Campervan Therapy

Weaving down through the Pyrenees from the Somport Tunnel is stunning, under cliffs and through gorges, vultures swooping above and the rushing River Gave d’Aspe.

When the mountains give way to rolling hills and fertile fields, the vineyards appear. We stop in Aire-sur-L’Adour’s Camping Les Ombrage de L’Adour, beside the lazy, green river, the ancient stone bridge festooned with pink geraniums.

The town is full of pastel painted houses, pantile roofs and comes complete with cathedral, covered market place, ancient churches, convents and monasteries, which provided shelter to pilgrims on the Camino to Santiago, for a fee, which probably proved to be a savvy financial move in the Medieval Ages.

The bunting is cheerful, but it’s sad to see so many empty shops in the town. We follow the pilgrim’s route to the Cathedral, which is a feast for the eyes – the renovated frescoes ensure the church is a riot of rich colour, heavenly clouds, star-spangled skies, and a host of saints.

The gargoyle capitals on the columns breathe their ire down at all sinners and we decide it’s time to bow out.

Up the hill, still on the Camino, there’s the old château and another ancient pilgrim church.

There’s many once grand limestone houses in town. The campsite stands beside the bull-ring and statue of Ivan Fandino, the Basque born bull-fighter, who was gored by a bull, becoming the first matador to die in France in a century.

The next day sees us roll into Fouras-les-Bains, a peninsula in Charente Maritime, where we last camped 30 years ago, in our battered caravan, pulled by an equally battered Vauxhall Cavalier, with towels hanging from the windows to shield our two small children from the sun.

Even the drive to Fouras holds surprises. At the Aire de Pierre de Crazannes, on the A837, there’s a sculptor carving a cherub who is riding what looks like a lion from a massive column of limestone. Apart from anything, I’m obsessed that shards of limestone are shooting at the sculptor, his eyes unprotected, as he chisels the rock.

Inside there’s a free museum dedicated to the now disused quarry, which also offers tours of the massive site. The quarried rock had the perfect transport system, loaded onto flat bottomed barges on the nearby River Charente. The museum is what I love about surprise finds as we ramble around in the van.

Fouras-les-Bains has miles of shoreline walking and cycling tracks, by the most romantic of fishing platforms, topped with sheds, huge nets strung from the end of the platforms. The shoreline is scented with sea-fennel and lavender.

The town’s roads are lined with cerise flowering crape myrtle trees.  I love those French seaside houses, with little stone balconies and often idiosyncratic turrets. We head for the church steeple, guessing that’ll be the centre of the action, and it is, strollers, browsers, ice-cream and gift shops.

In Galet Bleu we feast on griddled octopus on a bed of potatoes and summer vegetables stewed in olive oil before we explore the Fouras fort on the promenade, the stout edifice built to defend the Charente estuary, and tax the river users, on the site of what was once a Roman castrum.