Third day in Bordeaux and look at what we are drinking:
Well it tastes ok, but, really.
We got this from Carcassonne two weeks ago. It is bizarre how difficult it is to buy wine in Bordeaux. Camping-Beausoleil is a lovely campsite but there is no shop and apart from a tabac up the road, no where to buy anything. We need to try harder tomorrow.
Anybody who has known us for more than five minutes may be surprised to learn that this is the first time we have visited here. The journey was a bit mad:
No wine shops here.
Leaving here tomorrow. We hoped to go to Spain but we are well into the last part of the holiday so we will skip Spain and head north to wine. Went to Bayonne today. Nice place, very laid back with nice shops and a lot more French than other places around here. Cloisters closed just as we arrived, Cathedral shut, Castle closed just as we arrived. We’ll come back. Oh pants, the silly hats shop was evidently still open and we missed it.
Get your mitts off my bum you creep.
Friday evening and a very pleasant relaxed campsite has been turned into an urban shanty town that would not be out of place in Bogota (no disrespect to Columbians who are trying to make their capital better). How can the previous picture turn into this in the space of two hours on a Friday night?
They fought the dogs and killed the cats
And on Saturday we find goalposts and a football in our pitch (that we had paid for all of):
They think it’s all over – oh, we wish it was.
Dreadful parenting, squawking brats, and everybody thinks they are Messi. They are not: they are just annoying, spoiling everything, and breaking campsite rules.
30 Degrees plus all day, then crazy winds, then rain and thunder, then a sunset:
We can live with a few hours of rubbish weather for this.
Having left Lourdes we found ourselves in Spain. No idea what the road signs meant, so went back to France to work it out. Huge queues at the tolls for people trying to get into France, but no trouble at all getting to Spain from France. This is a horribly complicated area to navigate but mercifully found a Carrefour for food and wine, then completely by accident found a good campsite in St-Jean-de-luz.
Nice beach:
St-Jean-de-Luz
Splash
Poured with rain overnight so we need to get out of here. Off to the coast then:
Reflecting on Lourdes, it is a nice place but the religious aspect to it overpowers everything else. Every other shop is selling stuff to do with the apparitions and cures, there are coaches clogging up the town most of the day trying to drop people off at loads of hotels, and, as we have found, the weather can be really rubbish. Of course people go to Lourdes for their own reasons, but for the casual tourist with no religious convictions, maybe not worth a special visit.
More rain in Lourdes, hills covered in cloud.
Yes, Lourdes. Very pleasant drive on the D6113 from Carcassonne to Toulouse, followed by a rather less pleasant drive on the A64 to Lourdes, where it got colder, windier, wetter and nastier. Now at Camping-Sarsan, which is a lovely, friendly campsite. Free, fast inernet. Shame about the torrential rain accompanied by thunder and lightning.
Visiting the town we find it is full of shops like this:
Typical shopfront.
Containers for the local water.
Change of plan – rather than get the bus to Carcassonne from Trebes, just go to Carcassonne. Slightly expensive and slightly commercial campsite but nice with big private pitches in the old section. This place has got bigger since we were last here with a new area of the campsite and a motorhome aire next door. Stupid wristbands required, free internet (but very slow hence no posts for four days), nice chips and mediocre pizza. Good campsite on the whole and we’ll be back if visiting the area again.
La Cite
La Cite
Trebes is nice enough. Bus stop to get to Carcassonne (quicker than walking from the site in Carcassonne) over the road, pleasant walks along the Canal du Midi where there are a few bars and things. Small market on Sunday morning.
Canal du Midi