Tag Archives: Puymoroux

French Camping 2023, Day 6 Puymoroux

Blasdale Home Posted on by

4th September 2023

After breakfast we headed out to ‘Le Vieux Moulin’, in Chabanais for lunch. It’s a smart French restaurant where we had the plat de jour. I went for the meat option, Rosemary, Bev and Jen went for vegetarian.  Despite it being a Monday, there were a few other diners. We had an excellent meal, and some nice beers to go with it.

On the way back to Jen and Bev we stopped at another reservoir, called Lac de Saint_Mathieu. We had seen this before when it was empty.  It had had a leak, been emptied and now fixed and was full.  We order a coffee from the café ‘La Grande du Lac’, a British run café. This part of France is quite full of British, and British owned businesses. There is a campsite here, so could be a place to stay in the future.

France - Le Vieux Moulin
France - Le Vieux Moulin
France - Le Vieux Moulin
France - Le Vieux Moulin
France - Le Vieux Moulin
France - Le Vieux Moulin
France - Le Vieux Moulin
France - Le Vieux Moulin
France - Le Vieux Moulin
France - Le Vieux Moulin
France - Le Vieux Moulin

French Camping 2023, Day 5 Puymoroux

Blasdale Home Posted on by

3rd September 2023

Morning was bright & promising. Showered & breakfasted by 8.00. Rosemary went to a car boot sale with Linda and purchased another two flat irons. She uses them as book ends.  We set off to Jen and Bev before midday, stopping off to purchase some wine before the supermarkets closed at 12.30, and arrived at Puymoroux in the afternoon. The van was parked in the drive and connected to the electricity.  (Not strictly required, the battery should keep the fridge running for at least 4 days, but good to have.) We sat in the garden under the shade of a tree and chatted, while playing with the dogs.  Supper was an excellent BBQ cooked by the man of the house, with numerous vegetable sides prepared by Jen.

France - Puymoroux
France - Puymoroux

France – Le Puy-en-Velay, Day 1

Blasdale Home Posted on by

4th September 2022

After the night parked in Jen and Bev’s, we played again with Lottie the dog before departing with J&B to Brantôme en Périgord, where we had a coffee in a cafe run by a couple of South Africans. A quick look around, and then we headed our diverse ways, J&B back home and us onto Le Puy-en-Velay.

Why Puy-en-Velay? We had never heard of it. I drew a line on the map from Cussac to the Verdon Gorge, our selected destination. Then I selected a campsite halfway along the line, preference given to campsites in a town. Puy-en-Valey came up, it looked interesting with its volcanic history. There was an ACSI campsite in town, as we prefer to be within a short walk of shops, restaurants and bars

The drive to Puy-en-Velay was fairly tedious, again a slow route across country on minor and departmental roads. Some areas were ski resorts, and there were road markers for the inevitable winter snow. The highland moors were being patrolled by numerous kites and buzzards. Never seen quite so many. We eventually arrived after 5 and half hours at 17:16 and took the very last pitch available in the campsite. There were at least two other vans waiting behind us. We set up under a tree and had supper.

Steve with a wasp sting on the lip.

The drama of the day occurred after the sun set. I took a last swig of his beer without looking and offended a wasp who was having a drink. The wasp stung me on my lip. Rosemary removed the quite large barb from my lip and administered internal and external antihistamine treatment. We both reread the instructions on the EpiPen in case it was needed. Other than a swollen lip, which partly subsided during the night, the services of the hospital next door were not required. R issued a new standing instruction to check glass & bottle before taking a swig – crunch & stinging sensations should not occur.

France – Jen and Bev

Blasdale Home Posted on by

3rd September 2022

A shorter trip today and drove to Jen and Bev’s new (to us) home. In 2020 they had moved some 4 miles from their previous home which we had visited a few times before. On the way, I filled up the van. Morrison had achieved over 600 miles on the tank with plenty more to go. Found fuel at 179 euro a litre, significantly cheaper than the UK. Later we found if you filled at Total, the price was down to less than 160 euro a litre.

Rosemary has known Jen since school days (ie a long time). Amazingly they still have much to talk about.

Lottie their dog entertained us all by chasing one of her balls as we admired the many small birds on the feeders. Mad creature wants you to throw her ball. Unfortunately, she never quite brings the ball back to you to throw. It was exercising the humans, who had to get up and retrieve the ball to be thrown again. A Labrador puppy should be arriving late September, so Lottie will have a young dog to teach. Jen also feeds a couple of stray cats, but at night, so they rarely see them.

We went out for a quick snack lunch in a local village. Coming back, we set up the van for the night in their driveway.

Later in the evening we went for dinner at Auberge de la Vallée de la Gorre in Saint-Auvent.

Both the restaurants we visited were British owned and run. As you can see, the Auberge had a stock of English beers for the Brits.