1000 Turns to An Olive Farm in Trouillas, France
Zagan the motorhome has the Everest-like shadow of the Pic du Canigou looming in his passenger window, the descending sun’s lighting clouds above it blood red as though it’s gone volcanic in rage. We’re back in the bosom of France, ensconced behind the buildings of a fabulous motorhome-hugging, olive farming family in Trouillas, Langedoc-Roussillon, south of France (N42.61506 E2.81487).
Cost to stay here: nowt. We’ve got WiFi here and are listening to Drive Time on Radio 2, which is just awesome when you’ve nowhere to drive, and don’t much give a monkey’s what the traffic’s doing. Apparently there are problems on the M1 southbound. Hmmmm, it all sounds surreal from where I’m sitting.
Our view of the Pic du Canigou to the West. At least we think it’s the Pic du Canigou, it could be K2 for all we know…
Whatever it is, I had a great view of it from my window earlier!
Utter silence. I woke up in the night in the cove where Dali did much of his incredible work (even if I did once decide I’d rather sup wheat beer than go see it, ahem). Silence. Nothing. Even Charlie had called a temporary halt on his snoring. This entirely natural state of affairs, like utter darkness on a moonless night, feels anything but natural after years of living an urban life. It’s unnerving, but also quite sensational and liberating. I imagined Dali waking up to the same nothingness a few meters to my right, his tinder-dry imagination allowed to fire.
As we left the car park this morning, with me wondering aloud at Zagan’s ability to hover over the potholes while having zero ground clearance, Ju pointed out a Maserati had made it up and down the same track yesterday, so we should too. I just looked it up: Maserati are owned by Fiat, and Zagan’s based on a Fiat chassis, which kind of makes Zagan a Maserati Motorhome?
Zagan floated over these bumps. Sweet.
Confession: I’m supping beer as I tap this out. Argus Original: Lidl’s finest at roughly 30p a pint. Reason: why not? It is, apparently, Wednesday night. I’m not much fussed what night it is. Anyone who’s out here doing this stuff, roaming about for months surely ends up in the same position. It doesn’t matter if it’s mid-week, Friday, Sunday night. There’s none of that ‘thank the gods it’s Friday’ stuff, every day in Zagan world is a Saturday. Come on in folks, the water is lovely.
Back on track, sorry, sorry. We made a half-hearted attempt to get to the Cap de Creus as we ventured out of Portlligat. The first ‘no motorhomes’ sign was ignored. The second one was accompanied by a rapidly narrowing road and we bottled it. Neither of us much fancied the walk, partly down to the thick cloud above, so we spun Zagan and headed back through Cadaqués, and along the white roads out of there. Rocket-powered fruit delivery vans flashed past, unaware of the ‘dentist drill’ effect they were having on my nerves. I can judge Zagan’s width quite well on straight roads, down to a few inches, but I use ‘markers’ on the windscreen to do it, which don’t work on corners. The road out of Cadaqués is about 98% corner. Much flinching ensued.
About 1000 bends later we rounded the 1001st corner to find a star-spangled FRANCIA sign. Zagan reared up in fear but we managed to calm him down and rest him up on an adjacent laybye and nip out for a look. Recent terrorist events in Paris had caused France’s borders to be bristling with machine gun toting police, maybe in a great show of Security Theatre? Our passports had been routed out and were ready-ish to be shown. We eye-balled the graffiti covered border crossing from a distance; it looked vacant. Hmmm. No excitement there, so we went off for a look around.
Nothing doing at the French border.
We were at France’s most southerly border cross in the Pyrenees – any further south and you’d be swimming. To one side of the road stood stacked stone blocks. The words cut in it ran with red paint. A nearby sign explained: it was a monument put up by the Franco regime to declare victory over the awkward Catalans. I’m surprised it’s still standing.
More signs illustrated what took place once Franco finally crushed the Catalans: exodus. About half a million people fled, or tried to. The border remained closed for a while and people waited along the road where we were parked. Eventually they were allowed through. 100,000 of them ended up in the French concentration camp at Argelès-sur-Mer. France was completely overwhelmed by the scale of the refugee crisis.
On we rolled, down into France. After about an hour Ju recovered from he fact we’d not managed to do a final Spanish supermarket shop in the border-side tiny sea-facing Catalan towns as we edged north (more paella spice, lager, wine and tinto de verano), and we hit a dual carriageway, zipping along to here.
Couldn’t help but spot this as we nipped past…
Where’s ‘here’? We’re at La Ferme de al Canterrane, which grows olives, and presses them into oil. They provide a cracking motorhome parking area on the vague assumption you’ll buy some of their stuff (if you know the France Passion scheme you’ll know what I’m on about). It’s a win-win situation. As we arrived one of the family nipped out and handed us a leaflet in English explaining where all the facilities are: parking, the laundrette, kitchen, shower, toilets, water, tyre air, loo emptying spot. Sweet!
Ju’s empted our ‘person sized’ bag of washing (paying the money into an honesty box) and we’ve hammered the freebie WiFi. In returned we’ve bought some top-quality oil from the shop. We feel safe and welcome. Pass me another Argus!
Cheers, Jay
Wonderful!
How do you find such lovely places to stay? Must consider French Passion for our trip next year.
Hey Paul – found this puppy on Park4night.com mate – great resource! The France Passion book is cracking though – well worth it as long as you’re happy to pay a few € to kip (the system only works if we buy some stuff to pay our way). Cheers, Jay
I could almost not watch the video for wanting to get up and go to France! Thanks for putting it up. How fabulous to have the freedom to travel around like that – waiting for April is getting difficult now. Is France your favourite country for touring? Do you have a favourite?
Best,
Robina
Hey Robina – no favourites – or too many of them. La France is the easiest country though, perhaps followed up by Germany – aires and stellplatz everywhere! Tons of places to stay all over Europe though – although fewer in the old Eastern bloc countries at the mo. Cheers, soon be April! Jay
You don’t often see a mini-digger & washing machines in the same shot! Nice clip. It’s a good job they don’t grow grapes & make wine too (Winking smile) I’m on Argus Negra tonight too…Salute!!!
Love reading about your adventures and are getting lots of tips for our upcoming trip into Spain. Not sure if you remember us from a few years ago but at that stage we were just starting to plan our departure from Australia and our Motorhome adventure. Partly thanks to your old posts we have been travelling through Europe for the last eight months are currently in Germany heading south. Looking forward to your upcoming posts.
Hi guys, great to hear from you again! Wonderful to read you’re over here (up here?) doing it, good for you guys. Will have a look at your blog too when I’m back in the UK. Thanks for the comment, it means a lot to us when folks the time to let us know we might have helped in some small way, much appreciated.
Where are you guys planning on over-wintering? If you’re staying in the Alps we might see you in 2016!
Cheers, Jay