Wandering Around the Vercors Massif

Zagan the motorhome has the wiff of tarmac wafting from his chassis, as he recovers from his slightly traumatic 30 minute drive this morning. He’s in the free aire at La Chapelle-en-Vercors (N44.96834, E5.41680) which is just a small car park next to the Hotel de Ville (town hall) and curiously, in front of the local campsite where motorhomes have paid to park.

I woke up a couple of times in the night at our previous parking spot by the church in Rochechinard. There wasn’t a light to be seen or a sound to be heard (other than Charlie’s snoring). It was a beautiful place which begged to be explored, so in the morning we walked up to the ruined medieval chateau which had watched over us all night.

It looks like it’s all rock, but there’s a chateau perched on top of it.

The weather forecast for this area shows little black clouds and bolts of lightning for most days, these symbols had almost put us off coming to this part of France, but we’re now getting to the swing of things weather-wise. Those big black clouds do loom overhead for a lot of the time, but the rain only comes in short showers, mainly in the late afternoon or early evening and the thunder rumbles are often way off in the distance. When the clouds clear there’s a burst of blue sky and things heat up. If we plan to do anything, as long as it’s not raining first thing, we get out and do it before the heat hits.

The chateau reminded us both of the Cathars Castles we visited near the French Pyrenees, and as we walked along we discussed if the folks here knew of them and vice versa. Obviously we have no idea of the timelines, but both sets of people had built decent-sized castles in seemingly impossible places, which blended in so well that they looked just like the rock walls around them.

As we neared the chateau there were hand-written signs saying it was an archaeological site, and as we reached it we could see it was under going some much-needed restoration work. It was both sad and unusual to see something like this in this state of disrepair, but at least something is (or was) being done about it – there is very little sign of active work there at the moment. We looked around what little we could as it was mainly fenced off, and drunk in the views out across the Vercors, before heading back to Zagan.

Can you spot Zagan?

After showers all round we set off down to the nearby town of St Jean-en-Royans where there is a free aire and service point (N45.02020, E5.29050). Arriving just after noon and finding some shade to park in, we rewarded ourselves for our morning walk with lunch out in the town.

Motorhome parking St Jean en Royans

We walked along the main street and picked a cafe which had a menu du jour advertised outside and didn’t list pizza as its main offering. We haven’t eaten out for a while, as I don’t count the two hour McDonalds we had while the garage was closed for lunch, so I was really looking forward to it. Once again I wasn’t disappointed. For €14.50 each we had three courses and each was simple, but delicious food – so I make no apologies for the food photos!

Pate Croute Richelieu

Joue de Boeuf en Daube Provencale (beef cheeks in stew)

Ice cream for me (I was full but there is always room for ice cream) and we think Jay’s was apricot cake.

With full tummies we headed back towards Zagan. I nipped into the Tourist Office and picked up some leaflets about cycling in the area, from a lady who used to live in Grantham – it’s a small world, and got back just before the first rain shower of the day. It rained on and off for most of the afternoon, so the three of us chilled out in Zagan and listened to the super loud splots hitting the roof from the tree we had sought shade under. By nightfall there were four other vans in the aire, all French apart from us.

First thing this morning Jay was up and at ’em. Armed with the map I got from the tourist office yesterday, he set off on our bike to tackle the Combe Laval. I got a couple of reassuring texts, letting me know he had reached the top and then again when he was on his way back down – which was much quicker than getting up there I am assured.

We were tempted to stay at St Jean, but as we’d already looked around the place we decided to move. We had originally planned to stay at least two days in every place on this trip, but as the town we were heading for was less than 20 kilometres away, it hardly felt like moving on. I also thought we might have an easier drive on the gorge road on a weekday – I suspect come the weekend it’s busy with cyclists.

Reaching the start of the Petit Goulets we were reassured by traffic lights and a large tunnel. This road would have led us to the Grands Goulets, another amazing balcony road which was built between 1844 and 1851. Sadly due to a number of people being killed on the road (we think by rock falls as opposed to bad driving), it was closed to vehicles and pedestrian in 2005 (although there’s zero chance Zagan would have fitted down it anyway). We knew that the balcony road had been by-passed with a tunnel, but we still got to go through a few little tunnels and cut out rock face that made us duck down inside the cab.

About half way up the road we were stopped by a chap with a stop/go sign – human traffic lights. A series for cars came through from the other side and he turned his board around to green, indicating that we needed to keep right going up the road. On the left side of the road was a new strip of tarmac, can you see what coming next?

Leading a convoy of cars we reached a narrowing part of the road only to find ourselves faced with the tarmac laying machine. It was coming towards us, going slowly, but on our side of the road. Dodging cones we gingerly moved over to the left hand side of the road and I leaned out of my window to help guide Jay through. We’d only inches to spare between a stone wall and the huge tarmac machine, but it was great to see the liquid tarmac sloshing around in the back of the machine before being laid beautifully flat onto the road behind it. Relieved to be through the gap in one piece, and not thinking at all, we returned to the right hand side of the road. Seconds later one of the chaps laying the tarmac let out a yell – yes we were now driving on the stuff they had just laid…

It all happened so quickly and we have no idea if the convoy followed us, but more cone dodging got us back on to the slightly less fresh black stuff on the left hand side of the road. Was the yell to save Zagan from a new paint job, or to save us from tearing up his Friday afternoon tarmac? We’ll never know, perhaps both. With Zagan’s tyres now making a new squelching noise as they made contact with the road, we pulled over at the first opportunity to find a light splattering of tarmac on everything up to about 50cm from the floor. Arriving at the aire we set to work on the worst affect and most visible parts, getting as much off as we could while it was still wet. It’s amazing what a sponge and Lidl antibacterial wipes will shift!

It’s 5pm on Friday afternoon and the heavens have just opened. Jay just made it back from the boulangerie in time and Zagan is getting an extra rinse on his newly de-tarmacced parts. Time to open a bottle of wine and welcome the weekend me thinks. Have a great one, whatever you are doing.

Ju x

Bonus photos – we’ve been treated to some amazing bird song here in the Vercours. Here are a couple of the culprits, especially for Jay’s Dad.