FRANCE – LA GIRONDE

 2016  OCTOBER

AQUITAINE

The French Département of La Gironde is part of the ancient province of Aquitaine and is world famous for the city of Bordeaux and the vineyards surrounding it in all directions.

South of Bordeaux and inland to the east, on the way to Toulouse and the Mediterranean is the Département of Lot et Garonne, named after the two major rivers running through the area.

Here is a map showing the general picture:

Most of the region became English in 1152 when Henry II, Count of Anjou and King of England, married Eleanor of Aquitaine. They were succeeded by their sons Richard the Lionheart (he of Crusade fame) and John (he who lost his crown jewels in the Wash) and several successors. But not all their subjects were happy with English rule and claim to the French throne. This led to the so-called 100 years war that actually started in 1337 and didn't end until 1453 when the English lost most of their lands in France.

In the three centuries the English were in possession many fortified towns and castles were built and those still surviving are marvellous relics of the Medieval period and modern tourist attractions.

There are ten modern Départements in the this part of Southern France from the Atlantic to Mediterranean Coasts and south to the border with Spain. Historians suggest six in the west roughly correspond to the ancient Aquitaine with two of them being La Gironde that has Bordeaux as its capital and Lot-et-Garonne positioned to its immediate south east.

LA GIRONDE

As my longer term idea was to move subsequently to the Mediterranean coast I chose to stay at a campsite near the old town of Créon some 25 km east of Bordeaux itself.

Had I been visiting earlier in the year I would probably have preferred to stay first at a site to the west but those are mostly concentrated near the beaches of the Atlantic Coast and very nearly all are very seasonal closing at the end of September or mid-October at the latest.

One of my reasons for liking that idea was because it would provide an opportunity to revisit some of the places I first saw in 1951! I was 15 at the time and though rather poor my parents scraped together enough funds to send me on a student exchange visit as part of a programme agreed between the City Councils of Bristol and Bordeaux.

So, I lived en-famille, with the Saint-Supéry's who had a flat in central Bordeaux and a holiday chalet near Cap Ferret on the shores of the Bassin d'Arcachon. It was a wonderful experience and has remained with me for the rest of my life – though sadly I have lost most of the fluent French I acquired at the time..

LE MÉDOC

I tried to make an expedition to the west from Créon thinking of going first to St Éstephe in the Médoc (the region north of Bordeaux between the Gironde Estuary and the Atlantic Coast) because the red wine produced there is one of my favourites. The traffic going was bad and returning even worse, rivalling the slow moving long tail-backs of the M25 around London.

Nor did I discover the quiet and attractive cycle paths I had been hoping to find with suburbs and dormitory towns a long way North from the city. I did eventually reach a slightly more rural area around another famous region for “Les Grands Vins” at Margaux, still some way short of St Éstephe. Here are a couple of photos from that area.

Vineyards Near Margaux

La Gironde Estuary is Wide and Muddy

ARCACHON

I ended up staying longer than intended at Créon due to a dental problem. A tooth suddenly started hurting very badly. The campsite manager made an appointment for me with a local dentist who diagnosed a broken root causing the tooth to wobble about on the remaining one whilst grating away on the broken one. No wonder it hurt!

But he wouldn't extract it on the spot saying he needed a full blood analysis first and prescribing an antibiotic, a mouthwash and painkillers. So, I had to wait over a weekend, get blood samples taken on the Monday and attend a second appointment with a different dentist on the Wednesday (the first was on holiday by then).

To occupy myself at the weekend I made the expedition into Lot et Garonne recorded below.

The dentist for the second appointment successfully extracted both the broken root and the remains of the tooth, told me not to take the antibiotic because no infection was present and said stop the mouthwash too – and I only needed one of the painkillers of the many the first dentist prescribed.

But as a precaution I thought it prudent to stay in the area for a couple of days longer in case any complications developed and that gave me an opportunity to visit the Bassin d'Arcachon after all even though it required a long drive there and back totalling about 100 miles for what turned out to be a ride of only some 7-8 miles. Still, I had a good lunch there too.

On the outward drive I chose to go to Arcachon Town instead of Cap Ferret as it was closer, and also to reach it by using the main roads including the Motorway around Bordeaux.

I came to the conclusion traffic on that motorway has just two speeds – DEAD SLOW – and DEAD DANGEROUS. I suppose there is also one I'd call – DEAD DEAD – when fatal accidents occur.

Trucks probably didn't exceed 60 mph very often, except when moving into the second lane to overtake one of their kind. But cars were mostly travelling at the speed limit of 80 mph.

The tricky bit was that they were about 20 feet apart and if I tried to establish a longer distance a car in an adjacent lane would signal and change lanes to occupy the space in front of me once I had achieved a gap of about 25 ft.

I chose to return by a cross-country route on slower but quieter roads.

The morning started with a thick mist obscuring the sky and that lasted very nearly all the way until I was within a few km of Arcachon at about noon. Then the mist cleared completely and led to a somewhat chilly but beautiful afternoon with a completely clear blue sky.

The cycle path I chose to join ran immediately past the beach-side café at which I had lunch. Here is a map of my ride.

Cycle Path at Arcachon

The cycle path here is set back a little from the promenade and has more twists and turns as it climbs up and down short rises at the foot of the hills on which pine trees grow.

Promenade and Beach at Arcachon

Somewhat disappointingly the path doesn't stay adjacent to the beach as one goes south but dives into suburban streets in the upmarket and contiguous but separate town of Pyla-sur-Mer.

Arcachon and Pyla are yet another example of the Brighton-Hove type with the first being densely built and having plenty of entertainments and the second having large detached properties and being much more discreet. I even saw a branch of Sothebys Estate Agency along the way. But the cycle path is still a proper one rather than just a narrow line at the side of a busy road so it was OK to ride along without too much worry about being knocked over.

It was also quite popular with other cyclists, mostly of the leisurely or family group type as the Lycra Clad sporty types seemed to prefer the main roadway.

Every now and again there was a short offshoot road leading to the beach. Here is a photo of one looking across the narrow mouth of the Bassin to Cap Ferret on the far side.

Looking across Bassin d'Arcachon to Cap Ferret

The return journey via country roads took me through more Pine Forests for which this district – Les Landes de Gascoigne – is famous, and was successful in reducing the amount of traffic encountered until I reached the Graves vineyards – perhaps the area originally planted by the Romans though the growers of Margaux also claim that distinction.

By then it was around 17:30 so I was caught up in the evening rush hour – especially in a queue on the bridge over the Garonne at Langoiran during which I took these two photos.

La Garonne in the evening sun

Langoiran from the bridge