Up & Down, Up & Down and Up & Down Once More

The alarm went off at 8 am although I’d already been awake a couple of hours - having had an awful nights sleep . . . If you can call it that. Teresa woke and said the same! No reason really - just unfortunate.
After a mug of tea we went for a wander around Eymoutiers, firstly walking down to find the river Vienne that runs through the town and then read of how Salmon had once navigated this part of the river, until the construction of the Bussy Damn in 1911 which stopped this activity.
We took a couple of narrow and steep back streets back to the main high street and then noticed a lovely church with a boulangerie directly opposite.
Two coffees and two amazing croissants later we wandered into the Collégiale Saint-Étienne d'Eymoutiers which dates back to the 1012. Like many churches we have seen here it was deceptively large with many stained glass windows and an area of decorated ceiling tiles.
It wasn’t long before we were walking the same streets as last night, past the restaurant and back to Rox.
Our initial plan today was to drive to Saint-Flour and then onto Ispagnac for the night.
We set off about 10am and headed south east towards Meymac stopping briefly to take photos at the viewing point of Lac De Viam near La Chapelle on the D160.
We continued on until we came to an impressive damn at Espace EDF du Barrage de Bort-Les-Orgues. I made the mistake of walking to the damn edge a little to calmly and quickly took a breath. Knowing what Teresa is like with heights I told her to approach decidedly slower. The lower water of the damn is still classed as the Dordogne, the Dordogne being the river that feeds the basin at the top.
We drove down to the town of Bort-Les-Orgues and parked up near to the river, then took half an hour to have a couple of cold cokes and people watch in the ever increasing heat of the sun.
Back in Rox we continued south east on the D3 and then the D926. We gave up counting how many times we ascended and descended and passed through gorges, the majority of the time surrounded by huge areas of pine trees. The drive was stunning and the views beautiful. We had decided on this route to avoid the shorter motorway route and were so so pleased we had.
Just before Saint-Flour we stopped in a McDonalds to make use of their facilities - this being possibly the first time we had set foot in one in well over a year. We don’t see them other than in larger towns and we certainly don’t miss them.
We grabbed a quick coffee before descending (again) down into Saint -Flour which in arrival was a lot larger than we had expected and particularly busy . . . Not for us we thought. We stopped briefly as we had been hanging on to get here and eat our lunch (last night’s pizza). Task completed we passed through Saint-Flour and found ourselves yet still descending and on towards our final destination for today of Ispagnac.
To be fair we should have on another day given Saint-Flour more of a chance, as on leaving we saw that the town had an old walled city part perched on the top of a cliff edge, which could only be seen once we had departed.
Ispagnac again was south east and we took the slightly less direct route which again meant high and lows and a number of particularly tight hair pin bends which Teresa chose to close her eyes on. We finally descended down towards Ispagnac, which I was relieved about as Rox was beginning to have smelly brakes due to her work during the day and the heat. On arrival however we found we arrived on circus and carnival day (a Thursday evening) and so the relatively large village had swelled and was rammed with cars and stalls being set up. We decided to drive straight through and take our luck with whatever we found in the next half hour. Somewhere shaded and quiet was our wish.
We continued south east on the N106 and decided to check out Florac Trois Rivières. As we turned off the main road in towards the town Teresa saw a small camp site that looked quite shaded. We spun Rox around in a side turning and drove into a very leafy cool campsite. We don’t normally do camp sites but this seemed to fit the bill, although we expected it to be fully booked. Tre spoke with the owner a very charming elderly man with no shirt, just shorts and flip flops and a rather round tummy (he was the same shape as you Simon).
After pointing us to a very shaded pitch, we elected to pass on the electric hook up as we didn’t need it for one night and paid the 13,10€ charge (about £11).
We parked up and then shortly after walked down to the small river running past the site. On one part of the river camp site guests were swimming and had obviously spent the day sunning it on the bank The owner had said they had been subject to 50 degrees spells at the weekend and so I’m sure the river would have been packed then.
Back at a very lively and shaded Rox we chilled, Tre had a Power Nap and I people watched and tested my improved French listening and comprehension skills. We had our food about 8pm (which we had grabbed on route to Ispagnac) and a couple of cold drinks. The evening air was fab as it started to lower.
The site was quiet by 10pm and both knackered we called it a day. Tomorrow we arrive in Nîmes - which should take just under two hours.

Due to the amount of it we drove through today and because it came onto Spotify at one of those moments . . . and as it’s the point of our trip . . .

Song of the day
A Forest - The CureRead more