Europe's Highest.......Sand Dune!

Les Landes is that sandy sweep of land between Bordeaux in the West and Biarritz in the South-West of France. It is a land of pine forests, sand dunes and lakes and is criss-crossed with cycle lanes and dead straight, empty roads. The air is heavy with the smell of pine, the pine cones are huge (I have half an eye on the tree branches above me when walking and try and avoid the branches with lots of cones. They would hurt from that height!) and my tent is sticky with pine sap. At one point I thought I could hear electricity crackling overhead, but it turns out to be the sound of the cones opening in the strong sunlight. The weather has turned at last and it is 25C here today, with 37C forecast for later in the week (in fact it reaches 39C according to the car temperature indicator) and I can feel my head burning even through the bandanna. The forest stretches for over 100 miles and the beach on the Atlantic coast is 70 miles long. I stay at St Eulalie en Born, on the side of a lake, in a Camping Municipal site which is cheap and has fantastic facilities. Each day I travel lazily along the coast, towards Mimizan, or North towards Biscarrose and Arcachon, stopping randomly at quiet beaches along the way although the most impressive spot has to be the Grande Dune de Pilat.

The dunes here are the highest in Europe, over 100 metres high, with pine forest on one side and the Atlantic on the other. It’s a calf-wrenching upward climb at a 45-degree angle, where each step of about a foot in distance means your foot sinks into the sand and travels backwards to about 3 inches from where you started. It’s really hard going, like walking in quick sand. It is impossible to climb with footwear, as they simply fill full of sand, making the going even harder, so it has to be done in bare feet. When I stop for breath, often, resting my walking shoes on the sand in front of me, they slide past and behind me on the shifting sand. Eventually I get to the summit and the views are spectacular. I sit and catch my breath, watching the para-gliders struggling to get their craft under control in the wind, or, when they do manage to gather their craft and catch the wind, gliding effortlessly over the sand and then ocean in the clear blue skies. Just an amazing sight and it’s rare, I think, to be able to watch para-gliders flying below you rather than above! It is certainly very beautiful here. The descent from the dunes is fantastic though and what took around 20 minutes to climb takes about 25 seconds to descend, in great running leaps and bounds as though on a gigantic, sloping trampoline. Brilliant fun!

St Eulalie en Bord

Les Landes landscape

Plage La Salie Du Nord

Grande Dune De Pilat

The Summit

Mimizan Plage

Vieux Boucau des Bains

Perfect!

Wet Weather, A Credit Card Scam and My Travelling Mojo

After a fantastic journey through France, staying at Arles, Anduze, Laubert, Rodez, Rocamadour and Sarlat I stop at a beautiful house near Bergerac for 16 nights. It’s there that I find out my credit card has been scammed for nearly £1300 (which left me feeling initially sick and then very angry and more importantly, very short of funds. Some bar-steward has ordered two large home appliances on my credit card!) Thankfully I have just received the money back. Thanks to the lady in the tourist information centre in Montpon, who allowed me to call the bank free of charge, as my phone is broken). Combined with the unusually inclement weather with very heavy rain (floods in Paris), violent gusts of wind and very cold temperatures (normally the house I’m staying in is refreshingly cool. Now it is just very cold), I’m feeling a little deflated. I’m actually contemplating returning to the UK at one point. Whilst I’m certainly very fortunate, sometimes travelling is just hard, physically and psychologically and you need a certain stamina and will to keep going.

I end up in a very wet Bayonne for one night, which is grim, and then, suddenly, the following day the weather lifts a little and I decide to take a chance and head for the Pyrenees. The weather holds and the forecast is getting progressively better, so I treat myself to a night in a quirky guesthouse run by an English lady and her eldest Son and then take a fantastic drive, through the beautiful villages of Navarrenx and Oloron to a very small hamlet called Cette, high up in the mountains, where I stay in a small hotel, Chateau D’Arance. The weather is kind (at least for most of the day) and I get to walk in the mountains, which is just brilliant. I walk for a while and then just sit and watch the clouds tumble over the tops of the peaks and birds of prey effortlessly riding the thermals. The birds are huge, with diamond shaped tails and light brown, rust covered bodies and they range for miles without flapping their wings, just gliding in broad, ever increasing circles. I think they are bearded vultures, Europe’s largest and rarest vultures but a very regular sight in the Pyrenees and large with a wingspan of around 2.8 metres. But I’m not sure. My photos aren’t really good enough to make a clear identification.

The following morning, feeling a little happier, I head down the tight, windy, mountain road to the junction with the main road. There is a man with a fluorescent jacket and a yellow flag and a small group of onlookers. The road is closed due to a cycle race. It is 9.36pm. I ask what time the road opens. Mid-day. I stand with the small friendly group who are cheering on the cyclists with shouts of 'Bravo' and 'Allez'! These must be the professional riders, as you can hear a whirring and swishing noise of the wheels spinning and the tyres on the wet road surface before you can see them and then suddenly they are past in a blur. They are travelling at speed, heads down, determined, their leg muscles like bands of iron. Two hours later I return. The cyclists are more casually dressed now and they respond to the shouts of encouragement with 'Merci' or 'Grazias' or sometimes with 'Thanks'.  The highest competitor number I see is 9000 and something. I don't know if this means that there are over 9000 competitors. I suspect so. I learn that the race is over a distance of 50km, from Spain to France, which given the severe gradients is some challenge. Once the road is open I pass a number of stragglers. Fair play. They haven't given up. Neither will I.

