Carcasonne and Moux; June 2012
Gallery
Heavy Rain and the Fuel Injection Dash Light
View Moux in a Google map.
We had ambitiously thought about going to Morocco on the bike this year. However, mostly because we left it too late (Morocco's too hot in the summer months for biking) but also partly because I had come across a cheap Gite at a village called Moux near Carcasonne, we opted to return to the French Pyrenees region instead. We booked a ferry crossing from Portsmouth to Le Havre with LD Lines because although we live in Poole, Brittany Ferries wanted around 100 pounds more to take us from either Poole or Portsmouth (depends on which day you cross) to Cherbourg. The outbound and inbound crossings where for Thursday 14th and Sunday 24th June respectively. The trip from Le Havre to Moux was approximately 600 miles which we allowed two days for. The Gite booking was from Saturday 16th to Saturday 23rd June.
The Portsmouth to Le Havre crossing was an overnighter leaving at 11pm UK time and arriving 8am French time. We got off to a bad start with the ride from home to Portsmouth on the A31 and M27. It's a ride of just over 50 miles but it was absolutely chucking it down. The M27 was a river and with the spray it was scary. We were very pleased to get to the Portsmouth ferry terminal around 9:30pm. We were also pleased that our gear had kept us dry. (I do love my new Altberg boots.) Unfortunately as we were checking in the Blackbird's fuel injection (FI) fault lamp popped on bright red. Bugger, what to do, stay or go? The Blackbird was running OK so we boarded the ferry hoping it was just a short with the FI fault lamp caused by all the water on the ride to Portsmouth. We hoped the FI fault lamp would go out once the Blackbird had dried out on the ferry.
The LD Lines boys did a good job of strapping down the bikes. Upstairs we found a couple of seats and hung all our gear out to dry. We then tried to get some sleep but unfortunately the bar was between the lounges where the seats where. The bar was open until 2pm and half a dozen of the hard core (drunks) stayed up all night making a lot of noise. Despite using ear plugs, not a lot sleep was had that night.
We arrived at Le Havre and the weather was a bit overcast but thankfully it wasn't raining. As we got on the bike to ride it off the ferry I was crossing my fingers that the FI fault lamp light would go out when I started the Blackbird? Thankfully it did and we left the ferry and Le Havre heading south for Le Mans and Tours with the objective of finding a place to stay when we got to Limoges. To make it easy riding after a hard night we rode most of the 300 miles to Limoges on French motorways.
Beautiful Weather and a Confused Garmin
It was an easy, if a bit expensive given the French motorway tolls, 300 mile ride to Limoges. The weather had been improving all day and by the time we got to Limoges it was hot and sunny. I had plugged in my SatNav the location of several Sawday's chambre d'hotes in the vicinity of Limoges and we headed for one. Unfortunately it was full when we got there but the very nice lady who runs it kindly arranged for us to stay at another nearby chambre d'hotes at in the village of Panissac. The Panissac chambte d'hotes turned out to be a peach. A huge house in its own considerable grounds with large ensuite rooms. It's run by a nice man called Fred. He's a Parisian who has managed to escape the rat-race.
Even though we had got there late Fred was quite happy to rustle us up some dinner. On a warm summy evening we had a bit of a walk before dinner and then we had a fine four course dinner with wine outside on the veranda with Fred and two other English couples staying there. What a difference from the previous miserable night. A brilliant evening and start to our holiday that was.
After a good breafast and in beautiful weather we say au revoir to Fred and the others, and headed for Carcassonne and Moux. We'd had enough of French motorways by then so we elected to stay off them and use N and D roads for the 300 mile ride. We left the A20 motorway at Brive and headed straight for Moux avoiding Toulouse.
For most of the way it was a nice ride on good roads through lovely scenery. We managed to wear the tread at the edges of the rear wheel on those roads. Unfortunately things went a bit wrong on the last 50 miles or so after passing through Mazamet. We came across another closed road out of Mazamet and were diverted down some distinctly iffy roads. Unfortunately the Garmin threw a bit of a wobbly. We spent a lot of time going back and forth on winding tracks through the hills with the SatNav seemingly generating randomn directions and distances. Eventually we ignored the SatNav and headed straight for Carcassonne. Once there, it was easy to get to Moux.
Moux Gite
It was hot day and the last 50 miles had been difficult so we got to Moux knackered and later than expected. When we got to Moux we met up with the English couple's house who rent the Gite and they walked us over to it. The Gite is located in the old quarter of Moux and the further we went the narrower the streets became. We eventually came to some closley packed irregular terraced houses where the 'earthy' locals who live in them were outside chatting and relaxing in the narrow street. Amongst these terraced houses an alley way appeared and tucked away at the end of it was the door to our Gite. (Just in case you're thinking it, the sign in the picture displays Kasa not Kasi.) I was a bit low after the last 50 miles of the ride and all I could think of was where am I going to park my precious Blackbird and I don't like the look of that lot we just passed. Mafia? We unpacked and went to Lezignan-Corbieres, a town 7 miles east of Moux to have something to eat at a restaurant there. We turned in that night wondering whether to leave next morning.
