HEADING FOR SPAIN

Heading to Camping d'Isle just on the edge of the medieval village of Beauleigh-sur-Dordogne we passed through many very small typical French villages (St Pierre Loufelle, Relacoy, Labastide Murat, Goudou, Le Bastit, Lavergne, Gary and Alltilac), skirting round the larger towns of Sedez, Cahors and Bretenaux and found ourselves in a rather dreary campsite overrun by very large trees, very soggy after continuous heavy rainfall and half closed!!!!! All the indicators were pointing to our need to head South and into Spain for better weather. (As I write this blog we are in Spain and are experiencing the most dramatic thunderstorm and torrential rain only surpassed by our Langkawi experience!!!)
The Medieval village was interesting, beautiful, very round and is entered or exited through La Porte Sainte-Catherine. Old villages were built in this fashion in medieval times for protection purposes and in the centre is always a magnificent church in the village square. In this case the church was named Sainte- Catherine. Narrow lanes spread from the centre square like spokes in a wheel and down each of these spokes can be found wonderful, ancient houses predominantly made from wood and straw (and obviously stuff that sticks the straw together, maybe mud or clay?) which scream cute and French. Honestly the higgledy piggaldy, colourful architecture is to die for. Adding to this the streets are cobbled, with the cobbles on their sides making walking quite uncomfortable but still none the less cute and it is all sooooo old!!!!! Just imagine who walked these cobblestoned streets before us!!!!! The original village water-well is now filled with an abundance of purple, pink and white flowers. This is what Gary and I thrive on and why we avoid the big newer cities. We could have stayed here longer and the sun had finally shown her face but the village was starting to be inundated with tourists and walking groups and we needed to move on again to Lempes-sur-Allagnon which would get us one step closer to Spain.
Setting off after our early morning tour of Beauleigh we, once again, opted for the scenic roads rather than the motorways. As I said earlier this takes us through true French villages rather than tourist towns. (We have decided we are "travellers" not "tourists"!) So Aitillac, La Chapelle St. Gerard, Sexcles, Goulle (where we had our last, fabulous Menu de Formulae lunch), St Paul des Landes, Espinat, Yolet, Polminhac and Vic-sur-Cere are all very, very pretty and some worthy of a hasty stop. We are, once again, in a very beautiful part of the French countryside. We are driving through valleys, rolling hills, green trees and bush. There are little red-tiled villages and generous chateaux dotted here-and-there on the hillsides. We are travelling along the "Circuit du Monts du Cantal" (the Cantal Mountain scenic route) and it is all very green and lush.
At the top of the mountain range at St. Jacques des Blats, we drive through a very long tunnel (if you remember tunnels are not my thing) into Le Lioran and then begin our downward descent round hair-pin bends with either stone walls or steep drops to the side. It is a good road though and even though we have been at a reasonable high altitude it has been easy with Molly B.
Passing through Murat, Ussel and Rofflac we arrive at St Flour - another large walled city - but decide to take the motorway past and head directly through to Lempdes via the Vallie de Allagnon. Descending into Massiac - a very long and protracted descent it was too with only the thin white line separating this way and that way - heaven forbid we finally made it to our campsite "Le Pont de Allagnon". Remember this place and don't ever go there. Lempdes itself is absolutely nothing and the campsite? ....... we actually could not, and still cannot, find words to describe it. Downright filthy comes to mind but that is probably too bland. What a waste of time and diesel is sufficient but I did let them know before we left.
So the next day we backtrack up the long descent back to St Flour, take another little peak of the houses clinging onto the cliff edges and head for Millau. 163kms on the motorway, back over the Cantals, through the Gorge du Tarn, back into the Vallie du Lot (but further down  this time - East I think) and to our next campsite Les 2 Rivieres in Millau.
Millau is quite a large town with an Old Town within and this, of course, is where we head for. It is about an 8 minute walk from the campsite over the bridge and the town is happy, The streets treelined and bustling. An absolute pleasure to be in. The Old town is small with narrow streets and tall, old, rickety buildings which sometimes seem to bulge and push against each other but.........they are very old and are still standing!!!!!! We had a lovely lunch in an old Cave here, had a good look around the fresh food and fish market in the town square and on our first night were entertained by a marching band as they passed close to the campsite marking the opening of a new promenade. All in all I would give Millau a 10/10 - it is old but upmarket and definitely looking after it's infrastucture. The Camp was OK too.
Two nights was enough here though so we plugged Roses, Spain into the GPS and the next morning we were off. We were soooooooooo looking forward to Roses and Camping Salata as it had been recommended to us by other people we had met along this journey.
Did we like it when we got there? You will just have to wait for my next blog.
Enjoy xxxx