We're just back from a few days break away from Grillou, a kind of punctuation mark between the life we've led this summer and the one to come over the winter. Fitting, because it coincided with Samhain, traditionally a time for looking back, for letting go of the old to make way for the new. We went to Périgord Noir, between Bergerac and Sarlat, an area that neither of us had visited before. Beautiful though it is, after the first day we almost turned tail and came home.
On the agenda was a bit of exploring, and a lot of walking, and so we stayed in a small, and very pleasant, town between the valleys of the Dordogne and the Vezère rivers where we thought we'd get the best of both worlds. What I wasn't prepared for was the sheer heights to which tourism has been raised there. Now I'm not a good tourist at the best of times: I hate 'attractions' and guided tours and all the junk that comes along with them, and I hate being regimented; I'd much sooner stumble upon quirky, low-key places almost by accident than have everything presented to me on placards and in guide books. And I particularly hate being seen as exploitation fodder. So when, on the first day of our holiday, we thought we would briefly explore a couple of the well known villages on the Dordogne before setting out on a walk from the third, I neither expected nor appreciated having to stuff a parking meter with a rather large amount of change in order to park anywhere within four kilometres of - well, anywhere, really. Hectares of each village were given over to paying (yes, even between 12pm and 2pm, unheard of and truly shocking) parking, with all other land barred off; in spite it of being the Toussaint school holidays the car parks were mostly empty, meaning of course no trade for local businesses ... now how crazy is that as a policy ??? We did stop at one and had a desultory look around, but after half an hour of feeling as though we were in an over-restored and twee theme park we decided, simultaneously, to beat a hasty retreat.
The same evening we ate out in a simple restaurant in our local town known and recommended for its wood fired pizzas. We ordered a pichet of red wine. "You'd prefer a half bottle of this" said our host. Er, no, actually we wouldn't. He snorted, and asked us whether we'd like water. Of course we would. "Still or sparkling?" asked our host. No, just a carafe of tap water, I said. It's many years since I've been through this charade; in Ariège, as in most of southern France, water is brought to your table with a basket of bread almost as you sit down. He snorted again. We ordered pizzas. "Would you like a side order of chips?" asked our relentless host. (Chips?? With pizza???) By now we were feeling distinctly uncomfortable, as if as visitors to the area we were fair game to be milked for cash. Our host sulked off to the kitchen, returning a couple of minutes later to ask ... if we were Belgian.
For the rest of our stay we did our best to get more off the beaten track. The landscape is lovely - deep valleys, limestone cliffs and wooded hills - as is the vernacular architecture. But it's just all so ... nice. The verges look as though they've been clipped with nail scissors; nearly all the houses are immaculate; even the trees are neat. There are no soixante-huitards or 'eepees', not a dreadlock or a beur to be seen (and gens de voyage - travellers - are actually prohibited from stopping anywhere in the two valleys). The level of control - for residents as well as visitors - is awesome. After a few days I was longing to get back to the laid back, well worn, non money-grasping, somewhat anarchic, culturally mixed vibe of Ariège.
And so here we are, home. And at home.
Showing posts with label tourism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tourism. Show all posts
Tuesday, 2 November 2010
Sunday, 29 August 2010
The blogger's return
This is the time of year when fellow bloggers write lamenting their lack of summer postings, claiming (variously) holidays, traumas, an endless round of summer socialising, or just The Unforeseen Passing of Time. I'd better do the same, given my absence from your screens for longer than I'm happy about: I can't, though, claim any of those reasons - just the usual trying to fit three jobs into days designed for only one. It's all a bit déja vu-ish, really - summer in our restaurant days was always a time of eighteen hour days, too. Ah so. This too shall pass.
This week, however, we're taking a holiday. In Ariège. We decided to do something that ironically we've never done: to be tourists in our own département. And to do all the things that we enjoy doing when we're on holiday - like walking, and sitting on café terraces with cold beers and a book, and watching birds, and exploring out of the way villages, and having picnics, and trying out lots of local restaurants, and just sitting in the sun looking at a great view - here, within an hour or two of home. Partly so that we can put together some Slow Walks and Slow Routes for next year's guests, partly so that we can experience what it feels like to be a visitor here so that we get a better sense of how to help other people have a great holiday ... but mainly, admittedly, just to have a good time ourselves, away from our various day-and-half-the-night filling jobs.
