Route North
We left Narbonne Plage aiming for La Couvertoirade, a fortified town in the Midi-Pyrenees, 70 miles to the north. However it is high in the mountains and the weather here was dire….low cloud, poor visibility and rain so we moved on to the next planned stop…La Malzieu Ville..a lovely historic town another 90 miles to the north.
Autumn colours . We are driving north on the A75
Millau Viaduct
Crossing the Impressive Millau Viaduct…this is the only bit of toll road on this leg.
Air Cover
The French Air Force sent up one of their planes to give us a flypast.
The Gevaudan Monster
This tableau at the entrance to Le Malzieu Ville commemorates the Gevaudan monster, a large wolf which marauded hereabouts in the 1600’s and was said to have eaten over 100 villagers.
Aire at Le Malzieu Ville
This is the aire; parking by the riverfront and a stones throw from the local shops. It is also close (too close, we subsequently discovered) to the village hall.
After a walk around the village, Colin looking out carefully for descendants of the Gevaudan wolf, we returned for grub, having entirely missed the posters advertising a disco in the village hall that night. It seems that discos here don’t start until about midnight and we were woken about 1 am by music from the village hall and found dozens of cars parked around us.
It was difficult to sleep and having considered the obvious option of just going to the disco and twisting the night away, we chickened out and moved on instead to the aire at Ruynes en Margeride.
Aires at Ruynes en Margeride
Ruynes en Margeride is a pretty, quiet, little village.
Ruynes en Margeride
After buying the obligatory baguette and coffee in the village centre, we moved on to St Pourcain sur Sioule.
Aire at Saint Pourcain
Mairie
Sign by Church
Our French is coming on in leaps and bounds. This sign says: ‘You cannot park your Porsche here’ (With thanks to Nia for this inspired translation).
Church of St Croix
This is a pretty old town…the church dates back to the 11th century.
La Sioule
Today Monday we walked over the Sioule hunting for the local vet…Colin and Penny need a certificate for their impending ferry crossing of the channel. We got hopelessly lost but a very nice French lady, on being asked directions, said it was a long walk….. ‘un grande promenade’ and clearly worried that we would never make it bundled us all in to her car and drove us there. (Good vet by the way…€31 for two dogs).
Next stop….the Loire.
Rambling about Europe with the Kray Twins (Colin and Penny).
Travels with Mavis 
Google translate says it read – Please do not take the Mickey out of people in posh cars.
Take the Mickey?, or prendre le Michel?, as we say here? Non! It was a serious translation of this very flexible language. Nous parlons franglais ici.
I thought the sign actually said “don’t pee in the porch” (church porch)!
Thanks Bob! Actually it was a, typically weak, attempt at humour on our behalf😃
POINT OF INFORMATION,
I don’t think people ‘twist the night away’ in discos these days Peter, you really must get out a little more often at night.
rain is forecast to welcome you home, see you soon,
Jim
On Mon, Nov 24, 2014 at 5:08 PM, Travels with Mavis wrote:
> Peter and Nia posted: ” We left Narbonne Plage aiming for La > Couvertoirade, a fortified town in the Midi-Pyrenees, 70 miles to the > north. However it is high in the mountains and the weather here was > dire….low cloud, poor visibility and rain so we moved on to the next > plann”
Yes…hoping to be allowed out over Christmas.
Nia, you got it nearly right. It means “Don’t park Percy under the Porsche” Mind you if you can do that you’re a better man than I….
Nick