Bonne Année!
In France and most of Europe the main celebration is usually on the evening of Christmas Eve, with families either celebrating at home or at a restaurant. For our first Christmas in France we decided to have a quiet evening at home on Christmas Eve and to go out for lunch on Christmas Day. Oysters, other seafood and foie gras are typical menu items and the markets and shops are full of those products. Christmas and New Year is one of the busiest times of the year for oyster producers but, unfortunately, the producers in what is probably our nearest coastal area in the Arcachon basin near Bordeaux were stopped from selling their products after people fell ill with gastroenteritis, traced back to the oysters. Oysters aren’t something we would have chosen to eat anyway, so we enjoyed scallops and prawns at home as well as some ‘Bûche de Noël’, a Christmas log but in lots of flavours other than the traditional chocolate.
For Christmas Day a traditional late Christmas lunch was served at a restaurant in a village about 30 minutes from us where we joined about 20 other mainly expats. We discovered that a several well-known names (well to those of a certain age at least) have been attracted to this area in the past. Roger Whittaker, who passed away last autumn, lived in our nearest market village for a number of years until his death and Windsor Davies apparently also lived near our village. One of our fellow guests at lunch was a very interesting, if not eccentric, woman, the daughter of David Garnett who was a member of the Bloomsbury set and had some somewhat scandalous episodes in his life. He was also the author of the novel ‘Aspects of Love’ on which the successful Andrew Lloyd Webber musical was based and, on the back of the royalties from the show, the family was able to buy a house in France and continue to live here. We were very well looked after by our hosts for a long and leisurely afternoon.
One of our plans when moving to France was to continue to use our campervan and travel to other parts of Europe. (Getting it registered here is taking some time and navigation of French bureaucracy, but that’s another story!) We had thought about spending a few months in Spain or Portugal in the colder winter months and certainly still plan to do that. However, we realised that it’s not feasible this year to be away for that amount of time because we have so many admin things on the boil at present and need to be around to provide documents, receive post, etc. Nevertheless we figured that there wasn’t going to be much going on between Christmas and New Year so we headed off on Boxing Day to the Costa Brava on the other side of the France-Spain border. We bypassed that area as we headed south when we last visited Spain and we were very pleasantly surprised by our visit there this time, as well as enjoying being ‘back on the road’ again.
We weren’t expecting the warm temperatures of southern Spain but we still had sunshine every day and it was warm enough to sit outside at cafes and restaurants and do some lovely coastal walks, visiting small villages and beautiful coves and beaches. The area was popular with artists such as Salvador Dali, Picasso and Chagall and our first stopover after crossing the border was at the pretty whitewashed coastal village of Cadaqués. From our base we walked to Portlligat where Dalí and his wife had a permanent residence for more than 50 years. Today the small collection of houses are home to a museum and galleries. We also did a coastal path walk to Cadaqués itself and beyond along the headland. We were surprised see how lively and busy all of this area of coastline was in mid-winter with most restaurants and shops open. That said, there are very few campsites open so most of our trip was spent at off-grid spots – one of the advantages of travelling in low season.
From Cadaqués we had to head inland to get further south along and the coast and we stopped at Figueres to have a look at the old town and the remarkable Salvador Dali museum which dominates the entrance to the old town.
Heading back to the coast we stopped for a few days at the small village of Llafranc with its beautiful sandy beach. Another scenic coastal path walk took us to Calella de Palafrugell, another beautiful fishing village and cove where we enjoyed a traditional Spanish seafood and rice dish sitting alongside the beach.
Following the coastal road south took us to our most southerly stop at Tossa de Mar, a medieval walled seaside town. The town is also known for the statue of Ava Gardner, looking out over the amazing views from the old town. She starred in the 1950 film ‘Pandora and the Flying Dutchman’ set in Tossa de Mar and made the former sleepy village a popular tourist destination. We saw in the New Year on the beach at the foot of the old town with a handful of other revellers.
As we travelled back home we made an overnight stop at another very impressive medieval town at Besalú, obviously very popular with Spanish visitors. From there it was only about a 4 hour drive home, so this is an area that we’ll certainly look forward to visiting again for a short break.