And so to kick off, after coffee and croissants at Seix, we spent most of today walking up above Ustou around Le Tuc de Peyre Mensongère. Getting to the start of the walk was 'interesting', and perhaps not for the faint hearted, as it entailed a 10 kilometre drive up a lumpy, bumpy forest piste (and no, we don't have a 4x4 ...). And I do have to admit that we wouldn't perhaps have spent quite so much time walking if we hadn't first completely mistaken the route and schlepped up - that's up as in height, not in distance - several hundred metres of a look-alike path that actually ended up by going ... nowhere (not entirely our own fault though, that the barrier on the piste had been moved 2 kilometres downhill and that the walk directions still worked, albeit defectively, in spite of that ...). But it was a fantastic walk, even if we did cover twice the distance we should have done, and the views were amongst the best you could hope for, even if it was slightly cloudy: south and west, to the high peaks on the Spanish border just a few kilometres away; east, to Mont Valier and the reserve; north, to the Petites Pyrénées, Saint Girons and even our home ground, the Séronais.
On the plateau just below Le Tuc we encountered three horses (Comtois, I think?) that were obviously up on the estive for the summer, one of whom took a real shine to John, nuzzling his arm, trying to get into his rucksack, and following him around for a long time. But the very best bit was the hour we spent sitting watching a flock of griffon vultures wheeling over head, and coming to sit on rocky outcrops just a little way above us. There must have been thirty or forty birds. It was a rare sight, and truly extraordinary.
And so how else to finish the day but with an apéro and dinner back down in Seix, on the terrace at the Auberge du Haut Salat, a lovely, friendly, traditional place overlooking one of the main squares that cooks simple food, excellently, because it uses good ingredients: a wonderful buffet for entrée, followed by lamb cutlets with a tian of courgettes (there's no escaping them, anywhere! But it was good.) and slow cooked potatoes, and then a to-die-for (possibly literally, but what a way to go ...) chocolate tart.
And now to bed, and to pore over the maps to plan tomorrow.
This week, however, we're taking a holiday. In Ariège. We decided to do something that ironically we've never done: to be tourists in our own département. And to do all the things that we enjoy doing when we're on holiday - like walking, and sitting on café terraces with cold beers and a book, and watching birds, and exploring out of the way villages, and having picnics, and trying out lots of local restaurants, and just sitting in the sun looking at a great view - here, within an hour or two of home. Partly so that we can put together some Slow Walks and Slow Routes for next year's guests, partly so that we can experience what it feels like to be a visitor here so that we get a better sense of how to help other people have a great holiday ... but mainly, admittedly, just to have a good time ourselves, away from our various day-and-half-the-night filling jobs.
And so to kick off, after coffee and croissants at Seix, we spent most of today walking up above Ustou around Le Tuc de Peyre Mensongère. Getting to the start of the walk was 'interesting', and perhaps not for the faint hearted, as it entailed a 10 kilometre drive up a lumpy, bumpy forest piste (and no, we don't have a 4x4 ...). And I do have to admit that we wouldn't perhaps have spent quite so much time walking if we hadn't first completely mistaken the route and schlepped up - that's up as in height, not in distance - several hundred metres of a look-alike path that actually ended up by going ... nowhere (not entirely our own fault though, that the barrier on the piste had been moved 2 kilometres downhill and that the walk directions still worked, albeit defectively, in spite of that ...). But it was a fantastic walk, even if we did cover twice the distance we should have done, and the views were amongst the best you could hope for, even if it was slightly cloudy: south and west, to the high peaks on the Spanish border just a few kilometres away; east, to Mont Valier and the reserve; north, to the Petites Pyrénées, Saint Girons and even our home ground, the Séronais.
And so how else to finish the day but with an apéro and dinner back down in Seix, on the terrace at the Auberge du Haut Salat, a lovely, friendly, traditional place overlooking one of the main squares that cooks simple food, excellently, because it uses good ingredients: a wonderful buffet for entrée, followed by lamb cutlets with a tian of courgettes (there's no escaping them, anywhere! But it was good.) and slow cooked potatoes, and then a to-die-for (possibly literally, but what a way to go ...) chocolate tart.
And now to bed, and to pore over the maps to plan tomorrow.
