the often scarily narrow mountain road following the contour of the lake and through one picturesque village after another was seemingly endless and it was dark by the time we arrived.  We had stopped at a small supermercato just before and though it had just closed they took pity on us and let us in (hard to imagine this in London) so we’d managed to get some emergency provisions for supper ie some local wine and something to go with it!

The weather had cooled down quite a bit and the next day seemed a good opportunity to explore the area via a long walk which took us down to the quintessential Italian lakeside town of Menaggio on the western side of Lake Como on the way down to which the views were quite spectacular.  Menaggio was a walled city during Roman times and remnants of the wall could still be seen.  Now, apart from being a very beautiful cool summer resort especially popular with the Germans, it’s also the place Mussolini tried to take refuge in when his luck finally ran out.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The walk back to the campsite took us through a densely wooded and hilly path which was quite a challenge but invigorating.  In the middle of it, a stunning waterfall.  The entire walk was almost 20 kms and we arrived back at sunset with aching feet and limbs.

Flavio’s father Simon was born in Alexandria, Egypt, as was his grandfather Galileo.  Both were architects though Simon turned to interior design when he (a little reluctantly) emigrated to London in 1968 following further clampdowns on the foreign community by Nasser after the 6-day war.  Galileo was one of 6 brothers and sisters and one brother, Edmondo, was father to Armando, also an architect but in Cairo.  Armando died in the late 90s leaving behind his wife Rita and daughter Silvana, who now lived in Lombardy, Italy.  This was a good opportunity for Flavio to see them both so we first went to meet Silvana in Lomazzo who took us to see Rita, who was now in a home or Casa di Riposo (house of rest) as it’s called in Italian in a splendid old mansion donated to the community by Cecilio Vallardi, a local dignitary in the town of Appiano.

Seeing Rita was a very emotional moment as she had been a very kind woman, loved by everyone, especially the children and she and Flavio’s mother had been very close. It was sad to see her old-age sadness but also good to see her momentary happiness at this unexpected reunion.

Back in Lomazzo for coffee, Silvana and Flavio exchanged a few memories of the antics they used to get up to as children – “ti ricordi quando ci facevamo dispetti tua sorella e me contro di te / quando ti ho sbatacchiato sulla testa con l’altalena?” (Do you remember when your sister and I used to tease you and try and get you into trouble / when I knocked you on the head with the swing?) and such like.

It was good to see them and it was past 2pm when we left. We now had to race against time to get to our next destination – Blace in the Beaujolais-growing area near Lyons by the following afternoon, where we were to spend a day or two with our vineyard-owning friends Laurent and Blandine before the vendange started on the 15th when it would get too busy.