Our last day – A trip to Cirque de Navacelles

We had intended to visit Cirque de Navacelles on Sunday, but after our evening in Montpellier decided to leave it. So as this was our last day we decided to take a trip before having lunch and heading off to the airport.

Cirque de Navacelles is a strange place, no photograph does Navacelles justice, because no photograph prepares you for the enormity of this unique geological formation, so here’s a photograph anyway !

Nimes

We took two cars to Nimes as Stuart and Jenny had to get back for a meeting at Rebecca’s school, this also had the added advantage of us being able to follow Stuart directly to an underground car park. We wandered around, past the amphitheatre where bull fights are held, apparently after a bull fight you can buy the meat of the bull, if fact we saw some for sale in an indoor food market, we find these places fascinating, the array of colours and smells is ever changing from counter to counter.


Bull Ring
Graham and Stuart had said that they had not as yet found a good restaurant in Nimes, well that was about to change, we found a place up a little side street (always the best place for good restaurants). Apparently the chef had retired, but had come back into the trade he loved, a chef with a real passion, can’t be beaten. The meal was excellent, a starter of fried peppers topped with anchovies and olive oil, then an extremely tender lamb shank. I understand that Stuart and Graham have since been back there.

Sunday another meal at Stuart and Jenny’s

Stuart and Jenny had invited us over for a Sunday lunch. Stuart is a first class cook.

He cooked cheese puff balls whilst the main meal was finishing off, Stuart does not use pre-prepared items, he makes the stuffing himself, he even made a tarte tatan which was served with crème brule ice cream. We spent a very pleasant afternoon and evening sitting there, at about 10pm, then made our way back to Grahams.

Problem Technique

We decided it was time to head back, it was about 10 past 11, we wandered over to the tram stop, we realised we had not seen a tram for quite a while, they normally run through the square quite regularly. Then an announcement came across the tannoy system, an awful lot of French, of which Graham and Dennis were able to pick out 'Problem Technique'.

People started heading off, an Irish girl came up to us and asked if we had understood the announcement, when we told her we hadn’t she proceeded to explain to us that we had to follow the masses to the bus station where we would be taken by bus further along the line where the trams were still running.

Food then Michael Jackson

Graham took us to a restaurant he knew and we had another great meal. We then spent a couple of hours sitting outside a café in the Place de la Comedie, the Bongo guys from earlier turned up and played a few tunes.

Along came a Michael Jackson look-alike, he put down a ghetto blaster right next to the bongo guys, pressed play and stared to emulate Michael Jackson’s dancing, he came across to Wendy and performed a few pelvic thrusts in her direction, the bongo guys just sat there in amazement.

He attracted the attention of a couple of small children who kept following him around as he was dancing, their faces were a picture. He then came around with the hat, Dennis and Gary just said no, he then shook his hat in Wendy’s direction, she said no, but he persisted ‘do you like Michael Jackson?’ no, ‘what about the dancing?’, no ‘what about some money for the energy of the performer?’ no, he eventually got the hint that Wendy was not impressed.

Saturday afternoon Sete and Montpellier

On Saturday we decided to take a trip to the coast and Montpellier, Graham suggested Sete as a nice place to visit. We set off and got onto a motorway that led right down to the coast, there were very few cars on the road so we made good progress to Sete, Dennis was keen to use the diesel, as we had paid for it, however, this car was very frugal, the fuel gauge appeared to be stuck on full.

We parked in an underground car park and spent a pleasant couple of hours wandering around Sete. We grabbed some baguettes for lunch then headed off to Montpellier, on the way out of town we saw Colin and Diane, it was too busy to stop so with a quick toot on the horn and a wave we were off.

Graham tried to navigate us to a terminal for the trams that travel directly through the middle of Montpellier, but as we were arriving from the south and Graham normally approached from the north we had a little trouble finding it.

The tram service The Montpellier Tram Service was first class, from what we remember it costs 3 euros to park the car and travel into the city and back, this includes up to five occupants, real good value.

The tram passes directly through the main square ‘Place de la Comedie’

We wandered around soaking up the atmosphere, there was an exhibition on in the park area at the north of the main square, we stopped for a few minutes and watched a group of guys playing bongos. Also there ware a large chessboard which reminded Dennis of the chess playing in the 60’s cult series ‘Prisoner’

St Guilhem-le-Desert

We drove through the countryside to a place called St Guilhem-le-Desert, this was a very pretty place with a walkway up into the village, you have the option to walk to the top of a big hill, we decided to leave that for another time.

We came across a small shop in the square that sold many of the wooden toys that Wendy sells on her website The Gifted Goat

It's only two days.

It’s Friday and Graham and Stuart have a French lesson, we decide to take a stroll around the market. The market in Ganges takes place every Friday morning, even if you have nothing to buy it makes a very interesting morning just perusing what’s on offer.

