ManWomanDogVan: June 2020

Storm over, the sun was out in the morning, and we set off toward Andorra and then France.

We have stopped briefly in Andorra and had the largest bacon sarnie I have ever seen. No luck in the Harley Davidson store, thought, where we were looking for a particular t-shirt for our friend and a bandana for Harley. On the other hand we filled up with the cheapest petrol for a long time!

Our first stop in France was at Lac de la Thesauque, a very nice, and at the moment peaceful leisure lake. After a good night sleep we had coffee at the bar before walking the 5.5 km around the lake. Then Hamish went swimming and even managed to get Harley into the water. Admittedly not for long, but his feet were off the ground – this is a first! I don’t think there will be a second time for a while thought.

As we got back to the van another motorhome turned up, the people in it expressed their concerns about social distancing, then proceeded to park next to us in a great big empty carpark. LOL. No problem for us, we were off to Toulouse.

We parked on the edge of town in Toulouse, left Harley in the van (this is very unusual) and made our way into the centre for a few hours in the evening. Most attractions were closed by then. But not to worry, we made our way to the best cassoulet restaurant in town and had a lovely meal. The havens opened by the time we have finished, but we managed to make our way back to the van without getting completely soaked. On the other hand, since we have left the roof window open for Harley, the van was a little wet inside. Harley was not bothered, he had a good sleep.

In the morning we have decided not go back into Toulouse, mostly because it is difficult to find a safe parking spot with the van and large dogs may not be too welcome on public transport (we do not have a muzzle, never needed one). We could have made the one hour walk I guess, but we did not fancy that.

Instead we went to Albi. Lovely town, and the cathedral is quite something! I have also popped into the “Fashion Museum”, which was interesting, but really small. It is a private collection and I think the owner used a few rooms of his own house to exhibit the pieces.

Back at the parking the neighbouring motorhomes were playing a Tom-tom drum and had a party until late – not a good night sleep for us.

The following morning we moved onto Rodez, which was not particularly impressive, but we spent a pleasant night by the river before continuing to Millau. We did not stop in town, only went to take a look at the Millau viaduct. We have seen it a few years ago, but never actually drove across it before. It is a triumph of engineering! It holds the world record for the tallest bridge at 343 m (higher than the Eiffel tower) and spans nearly 2.5 km across the Tarn valley. It is held up by 9 columns only. Really impressive!

We then continued our way to cross the Gorges du Tarn making a slow progress. The road crossing the mountain to the start of the Gorges was signposted “difficult and dangerous”, and it was. Twisty, sometimes steep, and at times our van was wider the lane we were driving in… Although I guess the danger was mitigated by us doing 20km/h most of the way, lol..

June 2020 - Part 3 Map