Tuesday, 17 March 2009
09 in 09
For a small and sparsely populated department with not a lot of money, Ariège is not half bad at making its presence felt. A couple of years ago, for example, when we were still living over the border in Aude, we decided to hit the bright lights of Toulouse one rainy Saturday in March and what did we find? The main square, Place du Capitole, was filled with hundreds of stalls promoting and celebrating our soon-to-be-home department, complete with goats and sheep and prehistoric flint knappers and every sort of food and heaven knows what else. It was heaving with people - and great fun.
Ariège, or to give it its self-proclaimed full title Ariège-Pyrénées (adopted because it was - and officially still is - the only department sharing a border with Spain that didn't have 'Pyrénées' as part of its name), is department number 09. Every French department has a number, running alphabetically from A to Z (with a couple of quirks, naturally), and residents are strongly attached to 'their' numbers. Two years back, it was decided to replace the current system of departmental vehicle registration, under which the last two numbers are always the department of residence. Now this is a great system, not just because you can wear your departmental badge with pride, but because you also get fair warning that the car behind you comes from one of the departments with particularly bad drivers - anywhere in Paris, for example, or maybe my particular bugbears Gironde (33) and Tarn et Garonne (82) .... So when a national registration scheme was mooted, France revolted. And to cut a long story short, in the end the government had to concede that when the new system finally comes in next month,a department number, while not forming an official part of the registration number, would nevertheless be compulsory on all plates - a typical French compromise.
Now being department number 09 in the year 2009 is not a marketing opportunity to be missed. And missed it won't be: our Conseil Général and the Comité Départementale du Tourisme have just launched their 09 - L'année de l'Ariège campaign, with 9 events which they hope will 'typify the Ariège of tomorrow', put the department centre stage, and give people 9 (more) good reasons to come here. Here they are:
1. The opening of the first part of the new voie verte (green road, for walkers and cyclists - no motor vehicles allowed) which will link Foix with St Girons, along the old railway track. Great news for us, as when it's completed in 2010 it will pass right through Rimont.
2. The opening last month of the centre thermoludique at Ax les Thermes - the first in Ariège, and destined to become one of the best in the Pyrénées. I've not managed to get there, yet, but oh, I will, I will ...
3. The enlargement of the Parc de la Préhistoire in Tarascon, at the heart of one of the most extensive networks of prehistoric caves in Europe.
4. The designation of part of the Cathar Pyrénées as 'pays d'art et d'histoire'.
5. The official creation in May, after several years of negotiations, of the Parc Naturel Régional Pyrénées Ariégeoises. Rimont, and Grillou, will be a part of the new Parc.
6. The celebration on 22 August of the 20th anniversary of the Challenge des 3000 Ariégeois, a mountain running 42.5 km marathon that climbs - wait for it - over 2500 metres. I shan't be running.
7. The creation of a major competition for local innovators, to dynamise the local economy.
8. The commemoration of the 800th anniversary of the Albigensian crusade against the Cathars.
9. And finally ... la surprise. On the 9th September 2009 (09/09/09) at 09.00 (it had to be, didn't it ...), the Conseil Général and the Comité Départementale du Tourisme are preparing 'an event'. That's all I know, because for now their collective lips are firmly sealed on the details. But watch this space. Or even this one.
Ariège, or to give it its self-proclaimed full title Ariège-Pyrénées (adopted because it was - and officially still is - the only department sharing a border with Spain that didn't have 'Pyrénées' as part of its name), is department number 09. Every French department has a number, running alphabetically from A to Z (with a couple of quirks, naturally), and residents are strongly attached to 'their' numbers. Two years back, it was decided to replace the current system of departmental vehicle registration, under which the last two numbers are always the department of residence. Now this is a great system, not just because you can wear your departmental badge with pride, but because you also get fair warning that the car behind you comes from one of the departments with particularly bad drivers - anywhere in Paris, for example, or maybe my particular bugbears Gironde (33) and Tarn et Garonne (82) .... So when a national registration scheme was mooted, France revolted. And to cut a long story short, in the end the government had to concede that when the new system finally comes in next month,a department number, while not forming an official part of the registration number, would nevertheless be compulsory on all plates - a typical French compromise.
Now being department number 09 in the year 2009 is not a marketing opportunity to be missed. And missed it won't be: our Conseil Général and the Comité Départementale du Tourisme have just launched their 09 - L'année de l'Ariège campaign, with 9 events which they hope will 'typify the Ariège of tomorrow', put the department centre stage, and give people 9 (more) good reasons to come here. Here they are:
1. The opening of the first part of the new voie verte (green road, for walkers and cyclists - no motor vehicles allowed) which will link Foix with St Girons, along the old railway track. Great news for us, as when it's completed in 2010 it will pass right through Rimont.