Road closed for market

The fruit and vegetables are magnificent, they are ‘real’ not all of a uniform shape like we have come to expect in England, they taste ‘real’ and are like the food we were used to as children. They also have live animals, rabbits, chickens and trout, they don’t come fresher than that!

Bread

We saw a stall selling olives, and thought we would buy some to go with lunch, we ended up with half a kilo, that’s a lot of olives, especially as Wendy does not eat them and we had bought a variety that were in a chilli oil.

A stall devoted to Garlic

After their lesson Graham and Stuart said they were expecting a visit from some friends who were over from England, Colin and Diane. It was arranged that we would all go to Stuart and Jenny’s for lunch, we took our olives hoping they would be eaten.

Stuart and Jenny have a lovely bungalow, we sat on their veranda eating, chatting and generally chilling out, it was hard to believe we had only been here two days, it felt like we had been here a week, we really fitted into the lifestyle.

Accident Scene and Windy Mountain

Graham showed us the scene of his accident, and explained that he had not noticed a stop sign and continued straight across some crossroads, the car that hit him was occupied by a man and his young daughter, fortunately nobody was hurt. The police turned up to interview Graham and the other driver, luckily a friend of Grahams came along and was able to assist in the translation. After the interviews the driver of the other car shook hands with Graham and bid him farewell. Graham also told us that when the pick-up truck arrived to tow his car away the driver caught the police car and ripped the bumper off, the policeman just shrugged his shoulders, they do seem very laid back in the south !

We then set off for Mont Aigoual in the Cévennes mountains, it was a pleasant drive up, with the air conditioning just ticking over to keep us cool. We arrived at the car park at the top, opened the car door and wow!. It was freezing and blowing a gale, it’s a strange experience to get out of an air-conditioned car into such cold weather.

Inappropriately Dressed

Anyway we braved it to the top, Wendy had a problem keeping her skirt under control, had she realised it would be so windy she would have worn trousers. Dennis took a few photographs, but it was so cold he had a job holding the camera still. We ventured to the café and found that we were the only idiots that were dressing in shorts/skirt and tee-shirts, everyone else was wearing appropriate clothing.

Meeting, Greeting, Exploring

We arrived at Ganges and parked in the main car park, rang Graham who said he would be with us in a couple of minutes. Graham met us and introduced us to his long time friends from England who moved out to France about a year earlier Stuart, Jenny and their 9 year old daughter Rebecca. We sat outside a café at the side of the square and soaked up the atmosphere.

The Square

After lunch, jumped in the hire car and Graham directed us down to Laroque, just south of Ganges where the river, L’Hérault runs. It was very pleasant and Graham informed us that in the summer the place is alive with canoeists and people swimming and just generally messing about on the river.

We continued a little further south to some caves (Grottes) here we sat in a café on a high terrace eating ice cream and soaking up the view. Dennis had a call on his mobile, his clients don’t stop calling just because he’s on holiday!

In the evening we went out to a restaurant that was only a couple of minutes walk from Grahams, although a simple restaurant, the food was good and we were reminded of our trip in June.

Grahams Street

A visit to Graham – Boarding cards 1 & 2

Graham had moved out to France a little later than planned, but he was now settled and it was time for us to go and visit him. We booked two flights with Ryanair for 99p each and were all set. We flew from Stansted and decided not to park the car as we normally do, but to get our youngest son to run us to the airport. This worked fine, we were there very early and managed to obtain boarding cards 1 & 2. We had heard that Ryanair do not allocate seats but do call passengers onto the aircraft in boarding card order. We managed to be one of the first on the plane and sit in extra legroom seats near the emergency exit, this was great as Dennis normally hates the minimal legroom available on planes.

We had a pleasant flight to Nimes and while Wendy waited for the cases Dennis started queuing for the hire car, Graham would have picked us up from the airport, but unfortunately had crashed his car just a couple of weeks before our trip (he was listening to French language tapes and had a lapse of concentration!).

Anyway, we went out to the car, a Peugeot 307. The gentleman on the hire desk had said that they were aware of some slight damage to the drivers door mirror, slight damage? it was completely crazed and Dennis was not happy to be driving a car in a foreign country on the ‘wrong’ side of the road with an inoperative door mirror. So back into the arrivals lounge, a little bit of pushing back in at the front of the now very long queue. We explained the situation and was given the keys to a replacement car, a Renault Megane Scenic, this seemed a much nicer car altogether, so we were quite pleased. We were told that they could supply the car full of fuel (diesel in this case) as there were not many filling stations about, we agreed to this, paid for a full tank at what turned out to be top price! and set off.

We missed a turning when leaving Nimes and headed off in the wrong direction for a while, although we realised quite quickly it was quite a while before we were able to turn around. But we still got to Ganges to meet Graham at around 1pm, which was when we told him to expect us.