Coliseum in Arles. Still used today!

Rocamadour

Underground church at Aubterre

A wet St Emillion

Beautiful house near Bergerac where I stay for a while.

A wet Biarritz

An even wetter Bayonne

The Pyrenees

Chateau D'Arance

The hamlet of Cette

Fantastic!

The Highest Road in Europe

After spending a few days on the Italian Riviera at Deiva Marina, close to La Spezia, I follow the main coast road for a while towards Genova and then head North West-ish, an indirect, meandering route (well, Ok, I get lost a few times) on smaller, mainly single track roads, edging my way through the Apennines and towards the foothills of the Alpes-Maritimes. I stay at a couple of very small places along the way, but I’m not sure where – I just follow camping signs from the road when I feel like stopping, mostly to isolated sites where I’m the only person.

Gradually the verdant, rolling country-side gives way to much steeper gradients and an increasingly rocky landscape, until I reach the seasonal road from Vinadio in Italy to Isola in France, through the Lombardia pass, at a height of 2350 metres. It is only a short distance to the top, around 10km, but it is a steep uphill drive all the way, mainly in second gear, on narrow roads with very sharp, corkscrew bends, sheer drops on one side and high mountain peaks on the other, the drops made worse by the fact that, being on the ‘wrong’ side of the car, I’m peering directly into the deep valley below. Sometimes there are metal barriers on the edge of the road, sometimes wooden ones and sometimes non at all. It’s exhilarating but it’s also a time for concentration, although my eyes do wander now and again to take in the stunning scenery, or I stop and take photographs in the warm sunshine.

Suddenly I catch something in the corner of my eye on the right. Running in parallel with the car is a strange furry creature, the size of a dog, but with a flatter, wider body, long brown and tan fur and a wide, flattened head, like a gopher but much bigger. It is travelling at pace (I check the speedometer and I’m doing 20 miles an hour), easily overtakes the car, crosses the road in front of me and descends quickly down a steep bank of grass on my left and out of sight. I stop quickly and run over to take another look, but it’s gone. I spend some time trying to work out what it was, but I have no idea. I subsequently discover that it’s an Alpine Marmot, apparently quite common here, but the first time I’ve ever seen one. Fantastic!

After crossing into France, I stay at a small, family run hotel in St Etienne-de-Tinee and then follow the river valley through deep gorges, past azure blue lakes and through medieval towns. Later, when looking at the map, I realise I was just 10km away from the highest road in Europe, the Col de la Bonnette, at a height of 2802m. Never mind. Maybe next time?

Devia Marina, Italy

Western Apennines, Italy

City of Cuneo

Alpes-Maritime

France

Tinnee Valley

Venice

If Amsterdam is the Venice of the North, Venice, is, well……Venice! It has to be one of the most beautiful cities in the World. It is both ridiculously busy around the main tourist areas and signed tourist thoroughfares and yet eerily quiet just a few feet away. The trick, I think, is to get off the beaten track and to explore the small alleyways at random, just following your instincts and what looks interesting or promising. Often this means arriving at a dead-end, where the small street just terminates at an archway and a blue, ribbon like canal. At other times it means falling from a dark, dim alley into a brightly lit, deserted piazza with an empty outdoor restaurant and a 15^th Century Church with leaning campanile, or into smaller squares of a few houses, each with slatted green shutters at the windows and a bronze doorbell and plaque with the name of the owners outside each house. At other times, you step unexpectedly into a very busy alley, thronging with people, which comes as a complete surprise. The fantastic thing is that you really don’t know what is around the next corner. It is easy to spend hours just wandering around in this haphazard way, often ending up in a completely opposite direction than one might think. Indeed, despite following a map sometimes, the effect is the same – miles from the intended direction, so at least this traipsing approach saves any map reading embarrassment! The most interesting areas (for me, anyway), are those where the locals live, with lines of clothing hanging across the narrow streets, where working boats, used to carry goods around the city, are moored in the smaller canals and where children go to school in 13^th and 14^th Century buildings.

On each night there are violent storms, which leave the streets running with water like rivers, the cobbled streets and bridges dangerously slippery and all the inhabitants soaking wet through, dripping pools of water on the floor of the bus or tram. On one evening the thunder and lightning was directly overhead, the sound of the thunder ripping the sky so loudly that people would instinctively duck, their hands covering their heads for protection at each explosion.

On Sunday morning, quite randomly, I stumble across the Vogalonga, a colourful annual boating event where teams from across the world (I saw boats from France, Canada and Hungary) take part in a non-competitive race in all sorts of rowing boats (kayaks, canoes, gondolas, dragon boats and many other types I don’t recognise). There are people in traditional Italian boating costumes with straw hats and blue stripped shirts, many others are in fancy dress, with brightly coloured wigs and T-shirts. It looks good fun and has a sort of Italian organised chaos feel to it, with people in one boat throwing bottles of water and bananas to the competitors, often missing completely, so there are bananas bobbing in the water, boats bumping in to each other and an announcer who seems to be commentating on events which have already happened, or referring to the names of friends in boats that have already passed, which is unintentionally funny!

It would be wonderful to live here for a period of time and to get to know the history of that part of the city really well: the building, the churches, the art museums, to be intimate with such a fantastic place would be an amazing privilege.

St. Mark's Square

St. Mark's Basilica

It just couldn't be anywhere else, really, could it?

A very stormy night

Off the beaten track

The Vogalonga

Amazing 24 hour clock face

Reflections in tranquillity