St Nectaire

(John) November 6

Back on the road and we had a small problem.  To find our gîte in St Nectaire today we needed the phone number for the gîte owner’s daughter, which was only on an email.  The computer was very low in power, as we didn’t plug it in properly last night to recharge.  Plan A: find a MacDonald’s and the relevant email correspondence, then use our cell phone to call the lady in question.  Problem is, when we eventually found a MacDonald’s it was already 1:00 pm and we were supposed to call around noon.  Then the Wi-Fi at MacDonald’s was not working.  We managed to plug in for a while though.  We also discovered that our minutes in the cell phone had timed out.  In the end, we pulled up to the Mercure Hotel in St-Nectaire and Lesley turned on the charm once again.  We got to use the hotel’s Wi-Fi and their phone and were able to contact and arrange a rendezvous with the gîte owner’s daughter.  All’s well that ends well.  We are in the gîte in St-Nectaire.  Wi-Fi would be a bonus but we will hunt some down to check e-mails soon.  If you are reading this, we have found Wi-Fi.

(John) November 8

So we are in a gîte – nothing new there.  This one is not bad.  It has everything we need and there is plenty to do in the vicinity.  

St Nectaire is a bustling spa resort full of happy holidaymakers taking in the sights, relaxing in the spa waters, sampling the local cheese and generally enjoying life -Except in November.  In November, St-Nectaire is dead.  Not completely dead though.  There are still things open, but we do seem to be the only people here. 

We tried to drive to Mont Dore today, a big hiking and ski place.  We got to the top of the first major pass and encountered a blizzard.  The road was covered with snow so we pulled into the parking lot of a bar.  Sam said “I can’t believe they put a bar on top of the mountain”.  Then I walked down the road to see if it got any better the other side of the pass.  Mhari tried to follow me but was turned back by the blowing gale.  She had trouble getting back into the car for all the fighting the wind she had to do to open the door.  When I turned around to come back to the car, which was about 15 metres away it had disappeared.  Luckily, I could just make out the bar and headed for it.  Thankfully, the car and my very excited family was where I had left them.  As these roads are on steep slopes and we only have summer tires we chickened out and drove back.  Man that was fun! 

November 9

The weather has been horrible - cold and wet - but we were determined to go for a walk.  Even through the driving sleet it is obvious that this is a stunningly beautiful part of the world, and we aren’t going to stay indoors hiding from the rain and snow.  With some info from a very pleasant tourist office lady that Lesley met and a nice new map, we drove to find a place called Lake Pavin.  We encountered more snow and wind but with a dwindling gas tank we eventually found the start of the short hike.  Like St-Nectaire, Lake Pavin is a hive of activity, usually.  Today – not so much.  The bar and restaurant alongside the Lake, that tantalizingly advertised a special meal that included a bottle of Tour de France wine from July 10, 2008, was closed for the season and the row boats for hire were obviously not.  

We donned all our clothes and our most sensible shoes and we completed our stroll with nothing more than wet feet to complain about.  Not that we were.  It was a beautiful tour of a deep volcanic lake, with high cliff sides just beyond our lovely but wet, and snowy trail.  It was very Banff (off season).

On the drive home we noticed signs saying that the roads to Mont Dore could only be driven by cars that have the ‘equipment obligatoire’.   Which basically means if you don’t have chains for your tires, you can’t go.  

“But we’re Canadians” said Sam. 

“Yeah” said Mhari “this is nothing”. 

Still unless the weather changes and the road is cleared, Mont Dore is out of our league.  I am confident the weather will cooperate in a few days and we will get our chance.  Now we just need to have some mulled wine and dry out in front of a roaring fire.    

(John) November 10, 2010

More rain in the forecast and probably sooner rather than later.  We took ourselves off to Clermont Ferrand, the big city in these parts.  We wanted to answer email and post blogs so were in search of a MacDonald’s.  We kind of drove straight to one and two hours later we had accomplished what we wanted to do and went to explore the city.  We found the big gothic cathedral and the adjacent tourist office (they are always next to the cathedrals). 

Notre Dame (the gothic one)

It was excellent and we were able to view a forty-minute film in English explaining how and why Romanesque cathedrals were built.  This area has five particularly good examples and we had already visited one in St Nectaire.  We learned a lot and even got to put our learning to use in the Notre Dame de Port church. 

Notre Dame de Port (romanesque)

(John) November 11, 2010

Remembrance day.  Finally the weather broke and it stopped raining.  We grabbed our chance and went out hiking.  We chose to stay in the local area around our gîte and within 1 minute were out of the village and in the hills.  We had a lovely walk of about 16 kms taking in a few small hamlets, cow pastures and superb views of the nearby mountains framed by ominous skies and autumn colours. 

We were home just as the weather started to get horrible again so ate lunch and drank tea while we watched a special show on TV called ‘Tous les idols que j’aime’.  It featured French pop stars from the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s.  We were introduced to Pascal Danel singing La plage aux romantique; Fabian Thibeault with her hit song Les uns contre les autres and Marie Myriam who sang her Eurovision winning ‘L’oiseau et l’enfant.  But our favourites were Gilbert Montagne (who was obviously a huge star and sang The Fool as well as a rendition of Bob Marley’s Is it Love and other snippets); Jairo sang Les jardins du ciel and had the best teeth and the tightest facial skin in the business; Marcel Amont who sang L’amour ca fait passé le temps and did an awesome robot dance; and the incredible Nicole Croissiere with a powerful performance of Une femme avec toi.  I for one had never heard of any of these artists and it is a shame as they were truly fantastic.