Burgundy to Carcassonne "Carcassonne or bust"

A highlight of our journey south was Carcassonne, the camp site is at the foot of the medieval city so you can walk there.

Carcassone Campsite (Left) and Medival city (Right) on the hill

Carcassonne inside city wall at night

Carcassonne outside city wall at night

Carcassonne inside city lots of shops and erm… Cafe's

The site had a sauna and Jacuzzi to rent at 19 Euro for an hour, which was lovely after walking to, from and around the fortress.

The site was lovely, staff very pleasant and once again, right next to the campsite was the aire, both the campsite and the aire looked fairly secure. We stayed two nights and then onward to the border with Spain.

We returned to the toll road heading back toward Narbonne and noticed we were getting a battering from side winds. I slowed our speed to 45MPH, all the better to control Monty during the gusts, then slower still to 40 MPH in some very narrow lanes for road works, when we were slammed by a hard and sudden gust, I managed to stay in lane, it was a bit worrying as cars were oblivious of the struggle and zipping by, as a result of the blast a loud rattle from the roof area could be heard, My mind was picturing the air conditioning unit cover flying off in to the traffic and I was very worried, and reverted to grim faced ultra-calm mode, I sent the boss back to see what was going on. I slowed to 30 MPH and as soon as the road works ended there was a aire so I pulled in.

I found the side blast had hit the awning roll, lifted it out from its locks on each arm mid position grip locks and top locks, and some awning had unfurled, not much fortunately. Another piece of advice from Empire RV (thank you James) was to put Velcro tape or tie wraps around each arm…”just in case”. I think the just in case was for us forgetting to ensure locked, but the awning had been locked, I had checked this less than an hour before the event.

So the blast had managed to physically lift the whole awning role, which is large and very heavy. The Velcro had stopped the arms flopping out whilst in motion, in narrow road work lanes, the disaster that would have represented, is quite worrying to think on, once again, thank you James and Empire RV for such good advice.


I climbed up on the roof to repair this problem and found that the bedroom skylight, though stowed fully down had cracked and crazed in the blast from the side wind, it had become floppy and was the source of the noise from the roof. Royal Air Force Green tape tape fixed the bed room skylight.

Bodge tape and tie-wraps to the rescue

The awning took some heaving and grunting as it had twisted slightly, this made it difficult to get the arms to lock again. But eventually the awning was stowed and straightened. But I was aware more side blasts could occur, I broke out the tie wraps and secured the arms right at the top, the awning could no longer jump out of the locks, though I still cannot believe all that weight could be lifted like that. I now tie wrap before any journey, for peace of mind.

In France we found an aire around every 20KM on the toll roads, and around every 40KM a service station and all service stations on the toll roads had LPG, and we had the Dish adaptor, so our worries about finding LPG was so far un-founded. I also use an APP on my phone called “findmyLPG and findmyLPG.eu. It is great but loads of LPG stops are not marked. I am trying to help with that.

Her bit:


We were told at Nolay there is a trek around the area that we might find interesting, and as we needed some exercise from eating cakes each day from the patisserie-we booked up. Joined with a group of people, followed the leader in our cars-and the ‘trek’ was from the car to the vineyard and a wine tasting session. That is my sister in law for you 😉 Very informative though and fun tasting the various wines and seeing some of the tools and machinery that had been used many years ago.

Our ‘treat’ during our stay was to go to Chateau de Citeaux La Cuellette at Meursault, a beautiful spa in a wine growing area. The chateau was built on the foundations of the oldest Cistercian house dating from the 12th century. In the heart of Burgundy, in the Côte de Beaune region, the château stands among the most prestigious of Burgundy's lands. We enjoyed our day there although were not impressed with the male receptionist who was on the phone the whole time and barely had time to talk to us at all. The treatment ladies were superb though.

We did do a wonderful walk to the Edge of the World, majestic limestone cliffs 40 foot high and a circuit from where a waterfall 25 m high springs into view. Except as there had not been much rain in the region -it was totally bone dry.

Onwards again.

We left Nolay after 3 weeks and got LPG at a good service station, kept on toll roads most of the way A6 then E15 and pulled into a service station for an overnight stop at Aire Pont de l’isere. Good station, nice marked out areas for large vans/cars & caravan. Shops and toilets and seemed quite well used. Not a lot of noise from passing traffic so the night was spent OK.

 Next day on route again keeping on A7 then A9 then E80 and onward to Carcassonne.

 Beware Sharp Left Turn

All was going well, a long drive but not stressful. We were aiming for Camping la cite Carcassonne and there is also an Aire right next to it. On the D42 and then turn left-but this is a sharp, narrow left turn on a hill going down with 2 metre drops either side so quite scary. Two vehicles were coming up the hill as we turned to go down. There was a large drop on the passenger side. Steve had to reverse back onto the road and the two vehicles reversed back down the hill, and we were able to go on down to the campsite at the bottom. Quite a nasty few moments as we were not expecting that! However, well worth it as this was a really excellent site-really good security, a huge pitch for us to park and just a 20-minute walk from the medieval town of Carcassone. Fresh bread in the mornings and a sauna/jacuzzi to hire for 19 euros for an hour!

Carcassonne

We were able to walk to the town in the evening and see the city lit up and people sat in the square, lots of cafes and restaurants open - great to see so many people strolling about or just sat having a relaxing drink.

 The following day we went into town again and visited the chateau there and then did a walking tour with an interesting guide called Julian. We learned a lot about the history of the place and the sad fate of the town-just left abandoned until taken over and restored by the architect Viollet-le-Duc who began restoration in the 1800s. We bought some special nougat & gluten free chocolate for my friend who we planned to meet up with at the next stop.

We enjoyed the visit very much and also enjoyed the time in the private sauna and jacuzzi (with shower, toilet, tea and coffee) after all the walking 😉 Great site, friendly staff, excellent facilities.