2. The opening last month of the centre thermoludique at Ax les Thermes - the first in Ariège, and destined to become one of the best in the Pyrénées. I've not managed to get there, yet, but oh, I will, I will ...
3. The enlargement of the Parc de la Préhistoire in Tarascon, at the heart of one of the most extensive networks of prehistoric caves in Europe.
4. The designation of part of the Cathar Pyrénées as 'pays d'art et d'histoire'.
5. The official creation in May, after several years of negotiations, of the Parc Naturel Régional Pyrénées Ariégeoises. Rimont, and Grillou, will be a part of the new Parc.
6. The celebration on 22 August of the 20th anniversary of the Challenge des 3000 Ariégeois, a mountain running 42.5 km marathon that climbs - wait for it - over 2500 metres. I shan't be running.
7. The creation of a major competition for local innovators, to dynamise the local economy.
8. The commemoration of the 800th anniversary of the Albigensian crusade against the Cathars.
9. And finally ... la surprise. On the 9th September 2009 (09/09/09) at 09.00 (it had to be, didn't it ...), the Conseil Général and the Comité Départementale du Tourisme are preparing 'an event'. That's all I know, because for now their collective lips are firmly sealed on the details. But watch this space. Or even this one.
Monday, 8 September 2008
Very Bizarre Things
Now here's a Very Strange Thing.
A couple of months ago, ever hopeful that one day in my current lifetime we might just be ready to open for guests, I registered the domain name slowholidays-pyrenees.com. Haven't done anything with it yet mind you - it's sitting there waiting to see some action. (As indeed is our future guest acccommodation. But we won't go there just now).
One night in August, when it was just too hot to go to bed, I was idly googling Slow and Slow Holidays. Other Slow Holiday sites are strangely almost non-existent, but I came across one site called 'A slow holiday in the Auvergne'. Bizarrely, it had an almost identical domain name: slowholidays-auvergne.com. But even more bizarrely, as I discovered when I went to have a look, it refers to a gîte in a renovated corps de ferme owned and run by another two north Norfolk escapees, Andrée and Gary Lloyd, who moved at around the same time as we did. And more bizarrely still, they're people that we knew, albeit vaguely, because they owned Norfolk's iconic cook shop Head Cook and Bottlewasher, in North Walsham, which we (along with just about every cook in north Norfolk) used to zoom along to whenever we were in dire need of something esoteric for the restaurant kitchen. If you couldn't get it there, you couldn't get it anywhere; even if you didn't need anything, you'd come away with some find or other that would quickly become completely indispensable, like Exopat baking sheets. In fact I blame Andrée unreservedly for the ridiculously overflowing contents of my kitchen drawers.
Maybe it's not so strange after all. Norfolk was pretty big on Slow - at the point that we left, the number of Slow Food members was growing hugely, and Aylsham was one of only two Cittàslows in England; since then Diss, also in Norfolk, has become the third English Cittàslow. At the same time, the restaurant and hospitality world was changing fast. We called it the Starbucks Effect: an increasing number of customers were becoming innoculated with the big-chain virus so that they no longer knew quite how to deal with small, quirky one-off businesses like ours. "But why aren't you open all day?" they'd screech through our closed door at 11am, "I want a tall skinny vanilla latte and I want it NOW and there's nowhere to get one and it's just APPALLING ...". Or they'd shake their heads in utter bemusement at the fact that we chose to close on Monday each week, even Bank Holidays. Or that we didn't cram more people in. Or have two sittings ("But you could make SO MUCH MONEY!"). Or that we chose to do things differently, not big-business-ly. It may or not be a coincidence that a number of small business people that we knew, or knew of, were also making the decision to move on at around the time that we did.
Anyway, at some point in the future we hope to collaborate with Andrée and Gary in offering two centre Slow Holidays. In the meantime, if you fancy a whizz - sorry, trundle - down to Puy de Dôme in the Auvergne, check them out here.
A couple of months ago, ever hopeful that one day in my current lifetime we might just be ready to open for guests, I registered the domain name slowholidays-pyrenees.com. Haven't done anything with it yet mind you - it's sitting there waiting to see some action. (As indeed is our future guest acccommodation. But we won't go there just now).
