Rouen, Reflexia and the Open Road
page 4 of 5
by Peter Gumbrell, 22 December 2008
continued from part 3 - click here to go to the start of the article
Toulouse had been bitterly cold during my two-night stay, with sleet falling by day and temperatures plummeting further by night, which didn't offer the best opportunity to appreciate what is probably by summer a very attractive city. I continued my journey east towards Montpellier, reckoning that this day's travelling wouldn't be nearly so long as most of the others until now, and that I should reach the city on the south coast by mid-afternoon. I'd rather ruled out the possibility of accidentally driving dozens of miles in the wrong direction.
I had another panic episode after leaving Toulouse way behind and realising my fuel gauge was hopelessly to the left, and that there were no filling stations anywhere for many miles. Eventually I took a road undocumented in my three-year-old French road atlas, following a private sign I'd seen further back down the route promising the riches of oil if I took a turn a little less obvious at the next roundabout. It lived up to its hype and my car must have felt the same wave of relief that a human feels when emptying themselves of their own fuel after a long wait. However, it wasn't my road atlas that was to blame for the next incident around the neighbouring towns of Aussillon and Mazamet, where for some reason I began believing that I was following signs for Carcassonne rather than for Béziers. It wasn't until half an hour later that I realised something was amiss, and I pulled over several times to check my location and think of a way out of the mess I'd got myself into.
The road had evidently become more wiggly than I would have expected, and began winding up through steep hills, eventually leading into lush white snowy forests of pine trees. It was a beautiful drive, if somewhat hazardous, and I was starting to suspect that sticking to this route was going to lead me into problems as the road surface became more white than black, and few vehicles passed in the opposite direction. The first photo above was taken when I emerged from this wilderness into an open plain with expansive views across to the distant Pyrenees in the south. So what were these hills I was passing through if they were not the Pyrenees? My atlas informed me that I was deep within an area known as the 'Montagne Noire', and that the only sensible thing to do would be to retreat northwards and correct my earlier mistake. But I didn't want to do that, I'm not a man for giving in without a fight!
Knowing full well that what I was beginning to plot would only lead me into further trouble, I picked out a route using smaller roads that traversed the Montagne Noire, back to the point I should have been aiming at in the first place. There was a strong chance that these roads would be blocked or too dangerous to drive on, but I couldn't resist the bait. At the uncomfortably named village of Villegailhenc I got all mixed up on a tiny track that led me through ever more unlikely and narrow surroundings, and eventually into somebody's back garden with the dog. Then I weaved my way through a fantastic mixture of vineyards and pretty villages, before ascending once more the Black Mountain and delving further into the heart of darkness. Dramatic settlements clung to the gorges at Citou, before I took the bendy road up the mountainside at Lespinassière (below).
From this point on, the road became very narrow, and very icy, and I could just feel the wheels on my R4 almost starting to give a few times when I strayed off any previous tyre tracks and over the icier strips. This was now starting to get dodgy and the steep drops at the side of the road were not always protected by a barrier. One false move here and I'd have been a snowball. I dropped down into second and then into first gear, noticing that five, ten, fifteen or more minutes had now passed since anybody dared meet me in the opposite direction.
The next village was a long way away, especially at ten kilometres per hour, and I wondered how much provisions the people in these parts have to stock up with before each winter. A dog came bounding out of one very isolated cottage, and I felt sorry to let it down by not stopping, since I probably represented its highlight of the day. When I stopped to take the pictures displayed here, I crossed to the verge on the other side of the road and my leg sunk down in the snow beyond the knee.
Driving in these sorts of conditions causes all the muscles of the body to tense up in anticipation of the faintest skid, and has bad effects on the stomach if it continues for prolonged periods. I know that only too well from a driving job I did several years earlier during the thick of winter, in which I had to cross the Peak District in England every day in a Transit van. The vehicle was rear-wheel drive and ill-equipped for the conditions, and I found myself spinning off the dual carriageway near Stoke on one icy morning. Even at just a few miles per hour, the van would totally lose its grip at any moment and have me emulating Torville and Dean in remote countryside spots. Try doing that for eleven hours a day, six days a week and your stomach soon turns to squid. By contrast, the Renault 4 was handling everything remarkably well, and although the difference between front and rear-wheel drive is totally lost on me, I knew that something about the R4's high ground clearance and the additional gearbox weight at the front of the car balancing the luggage load in my boot, was keeping me on track better than some cars might manage. I dare say such things as the car's front-wheel drive and its high torque also have some bearing on the matter, but I'm no expert at such mechanical melancholy.