We stayed and we're really glad we did because we really got to like Moux and the Gite. The first problem of where to park the bike was solved by parking it on the pavement near a water fountain surrounded by metal posts to protect it from the beat-up old cars. The second problem was in my mind and didn't exist. Once I had got over my xenophobia, I found the locals to be happy friendly people. I don't know? I say I want to go somewhere that's not full of tourists and when we do I imagine the worst. The region is a big wine producer with vine fields everywhere and we believe that's where a lot of the locals work. The Gite was well equipped and it turned out to be very comfortable.
Moux's old quarter centres on the church and to get to our Gite, we walked through an old arch joined to the church. The old quarter is made up of closely packed terraced houses which open straight out onto the narrow streets. No two houses seemed to be quite the same differing in size and features. Some were in a better state of repair than others with a few empty.
The church bells rang out at 7am every morning. Someone told us that there was around 140 chimes. We quickly got use to the bells and they didn't really bother us. They would briefly wake us and then we would drift back to sleep.
On Sunday after a good night's sleep we felt a lot better but we had nothing for breakfast. Most things are closed in France on a Sunday but the small shop in Moux is open on a Sunday morning so we were able to buy milk, bread and jam from there to keep us going until we could get to a hypermarche.
Cité de Carcassonne
Sunday was a beautiful day so after breakfast we went to Carcassonne to visit its fortress. We had been by Carcassonne before but never stopped. The fortress is very impressive and we took the guided tour.
The Festival of Carcassonne runs from the end of June through to August. The programme for it is made up of music (popular and classical), comedy, opera, ballet, theatre, etc. Amongst others this year will fearure Duran Duran, Alice Cooper, Marilyn Manson and Gossip. Unfortunately it started on our last day there but on our tour around the fortress we did get to see the stage.
The Mediterranean and South to the Spanish Border
On Monday morning we stocked up with provisions for the week with a visit to the Intermarche at Lezignan-Corbieres. In the afternoon the weather was a bit overcast so we headed north to Saint-Pons-de-Thomieres and what's called the Parc Naturel Regional du Haut-Lauguedoc. Lovely motorcycling roads with good tarmac and long sweeping bends. Mind you, we still got overtaken by a Spaniard driving a Citroen Picasso. Nutter had his foot flat to the floor and was all over the road. I think he'd given in to his macho (dark) side.
On Tuesday we decided to head east to the the Mediterranean. We went to Narbonne and looped anticlockwise through the costal resorts of Narbonne Plage and Saint Pierre-sur-Mer. The resorts were of the 'kiss-me-quick' variety (think Weymouth). We could feel the humidity rising as we neared the coast and we sweltered. The poor old Blackbird did do any better and strugged to run below 100C. It usually in runs in the 80C's back home. We stopped and had an ice cream before heading back to Moux.
So by Wednesday we'd done west, north and east. Obviously we had to go south that day. We planned a route that would take us right through the middle of the Corbieres and on down to the Spanish border. This meant we would take the hilly winding roads rather than the more direct roads further east towards Perpignan. After all what fun would the latter be and it only came to 100 or so miles? It turned ou that the roads we took were very bumpy and very windy. It was another hot day and the roads took their toll on us the further we went.
We were doing fine at the half way point where we came across the Gorge de Galamus. What an impressive feature that is! We rode along the side of the gorge next to a sheer drop down to the bottom of the gorge which looked a very long way down. I don't think Chris enjoyed that bit. There's an amazing hermitage tucked away in the side of the gorge where, you guessed it, the hermits live. You could walk to it along the side of the gorge but we passed on that owing to the heat and the time it had taken for us to get halfway.
The road from Ille-sur-Tet to Amelie-les-Bains-Palalda was what did us in. It was a torturously bumpy windy road all the way which made it impossible to get up to any speed on the Blackbird. And, it was bloody hot! After what seemed an age we finally got to Amelie-les-Bains-Palalda and headed for Prats-de-Molio-la-Preste on a windy but smooth road we could make much better progress on. When we got to Prats (a bit of irony in the name) we finally stopped for something to eat and drink. We wanted to dip in and out of Spain but we fell short by 5 miles at the spa town of Las Preste les Bains. There had been storms the day before and the road to Spain was blocked with trees. It had taken us 5.5 hours to travel just over 100 miles!
On the return north to Moux we took the more direct roads further east towards Perpignan and did it in 1.5 hours. Annoyingly some of those D roads were really good. Good surface with long winding bends the Blackbird loves to lope along. We were knackered when we got back and disappointed that we had missed Spain by 5 miles.
Cooling Off
After our long hot ride to the Spanish border the day before on Thursday we felt like a day off from riding especially as it was just as hot. We read from our kindles baking in the little sun trap outside the Gite before deciding to have a trek around Moux.
