The area of the Lot sure has its fair share of lovely villages, and also seems to have a lot of places on the Les Plus Beaux list of beautiful French villages. After visiting Saint-Cirq-Lapopie and Conques yesterday, today I was off to another one: Estaing. I drove along a beautiful but windy road that followed the Lot river, and in true form, I got to Estaing early. I managed to find a good parking spot just off the main road and I set off exploring.
The first thing you see upon driving to Estaing is the imposing 13th century chateau sitting on the hill above the village. It's seriously huge, with bits that have been added on all around its outside. It didn't open until later, so I never managed to have a look inside, but the streets and church nearby were so charming!
I stopped off at a boulangerie and bought some breakfast. I was spoiled for choice so I picked a sugary palmier and set off munching it. An old lady walked past me and said "bon appétit". I'm pretty sure she meant it sarcastically, as it's not considered proper to walk and eat in France, but hey... I said merci and kept walking.
For a small town, there were certainly a lot of narrow old streets to wander around. I covered off the ones close to the castle, then spiralled out to the ones a little further away.
After covering off the smaller streets around the chateau, I decided to walk across the bridge spanning the Lot. I went there to take a photo of Estaing in all its glory, but when I got to the other side, I found a Citroen Dyane parked on the side of the road! These are similar to the 2CV (my favourite car!), but a little more pointy looking AND they have a hatchback! This one also had a lovely little sunroof, which I was half-tempted to dive into and steal the car.... alas! I cannot hot-wire a car, or confidently drive a manual....
In the picture above, I'd covered off the right side of the chateau, but hadn't really poked around the left side, so I walked back across the bridge to go exploring. It really was a lovely place...
I walked along the road above which went along the Lot to a place I'd seen when driving in with a sign for a viewpoint to capture my last photo of this lovely place, then walked back to the camper. A really perfect morning in a beautiful part of the world!
I'd read about the Cévennes in the France edition of Lodestars Anthology, where someone went on a hike through the national park. It sounded glorious but alas, I didn't really have the time to go on a hike so I drove instead. I left Estaing about 11:30 and programmed my GPS for a place called Florac in the middle of the park. I did quite a lot of driving today, as I wanted to get to Provence. I was dying to see that golden Provencal light again! But the Cévennes really was a treat to drive through, so many different landscapes, from pine forests to bare mountains. Also, if you look on Google Maps for the road that I drove through the park on, it was so wiggly and windy! I don't know whether there was a straight section of road in the whole drive - what fun!! My photos don't do it justice because there were so few areas to park and take a photo, but let me tell you, it was gorgeous.
I parked up for the night in a place called Jonquières. The campsite was just ok, nothing amazing but also not too bad. It was cheap, clean and tidy and a fine place for a tired traveller to have a quiet night.
Campsite: Camping Les Peupliers (no website)
Rating: 6/10
