TITANIC!!!That's how I would describe what I was now seeing.
A “Cave” perhaps 300 M in length, 30-40 M across the mouth and the same at its height under the cathedral dome near the center. In reality it wasn’t a cave in the strictest sense but a tunnel. A flowing S shaped chasm carved thru solid rock by the force of water trickling or rushing in torrents, as if Poseidon himself had sculpted it for perhaps tens of thousands of years.
It was definitely cool and even damp inside although the temperature just minutes before and only meters away was well into the 30s.
There was no fording of streams today, only stumbling over boulders in this dry riverbed. We stood below the isolated and secure village of Minerve, France. As the proverbial crow flew, just a short 20 km from Olonzac, up into what to us Westerners were hills, to them… ancient mountains. The village itself sits on an outcropping of rock carved into a Dreadnaught of an Island by the unstoppable eroding force of water moving downhill .Water that had created these deep, shaded gorges, flanking it on both sides.
During Medieval times it could only be accessed by an easily guarded bridge. Today of course the only invaders likely to reach the remaining tower and souvenir shops here across the modernized drivable version, were tourists such as myself.
We’d spent the better part of this day exploring the countryside and these ancient, weathered mountains had aroused my curiosity a great deal. The Cather’s had once inhabited this region. A radical sect of the Catholic religion that was eventually hunted down and killed by the Church for what to them, was extremism.
That didn’t interest me near as much as the geography, the creativity of man and nature, like this tunnel I was now standing in.What I was seeing were much more ancient than the Cathars, even the Romans. I was seeing in my eye, prehistoric man, perhaps 10000 maybe 40000 years before. What that must have been like here in Southern France, long before borders, organized religion, cities, roads or even stone huts. I was imagining what it was like for the first modern humans that found game and shelter and food and fire, here… in this place, these mountains.
Minerve is a definite look see destination, but one of only many.
I was part way thru a day ride that had carried me from plains where canals, villages, fields of poppies in splendid crimson grew, up where trout laden crystal clear streams burbled under 2500 year old bridges of stone the Romans had left behind for my use today.
The road was generally narrow with only sparse local traffic to deal with. Lots of photo opportunities made for a very leisurely pace. The quality of pavement was remarkable for such lonely little outposts of civilization; I could bend the very lightly loaded Divvie from turn to turn to fabulous turn.
The road was generally narrow with only sparse local traffic to deal with. Lots of photo opportunities made for a very leisurely pace. The quality of pavement was remarkable for such lonely little outposts of civilization; I could bend the very lightly loaded Divvie from turn to turn to fabulous turn.
The little sports touring Yamaha thrived in this environment. Little wrist pressure, a very slight forward cant to my upper body, foot pegs covered in rubber to absorb the slight inline tingles… a willing motor and a comfortable perch under my butt.
The weather in the mid 20s to 30s, a gentle breeze except for the various summits I’d crossed where it had become brisker. The skies, a remarkable shade of aqua blue, dotted with puffy clouds of the type as kids, where we could find rabbits and sheep… and alligator’s snouts!
I had taken a time out during the day, near noon… to read, write in my road journal and have a nap while sitting on a bench bordering a pretty little lake. The black cordura of my MSR jacket, absorbing the mid day suns heat had made me quite drowsy.
I found it impossible to stay awake, so using my tank bag as pillow and Piroska’s cover as blanket… I snoozed for an hour.
We had ridden nearly 200 kms gently, slowly, at an unhurried pace, in a loop that eventually carried me to St Pons and then clear of the mountains back to Olonzac.
I found it impossible to stay awake, so using my tank bag as pillow and Piroska’s cover as blanket… I snoozed for an hour.
We had ridden nearly 200 kms gently, slowly, at an unhurried pace, in a loop that eventually carried me to St Pons and then clear of the mountains back to Olonzac.
My time is Southern France was quickly coming to an end.
It had been great to take a few relatively unhurried days “off”. Not having to worry about packing each day, nor putting on the miles in the days ahead.
Long distance Touring by motorcycle, unlike how so many feel about it, can be definitely “unglamorous.”
Long distance Touring by motorcycle, unlike how so many feel about it, can be definitely “unglamorous.”
Heat, rain, cold…runny noses in July. The constant vigilance and awareness of the road conditions that don’t normally affect those ensconced in their aluminum and steel and glass capsules. The ache in the shoulders that begins with the wrist, then gradually and painfully, like an insidious seeping venom, makes it’s way throughout your body, to the point where even a routine ‘shoulder’ check causes excruciating pain. It’s not for everyone. THAT is for certain.
Yet… funny as it may seem, to many… riding a bike, especially when on your own, invokes some kind of mysterious image of Romance, Thrill, Excitement that others openly and loudly or in quiet conversation at a café, envy. The quiet Louis Lamour cowhand with the fast gun, the chivalrous Black knight on his white stallion. That “Bad Boy” women find so appealing.
Kids would wave, women would smile coyly, men would stop and chat at service stations or road side stops. To many, what I was doing was what they wished THEY were doing!
Reminds me of riding to Vancouver in ’74 aboard my Beemer R60/5
It was cold, wet and miserable. I could not find a campsite open. Fortunately just as I was thinking dejectedly I would have to ride on in the gathering gloom of dusk, a guy driving one of the very first Winnebago’s I’d ever seen, with a Coors bullet like silver trailer in tow, invited me into their spot. I set up camp, my hands were so frozen, I couldn’t get enough heat into the brass tank of my Swedish Optimus stove, to boil some water for that hellish, 1st generation of Freeze dried “something or other.”
We boiled the water in his “unit” and talked the evening away in propane heated comfort with the TV playing! (A Friggin’ TV) There’s more… turns out, inside the trailer, was a V12 British Racing Green XKE Jag!
Yet, he thought I was having a ball… should’ve been with me the night before when my tent collapsed under 12 inches of snow!
Hey, I’m no hero! There is some definite appeal to loading the RV, or tent trailer and truck and taking your sweetie for a camping trip.
To me, my friends… perhaps the best way to describe some of the rides I had done and how I thought of myself and what I was doing, in my own words, are thus…
I’m just a Glutton for punishment…!!!
Doesn't it show?
Tomorrow…on the road to Andorra
There is much more to follow…………….
Piombino is a flat, plain, somewhat ugly port city on the Mediterranean coast South of Livorno.
