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| By the lake |
This week has been pretty relaxed, splitting our time between two locations, Contis Les Bain and Leon, as we head down the Atlantic South West coast of France. The weather has taken a decidedly chilly and sometimes rainy turn, so we have been plotting our route to sunnier climes. Today we are continuing southwards and within the next day or so should make it over the border to Spain, after which we’ll hang a right into Portugal.
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| Moules & frites |
With our stay in France coming to an end I was keen to tick a couple of things off my to-do list this week... 1) I bought some delights from a proper patisserie - I had held off until now, not even venturing into one for a look! Having a sweet tooth, I did not want it to become a regular habit so have avoided them thus far, 2) we had moules & frites for dinner, which was absolutely delicious; no one does French fries like the French and the mussels in a white wine and crème sauce were amazing – we had an enormous bucket of moules (€10) between the two of us and a bottle of white wine (€13), which we thought was very reasonably priced for France; the setting lacked a little charm, the venue was a plastic gazebo, covering what, in better weather, is usually an outdoors mussels and oyster street bar, plus there was no cutlery to speak of, but I loved it all the same, if not more, for its simplicity.
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| I drove the bus!! |
Another first for me this week was, wait for it…. I drove the bus! Granted, it was an extremely long, straight and deserted road and Nick stood over me with a keen eye, ready to wrestle the steering wheel off me if necessary; I didn’t drive far, but it felt like a huge achievement! Maybe at some point in the future I’ll be able to share some of the driving duties.
So, a quick rundown of our latest stop off points…
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| Contis Les Bain Lighthouse |
We arrived at Contis Les Bain on Monday, and after scoping out a few camper van rest areas or ‘aires’ as they are known to the informed traveller, we settled on a spot near the town centre, just outside the paying aire, yet close enough to use the public toilet on site (jammy move). There are many ‘no camper‘ signs dotted around, but at this time of year you can park pretty much anywhere with no bother, other than a few narky stares from the locals.
Contis Les Bain is similar to several of the other Atlantic coast towns we have passed through; it has an enormous sweeping beach of pure yellow sand stretching into the distance both to the left and to the right, banked by dunes; the town is nestled below it, with a pine forest stretching out behind that. There is a strong surfing vibe with surfers and kite surfers hard at it, in some spectacularly big waves. With the Atlantic coastline and proliferation of lakes in the Aquitaine region they are massive on water sports and outdoor activities here, including parcours, which I previously thought was the name given to free running and jumping, but is also the name for the outdoor centres in the pine forests made up of platforms, cargo nets and climbing obstacles, of which there are many.
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| Leon launderette |
I imagine in the height of summer, it is very different here; now it is quiet and empty with only a handful of shops, bars and restaurants open – during the summer I expect it’s a hustling, bustling hive of activity. There are pros and cons to travelling out of season, it’s nice to pass through on quiet roads and choose where to park, and walk Nina on the beach without the worry of her stealing a child’s beach ball or destroying someone’s picnic; but I’d also like to experience these places in all their glory with summertime in full swing, with all they have to offer. Contis Les Bain has an impressive lighthouse, which is not open to the public now, but is during July and August. We could however walk right up to it; it has the best paint job I’ve seen on a lighthouse to date. After two nights we moved to the town centre and parked in another ‘no camper parking’ car park, without any repercussions. We were surprised though that night (Wednesday) to get a knock on the door from a small ghoul! Remembering it was Halloween we hastily offered up all we could manage, which was half a packet of peanuts and a one euro coin, after that we turned the lights very low and thankfully weren’t visited again!
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| A scene of tranquillity |
On Thursday we headed further down the coast and stopped at Lac du Leon. This has been one of my favourite places so far - the lakeside setting is idyllic, surrounded by deciduous trees not pines (for a change) and so quiet at night. The park up is free, with never more than five or six campers spread over a large area on grass (no sand, bliss!), public toilets with loo paper, showers and taps.
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| Gorgeous donkeys |
The town is a short walk on foot, past two adorable donkeys who we stopped by to see daily, and fed carrots to. I really enjoyed our few days here, the weather brightened up and the walks were gorgeous. Once again I was on launderette watch and though this one was not the greatest (good machines, poor dryers, great magazines) we could rig up a line to dry everything off back at camp.
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| Capbreton beach, Spain in the distance |
This morning after seeing our breath in the bus and some frost on the ground we decided it really was time to get a wriggle on and chase the sun. So, today we find ourselves at Capbreton, where it’s encouraging to stand on the beach and see the mountains of Spain in the distance. Capbreton has a sensational beach and is just down from Hossegar, which hosted the Surfing World Championships last month; the waves are staggering here.
Tonight we’ll be cooking our first roast dinner on the road – great though the food is here - some things we miss, namely, a good curry, fish & chips and of course a roast dinner.
Random observation of the week: the squirrels in France are red, not grey.
A bientot
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