We found Moux to be a charming little French village but to be honest apart from the Mairie and the old quarter where we we stayed that's pretty much all there is to it. But then there is the Tomb of Henry Batille. With its gruesome skeletal statue it certainly caught our attention. It seems that our Henry was a famous son of Moux (or a son of a woman from Moux depending on what you read). Henry was a famous poet who lived from 1872 until 1922. I don't suppose we'll ever know if he's happy with his tomb?
Amusingly, Moux has its own tannoy system which the mayor uses to make announcements to the villagers. We only heard it in action once when the mayor used it to announce the arrival of the mobile pizza van which turns up every Tuesday. (It does nice pizza.) The mayor started off with 'Allo, allo' which had us laughing irreverently. I guess not a lot goes on in Moux. The main thing is that if it does, they're ready.
Friday comes around too quickly. We had contemplated leaving on Friday to make the trip back easier but we were chillaxing in Moux so we decided against it. We'd done all four points of the compass so we decided to go south again and take a better look at the nearby chateaus of Durfort and Termes. Durfort could only be viewed from the road but it was possible to trek up to Termes which is what we did.
The pretty village of Termes lies below the chateau. There was an information centre at the village which gave some history about the chateau. It's all about religion again. Apparently the area broke away from Rome and Catholicism to take up Catharism. Rome didn't like this so it mandated a holy crusade against the Cathars enlisting knights returning from the middle east Crusades. Termes Chateau stood for Catharism so Rome's soldiers lay seige to it and sacked it. Interestingly, the English through the Black Prince once occupied it.
The weather was more to our liking that day. It was very sunny but a cool breeze made the temperature feel more like mid 25C rather than the low 30C to 35C we had been experiencing. (I'm a wimp who starts struggling when it reaches 30C.) We walked from the village up to the chateau wheezing a bit due to our low fitness levels. We had a walk around what was left of the chateau and admired views of the beautiful Corbieres. Very nice.
Friday night we go to Lezignan-Corbieres just down the road to eat at the restaurant we ate at on Sunday but we can't get in without a reservation. We look around for another restaurant but don't fancy any. After getting accosted by a drunk woman asking for money we decided to get a pizza and go back to the Gite.
Long Ride North and Home
The next day, Saturday, we got up early, said our goodbyes to the couple who rent the Gite and started our way back home. The ferry sailed from Le Havre at 5pm Sunday so we had to be there by 4pm. We had planned to do 400 miles on the Saturday and get as far as Tours and do the remaining 200 miles on the Sunday. We also planned to go back via Toulouse this time and to take the motorways and get to Limoges quickly.
Saturday was an excellent travelling day and with the Blackbird doing around a constant 130 kph on the motorway we got to Limoges between between 1 and 2pm. We had a break for lunch at Limoges and then continued on to Tours using N and D roads. We'd had enough of motorways by that time. When we reached Tours we skirted around it and then started looking for a chambres d'hotes to stay at. They were all full and we couldn't find anything. We weren't far from Beaumont Pieds de Boeuf and we knew an auberge there where we had stayed twice before. Unfortunately, Philippe who runs the auberge couldn't help as his auberge was also full. We ended up going further than we expected and doing more like 500 miles. We stayed the night at the Le Mans Campanile. Now I'm not a fan of Campaniles but it did the job that night and we got a good night's sleep.
On Sunday morning we had to be in Le Havre by 4pm to catch the ferry. It wasn't an issue as our longer than planned trip the day before meant we had around 130 miles to cover in 7 hours. When we started off the weather was looking ominous and by the time we got to Le Havre it was blowing and chucking it down. If you've ever been to Le Havre then you might know that on the approach to it there's a large impressive bridge and an elevated section of road. Usually they both look very impressive but with the weather as it was they looked very foreboding. When we got to Le Havre we spent about an hour at McDonalds before going on to check in for the ferry at around 3pm. (We may knock McDonalds but it's a good place to hang out when you're in soaking wet motorcycle gear.) The ferry trip was fairly unremarkable except for the torture of watching England playing Italy in the European cup. (Knocked out on penalities but defintely outclassed.) When we arrived at Portsmouth around 9:30 pm UK time the weather was thankfully good and the roads were dry. A quick dash down the M27 and A31, and we were soon back home. We had done around 1900 miles on the Blackbird which now means it has 52K miles on the clock. Ignoring the scare with the FI fault lamp and a blown rear bulb it had performed faultlessly two-up with luggage on all sorts of roads.
We had a good time in Moux and the Carcassonne area. Moux's a nice village and there is plenty to see and visit in the surrounding area. The Gite was well equipped and everying in it worked. We were comfortable and relaxed staying there. Apart from a short sharp thunderstorm on Tuesday evening we had had no rain at all from Friday 15th to Saturday 23rd June when the weather stayed sunny and hot (mostly 30C and above). The only time it really rained was Thursday 14th and Sunday 24th June on the way to catch a ferry at the channel ports of Portsmouth and Le Havre respectively. (Boy did it rain those two times!)