BRITTANY

I'm spending all these last weeks in France wandering here and there around Brittany.  I've already been to St. Malo, Dinard, Dinan etc and am now in the lovely town of Joselin which resounds with many tales of Merlin, Vivian, Knights etc.  Today I'm planning to go to that magic forrest and explore it and it's folklore.  The villages are just charming.  All those wonderful, half timbered houses leaning crookedly along winding streets in different colours.  They look just as if one has stepped in to a film set or an opera and a Mario Lanza will stick his head out of a top window to serenade a lovely girl.
Creperies and Galettes are for sale everywhere along with the boulees full of cider.

Dordogne, La Rochelle, St. Emilion and Ile de Re

I've been twisting my way along hopping over to the Dardogne area and lovely Sarlat and Domme although I would rather go there when it isn't full season.  St. Emilion was just lovely.  All the wine Chateau's and cobblestone ways.
The port city of La Rochelle is just beautiful.  A very lively place with hundreds of restaurants and all of them buzzing.  France has so many recreation areas, green spaces, large parks, playground, bike paths and lovely ports all along this Atlantic coast.  The island of Ile de Re is just across a bridge from La Rochelle.  An expensive bridge as the toll is 16 euros while the Ile d'Oleron is free to enter but Ile de Re is so special.  All white washed houses with hollyhocks growing up in front of them and shutters of green or grey usually.  The whole island has all those hundreds of criss crossed bike paths so one just parks the car and goes everywhere on bikes to all the main littles towns on the island.  I'm based in the capital St Martin at the moment and there's a jazz festival on so there's free concerts nightly.  Skies are blue, there's oyster shacks along the bike paths, the sun is shining so I'm off to hop on the bike again.

Long lovely beaches

St Martin's Port

Lunch

BUZET SUR BAISE

I've found that the most peaceful, lovely places to camp and take a pause are close to a harbour on the river ways here.  So many people travel by boat here and many live on their boats or at least spend summers on them.  It is all very well arranged with a young man opening and closing the locks and there's lot's of facilities in port.  Many of them have a camping area for free or low cost so I came here for one night and have stayed for five.
Today I'll move a bit to the east to Sarlat and Bergerac before I go to Bordeaux and La Rochelle.

 

BASQUE COUNTRY

As I get closer to Spain I began to see all the people going off to festivals each weekend and all of them dressed up in white with red or green kerchiefs, belts, shoes etc and in the camp sites the didn't get back until around 5 am very unusual for France and I realised I was approaching the Basque areas.  They look just like all those pictures of the Running of the Bulls in Pamplona and incidentally there's lots of bull fights and bulls celebrated around here.
The little village of Bastide St Clarence is over 700 years old and just lovely.  Their houses are in the national colours of white/red or white/green.  It's rare to see other colours like blue on a house.  The roofs are all red tiles.  I am in St Jean de Luz and was yesterday in Biarritz.  What felicitous cities with the long, clean beaches and the ocean right in town.  No wonder that it is so much livelier than other French regions I have visited.  People dance and look happy and have those great tans that I couldn't get if I was in the sun for a year.

Bastide St Clarence

St Jean de Luz

Biarritz

La Rhune mountain

PAU

The city of Pau is home to many students so it is lively and has many very historic buildings, wide streets and plazas plus wonderful views of the Pyrenees when the sky is clear.  This whole region seems much friendlier and open than those areas in more touristy places.  I'm sticking to villages as much as possible.  The camping site is free and right beside the city which is small so it was easy to stroll around.  Unfortunately the peaks did not show themselves while I was there.

The peaks are behind those lower clouds

MIRAFOIX MEDIEVAL FESTIVAL

I happened upon this great village by chance and it was their annual medieval festival.  It is a lovely place full of half timbered buildings and the old hotel has all these wonderful carved heads.  There was so much going on - sword fights, wrenches running after men, great make up on "the lepers", all sorts of games for the children, villagers lolling around on hay, magicians and musicians and wonderful costumes.

CARCASSONE

The first view of Carcassone is awe at the wonderful, enormous La Cite.  The huge fortress with a city inside it's walls.  Of course during July it is crowded with visitors, restaurants are full and touristy shops are full of the usual kitsch.  Still one can walk all around the huge edifice and around the old moat area virtually alone.

