Thursday 14 April 2011

AND SO TO THE AUVERNE...



The run from Chartres was easy and given the difficult and late start we were glad of it. Arrival here at Ebreuil was excellent. This site was chosen from its Google map view – excellent meadow beside the River Sioule, close to small town or some note. Easy access from the Autoroute. Well sort off. Janet was driving the last leg and the actual exit from the A road was fine but the descent into Ebruiel turned out to be five kilometres at 8% - that's one in 12 old money and with a van on the hook not all that funny, especially for a newbie. She did fine. And then found she had to negotiate a none too easy French town centre! Did it well and you have to learn sometime. I felt no guilt!

The site is sweet. Good pitches, level, sheltered, shade as needed. The river is lovely. The facilities? Well, left of centre. We have all the bits, just in a funny order and with large quantities of rather Warhol-ish painting around. Great jets with whizz-bang pilots and blonde floozies; superman; Clark's shoe-style crosstrack bucolic scenes. But it is fine. Owners are English – came here 25 years ago.

The river is a tributary of the Allier, which names the department here in the region of the Auverne. The Allier feeds the Loire. But even the Sioule is no small river. Ebruiel is a charming little town that has faded lately. It should do better really as the adjacent Autoroute connection is the only one fro 40 kilometres north and south! But it had a huge priory which is now crumbling and it needs an inspirational Maire to get it back on its feet. But for us it is a pleasing place to stroll and shop.

Today we drove west up the Sioule into the Gorge du Chouncy, a mini Tarn. Two castles, some pretty villages and we curved around to view a lake in a volcano plug. Just on the edge of the Puys and the Region Des Vulcanes, the Goir Tazenat is a 7 kilometres round circular lake in a crater. Rather good to look at and a lot more manageable in scale than the monster versions we saw north of Rome a few years ago. Nearby were some thermal baths but the lake evinced no maladorous factors although Olly turned his nose up and did not drink!



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