One night in August, when it was just too hot to go to bed, I was idly googling Slow and Slow Holidays. Other Slow Holiday sites are strangely almost non-existent, but I came across one site called 'A slow holiday in the Auvergne'. Bizarrely, it had an almost identical domain name: slowholidays-auvergne.com. But even more bizarrely, as I discovered when I went to have a look, it refers to a gîte in a renovated corps de ferme owned and run by another two north Norfolk escapees, Andrée and Gary Lloyd, who moved at around the same time as we did. And more bizarrely still, they're people that we knew, albeit vaguely, because they owned Norfolk's iconic cook shop Head Cook and Bottlewasher, in North Walsham, which we (along with just about every cook in north Norfolk) used to zoom along to whenever we were in dire need of something esoteric for the restaurant kitchen. If you couldn't get it there, you couldn't get it anywhere; even if you didn't need anything, you'd come away with some find or other that would quickly become completely indispensable, like Exopat baking sheets. In fact I blame Andrée unreservedly for the ridiculously overflowing contents of my kitchen drawers.
Maybe it's not so strange after all. Norfolk was pretty big on Slow - at the point that we left, the number of Slow Food members was growing hugely, and Aylsham was one of only two Cittàslows in England; since then Diss, also in Norfolk, has become the third English Cittàslow. At the same time, the restaurant and hospitality world was changing fast. We called it the Starbucks Effect: an increasing number of customers were becoming innoculated with the big-chain virus so that they no longer knew quite how to deal with small, quirky one-off businesses like ours. "But why aren't you open all day?" they'd screech through our closed door at 11am, "I want a tall skinny vanilla latte and I want it NOW and there's nowhere to get one and it's just APPALLING ...". Or they'd shake their heads in utter bemusement at the fact that we chose to close on Monday each week, even Bank Holidays. Or that we didn't cram more people in. Or have two sittings ("But you could make SO MUCH MONEY!"). Or that we chose to do things differently, not big-business-ly. It may or not be a coincidence that a number of small business people that we knew, or knew of, were also making the decision to move on at around the time that we did.
Anyway, at some point in the future we hope to collaborate with Andrée and Gary in offering two centre Slow Holidays. In the meantime, if you fancy a whizz - sorry, trundle - down to Puy de Dôme in the Auvergne, check them out here.
Monday, 23 June 2008
Lac de Mondély
So while spring decided to give itself a miss this year, summer has suddenly arrived with a vengeance. No messing about - at lunchtime last Wednesday, exactly as predicted nearly 2 weeks previously by Metéo France, the long-awaited sun came out and the temperature shot up to a much more Midi-like 32 degrees. In the shade. Now it's not a lot of fun doing hard graft in the garden when your body just wants to lie around with a book and a cold beer. So we didn't.
But what we did do (grammar?) was indulge for the first time this year in one of my all-time favourite things. We went lake swimming. I used to be a fully-fledged, paid-up member of the sea swimming fan club, preferably in the Aegean, but over the last couple of years I've become even more addicted to swimming in lakes. And I'm certainly living in the right place - France has hundreds of the things, Midi-Pyrénées has scores of them and Ariège has some real beauties, the best of which is less than half an hour from Grillou (beware - shameless marketing plug coming up).
Here it is:
... the Lac de Mondély. It's in the middle of unaffected nature, as the French like to say, and is a genuinely idyllic and unspoilt place, never over-run, often almost empty even in August. To get there, you drive from either La Bastide de Sérou or Le Mas d'Azil for several kilometres over single-track rutted roads, wondering whether you've got lost, whether your exhaust is going to fall off and what you'll do if you meet a car coming the other way. Then suddenly you're there, and no matter how many times you've been before there's always that same sharp intake of breath.
There's a sand beach, lots of private grassy banks plus trees for shade; if you're feeling energetic there's a lovely walk all the way around, about 8 kilometres; and there's a little summer buvette where you can sit with a cold beer. Oh, and did I mention the swimming? It's fantastic. I like to swim over to the other shore and watch the dragonflies; often there are great crested and little grebes as well, and swallows swooping down to catch insects. There are no windsurfers or sailors, nothing to disturb the peace. You can swim with your eyes closed, just feeling the sensations, without worrying about hitting anything. The water in summer is always warm - around 25 degrees yesterday, with warmer to come - and there are no cold eddies to shock you, no waves to batter you around and no currents to drag you miles offshore.
It's quite simply wonderful. Did I mention that?
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