LE SOMAIL AND MINERVE

Lovely little villages on the Canal du Midi.  Sleepy little brick houses and boats meandering along the canal.  Charming bridges and archways.  Great paths for cycling.  Tempting to just stay and not bother going any further.  Excellent Auberges on the river.
Minerve is a medieval village.  There are no cars in the little town which is situated over limestone gorges.  It was a centre of Cathars and a site where many of them were thrown on the stake or burned alive.  It seems that religions were always warring and fanatics of any kind are dangerous and to be feared.

Minerve

Le Somail

Port St Louis Again

After I left St Maries I was driving along a narrow road to a beach where I planned to stay for a few days when suddenly a speeding car, on a narrow road, plowed right into my left side of the van and shattered the left hand mirror and the motor of it.  He didn't stop at all and now my car was very dangerous to drive with no visibility on the left in roundabouts or when a car was overtaking.  Since there's no shops or communication down near the beach I took a raft ferry over to Port St.Louis again and had to stay there for 10 days as VW in Arles and Marseille claimed that they couldn't provide a new mirror in less than 3 weeks or a month and then they would be closed for all of August so "it might be Sept" etc.  They are registered VW dealers but hopeless.  All they come up with is "c'est La France" I had to order from Germany and send it express.  It came to Marseille overnight but then they didn't deliver for 5 days to a town that is under one hour away.  Bummer and the express was 100 euros wasted. 

SAINTES MARIES DE LA MER

Salt flats

This is a really lovely little town in the Camargue, France.  It is full of while houses with blue shutters similar to those in Greece.  It is very lively and is right on a long long beach.  There's lots of music in all the restaurants at night but the main emphasis here is the strong tradition of horse riding and shows of performance on horses usually white palominos.   Black bulls are also raised around here and there are many bull fights.  The whole area feels Spanish and the people have that look and often wear the tight, bolero type jackets with their spurs and loose riding pants.
The whole Camargue is a national region for wild life housing large amounts of breeding pink Flamingoes and lots of bird life besides the bulls and horses.  It is also a rice growing region and there's lots of salt flats.

The bulls are a bit distant sorry

PORT ST LOUIS DU RHONE

This is a doorway to the Camargue.  A very quiet, friendly port town where a lot of people berth their yachts during Winter and return each Summer.  It's a place with minimal traffic so super for riding around on my little bike Molly.  I really enjoy that folding Brompton Bike.  It's so easy to fold and fit in the car and then I can just ride around on it without lowering the roof on the camper or putting the table and chairs inside etc.
I'm staying right beside the water just free camping and enjoying it a lot so I haven't bothered leaving having been here 4 days now.  There's a super long beach here called Plage Napoleon and the pink Flamingoes are there but I didn't go down in the evening to see them as am leaving tomorrow for the Camargue itself where there should be many of them.
The local pub owner and his family are most friendly and he's in love with Cork.  He brought his boat in there once and fell in love with it although he doesn't speak English.  His son plays music and writes his own lyrics.  On UTube he goes by the name of "Billy Hoyle"

I'm camped right here
so just having breakfast

ARLES

I suppose that somehow I always thought that Arles would be full of gardens like that Van Gogh painting but actually I didn't see any gardens just a few parks.  The house he lived in was painted yellow but was destroyed in the war.
The Romans built much of the town and today their huge Arena and antique Theatre are in use for performances and bullfights.  The mighty Rhone flows through and there are all the long long boats on the quay waiting to carry the visitors on their trips.  They have sun lounge chairs all along the roof area so it must feel very slow and relaxing although they look as if they hold quite a few people.

view of the Arena

The antique theatre

Rhone at sunset

LES BAUX

Les Baux is just north of Arles in Provence and is built on a rocky plateau.  It is the place where Van Gogh admitted himself to the asylum there.  It is just a beautiful little town with a painting around every corner.  I just love being able so easily to drop in and out of these little places that I've often heard about and there's always a place not to far away to park the camper.  What freedom.  People who travel in campers love sharing information about this and the other nice place to camp.  Many of them do this as a life style while others may be just on holidays.  There are more photos on my FB album.  Hard to post only three

First view of Les Baux