Chapter 4(of 8) Holiday 2005

We had camped with the children in the Auvergne in the nineties and had been impressed with its old fashioned rural qualities. It seemed, and still seems, caught in a bit of a time warp and always has a certain air of mystery. Attractive to tour in but not a lot of cash flow evident. We picked a camp site in the village of Faverolles, perched up over the Gorge de Truyere.

The camp was most comfortable, big high hedged emplacements, a free electric “branchement” for each site and, as per usual, spotless and efficient sanitaires and washing up facilities. For once we got a place right next to the central block so the piddling trips during the nights weren’t too far.

It was a small camp and extremely friendly. All the campers seemed to know each other well and there was much inter site partying in the evenings and always knots of people standing and gossiping at corners and by the sanitaires.
It seemed to be the sort of place that the same people came back to year after year, and had more the atmosphere of a medieval village than a campsite.

The camp was just up the road from the Viaduct of Garabit.
This was Eiffel’s rehearsal for his more famous tower and if you look at it carefully you can see how was inspired in his design of the Tower by the supports of the bridge

The village still had its, no doubt heavily subsidised, bakery, a church, and a restaurant.
The church had a wonderful Chandelier which looked like its bits had been replaced with jam jars as they fell off, but it had a definite charm anyway.

We took a few trips while we were there.
One over the hills

to St Flour and its terrific Musee d’Auvergne.
There they had preserved some of the past life of the land including a marvellous full panelled room complete with built in beds and wardrobes
made of the most wonderful mellow chestnut.
This must have come from the house of a well to do farmer.

Another trip was to the town of Chaud Aigues which must be one of the only towns in the world with free central heating. They have an unending supply of hot springs and they use this to heat their houses and even have several fountains in the town supplying it to passers by.

But it was while we were in Faverolles camp site that one of the most intriguing incidents of our holiday occurred.
Just as night was falling we heard the start of a row in the campsite.
Two female voices were raised one against the other, one quite young, one more mature.
Immediately all the teenage boys in the camp proceeded to run and hide, in some fear, in the camp across from ours where a young Adonis was in a caravan with his parents.
The loud argument went on for some time but, unfortunately, either due to the distance from the tent or the dialect they were using we couldn’t understand a word.
In the mean time Adonis’s mother came bustling about the sites near us obviously looking for Adonis who had gone missing.
After a while the argument faded slowly into the distance and we assumed all was over.
But then a car roared into the centre of the camp and a woman (the older voice?) began to hector all the inmates loudly about her greviences.
Infuriatingly we couldn’t get the gist of what these were.
At this stage the women of the camp began to retaliate verbally and to abuse the abuser in turn.
Just when we, lurking heroically within tent, were sure it was going to end in a brawl, the Hectoring Woman, slammed into her car and exited.
At this stage Adonis’s mother burst through the camp with Adonis, whom she had just found, and dragged him and all the other teenage boys to a spot just outside the forum, sorry, sanitaires.
There she in her turn harangued them for a good half hour but this time, and equally frustratingly, she did this in a shrill and sibilant whisper.

The following morning, other than the women taking longer than usual gathering water from the well, sorry, taps, all seemed normal.
We didn’t know anyone well enough to find out what the real story was but you can be sure that, like yourselves, we had a couple of theories.

Nothing more exciting than that happened before we left the Auvergne.
We did however manage to see the impossibly romantic Chateau d’Alleuze.
Perched dramatically on a bend of the Truyere it also seemed to offer tales of mystery and romance.
Or maybe it was just time to leave the Auvergne.