Enough EAUvergne

What did I see when I poked my head out of the hotel window in Le Mont-Dore? Sun? A few clouds? Any improvement in the weather however minimal? No, it was the same old drizzle, low clouds and miserable cold. We'd had enough. After a terrible night on a hard bed that shook every time someone turned over, which was often seeing as it was so uncomfortable, we decided to go home by the quickest route possible.

I was so keen to leave I suggested we wait for coffee until reaching Saint-Nectaire a few kilometres up the road. After paying an over-priced €70 for the room, we walked in 5°C drizzle to the car, parked in its free space behind the casino (the only place whole town where parking is now free), and I took the wheel to make sure we were actually leaving, now!

The route out climbs onto a plateau which was so foggy, there wasn't 20m visibility ahead. It stayed like that until we came down off the plateau. How glad were we to be leaving?

Saint-Nectaire has two parts - upper and lower. The upper old town has a church, a bar (closed) and houses, and that's it from what we saw of our short tour. All the shops are at the bottom. We drove back down to the little row of shops along the main road, went into the bar (open) to ask if they had croissants, and was told to buy them next door. Joy!

Saint-Nectaire fermier

After breakfast, we popped into the little Vival market to see what cheese they had, noted the prices, and then drove back all of 50m to the Maison de Fromage to see what their prices were. Seeing they were more than double, we hurried back to Vival and asked for some Saint-Nectaire fermier and lait, plus some Bleu d'Auvergne. I asked the girl serving what difference there was between Vival's cheese and the stuff up the road at double the price. None, she said. Up the road they cater for tourists and offer a service (of some sort), have more staff, and basically have a different business model. So be warned: if you are in St Nectaire and just want some cheese, get it from Vival. We popped back into the boulangerie to buy some bread au levain, and then set off towards Issoire and the autoroute.

My DB wanted to see Issoire because it was where there was an attempted revival of the French motorcycle industry - Voxan - created in 1995. Voxan went into liquidation in 2009, but the name was bought by Venturi. Located in Monaco, Venturi's Voxan is making a come-back as an all-electric motorbike claimed as the most powerful on earth, packing in 200CV.

I told my DB that Issoire is a bit of a dump, but he wanted to see it with his own eyes, and make a brief pilgrimage to this biker town. We drove through the centre where the halles (an historic covered market) was the only remarkable building, and out to the autoroute, and agreed that it was indeed a bit of a dump.

We stopped for a bread and cheese (again) picnic lunch in the car at a packed service station. There were many families from the academy of Clermont-Ferrand in Zone A going south on holiday, no doubt in search of some sun!

Old road.
Copyright: 34-Pas_de_l'Escalette-Ancienne_N9-2003-JRL.jpg‎ 

We found it on the other side of the Pas d'Escalette, the col which marks the separation of the causse du Larzac from the Languedoc plains. Before the autoroute was built, the N9 was the route south and the road crossed the Pas d'Escalette through a gap in the rocks which then took a sharp turn left. Suddenly the view opened out and you could see right down into the valley towards Lodève. Nowadays, you go through a tunnel but you still come out onto the amazing view, and invariably, better weather.

The sun, the sun, how good it was to see the sun again! It was warm and bright and colourful. How I love living in the south!

My little car was very pleased to have its engine stretched. It was a bit sluggish on the way up, but full of pep on the way back. At 25,000 km, it is now run in, and at its best. Hurrah!

La Pluie d'Auvergne

My DB's latest breakfast trend is 30g of walnuts. Rather than spend €13.60 on the hotel's buffet brekkie, we had a handful of walnuts each... and then went into Salers to get coffee, and a croissant for me, because, frankly, walnuts is not a breakfast worthy of the title.

My DB warned me that I couldn't just waltz into a bar with a bag of croissants and start eating - it wasn't done, and anyway, the bar would probably want to sell me a croissant (with mark-up). Maybe in some places... but we found a bar that was just opening - the lady was still cleaning the floor - and when I asked if I could eat my croissant with my coffee, she said it would be fine. Result!

We drove around the village a bit, made the mistake of not buying bread and cheese, and set off into the wilderness along the Col de Neronne towards Puy Mary (still closed). I'm sure the views would have been fantastic had they not been shrouded in low clouds. Visibility was extremely bad, which made driving along the narrow lanes somewhat hairy.

Having missed the Col de Neronne, we then missed the Vallée du Mars thanks to the pouring rain and low clouds. The morning was advancing, and we had nothing for lunch (except more walnuts), so we kept a look-out for a boulangerie. Hamlet after hamlet yielded not a single shop, although cows and green pastures were abundant. The one tiny Vival store we found was out of bread, so we decided we'd better just drive to Mauriac, population of more than 10 (actually around 3800), where there would be a proper supermarket.

Sure enough, Mauriac had a very large Intermarché where we got cheese - Laguiole, Salers/Cantal- crisps, lettuce, bread, and had a difficult choice between all of two bottles in the 'extensive' selection of Côte d'Auvergne wine...

We found a picnic spot near a viaduct and, although it had stopped raining, it was very damp, so we ate in the car (hurrah!). The Laguiole was excellent, the Salers/Cantal less so.

In the afternoon, we drove along the Gorges de la Rhue in the rain, didn't see much, but the road did go through a luscious forest of moss-covered trees and rocks. At one point we followed a sign to an 'Arbre remarkable 340m' up a delightful forest track. We went all the way to the end, but didn't see it, so turned round and looked more carefully on the way back. Sure enough, we found it - a rotting 200 year old beech tree 43 metres high... Remarkable? 

As we crossed the border into Puy de Dome, the sun promptly came out. Miracle! It made the moorlands which were carpeted in thousands of tiny jonquils positively glow. We made a short detour to see the ski resort Super Besse, still with a little snow clinging to the hillsides as my DB likes to see ski resorts out of season. There was a surprising number of vehicles about, and the cable cars were running, although the top of the hill was shrouded in cloud so I don't know what you were supposed to do once you got to the top! I always understood that if you were on a mountain and caught in fog, you should stay put in case you fell off. Maybe there's a restaurant chalet up there offering consolation for the fog-bound! In general, I thought the resort looked very down-at-heel without its improving cover of snow.

The weather closed in again, and we drove on through rain and 100% humidity trying to spot volcanoes. We were getting very bored with driving and not seeing much. At last we arrived at Le Mont-Dore (of the cheese you melt) which is a spa town and ski resort with casino and where we were to stay the night.

Le Mont-Dore looking cold and wet

Our hotel, La Russie, is up at the top on Trip Advisor for the town, god knows why. It was noisy, very basic, and had red plastic bedside lights that you couldn't read by, but were great for pretending you were in a cheap brothel. Our room was opposite a wooden staircase which was deafening when people pounded down in their winter boots. The town is a tourist trap, so every other shop sells over-priced goods and produce.

Le Mont-Dore - lovely views...

That said, the place was packed, and the restaurant where we wanted to try a truffade was full. Actually, we weren't that hungry so snacked on cheese and wine in our room whilst watching the film 'Fonzi', the story of a student who donated his sperm for scientific research, he thought, only to find out twenty years later he was the biological father of 530 young people. I'm not a great fan of French films, but this one was charming and funny.

The bread, cheese, and wine and bits and bobs went down very well, especially the Laguiole (which disappeared). A last look at the weather forecast for the next day - cloudy with sunny intervals - had us wondering if we should stay or should we go.