In praise of Burgundy

Monday 19th September 2011

Camping les Ceriselles
Route de Vincelotte
89290 Vincelles
www.campingceriselles.com
camping@cc-payscoulangeois.fr
11 euros per night

This is the cheapest and the best site so far. It’s adjacent to the Canal du Nivernais, which is very beautiful. The pitches are a bit small and we had trouble parking Dorothy but some obliging Dutch people gave us such a mighty shove I nearly ended up flattened into the hedge like a pressed flower (who am I kidding?) They’re very hearty, the Dutch. The showers, washing up sinks etc. are blissfully clean – quite a relief after the last place. The reception staff speak better English than I speak French so it was all most relaxing. There’s even a good little supermarket close by so all in all, it looks like being a relaxing few days. Fingers crossed.

Laundry Day!

We cycled into town to find a restaurant wherein to celebrate my birthday tomorrow. Only found a mildly grotty one where we stopped for a beer. On the way back we saw a sign for an auberge so investigated that. It looked quite charming so we decided on that for my birthday lunch.


Tuesday 20th September 2011

Happy Birthday to me. We got all dressed up in clean and respectable clothes and cycled to the restaurant for lunch. But it was closed! Can you believe it? So we cycled all the way to Auxerre. Kim said it was 6 kilometres. 6 kilometres my arse. It turned out to be 8 miles, some of which were along a busy road. By the time we got there, all the restaurants had stopped serving lunch! Who do they think they are? Brits? Words were exchanged. Atmospherics! So I ended up with a supermarket tuna sandwich, eaten on a bench. It was such a revolting sandwich, I shared most of it with the ducks. As a consolation prize, Kim cooked the dinner. I should think so too.

The ride alongside the canal (aside from the bit where we had to go onto the road) was really lovely. It’s a beautiful area and very peaceful.

Friday 23rd September 2011

We cycled to Vermenton along the towpath. Unfortunately, to get into town, we had to push the bikes along a stony little path, which played hell with my gammy ankle. Much whining and moaning. We found a bar, which cheered me up a bit, and had a natter with an Australian couple, who’d bought a share in a boat with four other couples. What a long way to come for a holiday!

Accolay - where the Canal de Nivernais runs alongside the river Yonne

Cravant - where the branch to
Vermenton joins the main line
of the Canal de Nivernais.

Vermenton

Saturday 24th September 2011

We tried to buy beef in the supermarket so I could make a pan of scouse. We spied a likely looking chunk of what looked like topside so I asked the butcher to cut me a thick slice. (Une grande trenche. What a star I am.) No way! ‘This beef has to be cut into thin slices,’ he said. ‘I want one thick slice,’ I said. ‘Bugger off, you English Philistine,’ he said. (Something like that, anyway.) So I had to give in and settle for two thin slices. It was probably some special cut and if he’d known I was going to make stew with it he would have had a heart attack or something.

NB: French butchers wear the most adorable off the shoulder white pinnies and are usually most obliging. I’ve found butchers in any language to be exceedingly jovial. Why would this be, given the gruesome nature of their trade?

Sunday 25th September 2011

Very hot today so we mooched about doing not very much except tidying up and putting away for departure tomorrow. There’s a poor lady here whose husband collapsed outside the supermarket ten days ago and has been languishing in hospital ever since. She came and had a few drinks with us to cheer herself up. They’ve fitted him with a pacemaker and she hopes he’ll be discharged tomorrow. She’s been having a rotten time arguing the toss with the insurance company. She wouldn’t stay for dinner as she’d had an excellent lunch at the hospital for 8 euros. Not Nasty Health food then!

We’ll be sorry to leave here. It’s a fabulous site (and cheap!) and the area is lovely. But we need to make a move and start heading north. Perhaps we’ll come back next year.

PS: Re the above lady with the poorly husband – they let him out of hospital and she brought him back to their caravan. Green Flag sent a driver to tow them safely home but when he got there, he decided the caravan was too heavy to be covered on his insurance. The husband thought, sod this for a game of conkers, and drove them home himself, while the poor lady had a mini nervous breakdown until they got into their own front door. I’m not surprised. This information was gathered via email, which is a wonderful invention sometimes.