I had now detoured for over two hours, and was relieved (yet also somehow disappointed) when the snow began ebbing away and the road carved a path downwards to less frostbitten pastures. In fact, within half an hour I was back on the main road and would never have known what conditions I'd been in before from looking at the view around me (below).
There followed a long, enjoyable descent towards the town of Béziers, populated by more and more Renault 4s both at the roadside and in motion. Whilst passing through one town, an F4 van came into sight ahead of me and another saloon pulled out behind, creating a coincidental convoy of three Renault 4s in succession. I muttered something to myself about Renault 4s ruling the world and sat at the wheel with satisfaction, whereupon a fourth came past us in the opposite direction and another was parked alongside. For other drivers and pedestrians we must have looked like a bunch of stubborn, unyielding owners who outright refused to move with the times and replace our cars with something more modern. Or perhaps we just looked French.
The route then swung north-eastwards towards Montpellier, first diverting towards the coastal town of Mèze, where I stopped for a pastry and ended up with a banana, such is the particular nature of the French that they daren't sell something that belongs in a pastry shop inside a supermarket, and vice versa. In fact, coastal town is probably inaccurate, since the place is cut off from the wilds of the sea by the Bassin de Thau. Nevertheless, there were many more R4s to be seen in these parts, more than in any other slice of the country I was to pass through. For a few dazzling moments, everywhere I looked were Quatrelles peeping out and flitting across junctions ahead and in my mirrors. It was like a meat market discothèque only with metallic, insentient (controversial), rustic, ageing and humble little vehicles in place of the sweating, aching, searching, pulsating hormonal teenagers of the Ritzy nightclub. I felt like I was on the lookout for others of my type, on the pull for a motor like my own.
Cooling myself down I returned to the road north, reaching Montpellier at dusk - and at rush hour - a few hours later than planned. The ring road continually frustrated me and threw me off down places I didn't want to go, due to late lane markings and last-minute signs that forbode me from switching amidst heavy traffic. The circuit it led me on took me what seemed like almost 360 degrees around the city before letting me get closer and indicating that my entrance to the Centre Historique was now permitted. Once into the heart of this medina-like core, I became lost on one-way circuits and eventually dived down into a car park under Gambetta to get away from it all. An hour and a half walking around the centre had already shown me most of what the city had to offer. In many parts it was very attractive, a little like an alternative version of Aix-en-Provence but on a larger scale. However, I then needed to find my way to the FastHotel in the city's outskirts, and petrol was running thin again. By the time I figured out the directions I only just made it to a garage, but one that had no Super 98, so I had to settle for a few euros' worth of the regular version and hope to top up with better stuff later on. The motel was located out in a dingy industrial area beside a pallet truck warehouse, near the airport. Hooray. Just what I'd be needing for a good night's sleep after another long day on the road.
Later that evening, I decided to return to the city centre as it was about the only place I was likely to find any food. As I neared the turn-off from the dual carriageway, I tried to memorise the location so that I wouldn't get lost again reaching the hotel on the way back. I needn't have bothered. I'd always thought my sense of direction was pretty good, but this city baffled me like nowhere else on Earth. In fact, I began to believe that Montpellier might be the portal to another dimension because all logic flew out of the window in trying to find my way around - and into - the city. Even when I followed the same roads as earlier, they would lead me underground, past a subterranean car park, and back out again in the wrong direction. Common sense would dictate that when following a ring-road anti-clockwise, taking a turn left at some point will dig you closer to the centre of the city, but not so here. Whatever I tried to do, I found myself heading back out of the city on a complex system of roads that seems to have been expertly engineered to prevent any cars ever getting anywhere near it.
The city itself isn't even very big, and I exhausted just about every road and lane at each junction that there was, yet every time I was deposited somewhere previously unexplored and illogically far away. When I finally found a road that came into the city through the grand arch at one end, my path was blocked by rising bollards that required a ticket. It was a full hour and a quarter of violent thrashing around the weird road system before I got to where I wanted to be, back at Gambetta and in search of oriental take-aways. I charged on foot through the myriad alleys and narrow streets of the historic centre, and finally found a Chinese restaurant that was small and, worryingly, empty, unlike the many buzzing pizza and other establishments I'd passed. I had been dreaming of a chow mein since arriving at the hotel, and nothing else was going to satisfy me. I entered the restaurant, made my order and paid, then watched a cockroach scuttle across the floor whilst I was waiting. Montpellier wasn't the town for me.
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