To foreigners, France is about strong emotions. For Americans, France is about romantic honeymoons, Paris, the Louvre, wine and cheese (yes, the poor Americans don’t know the true meaning of cheese until going abroad). For the Brits, France is about idyllic real estate in Provence. For the continental Europeans - traffic jams in Paris, riots in Marseille, and the trains constantly cancelled due to strike. And of course the campervan robber gangs! Every camping car owner knows that. And the truth is…?
I am in my van, in Auvergne, central France. Far from anything of interest. (How and why I got here, this I will write another time). Heading to a recommended place to overnight. I am not convinced… someone said ‘a beautiful river gorge’…probably packed with holidaymaker caravans, I think. Driving past a sleepy former spa, I notice… “silence” sign. I am getting interested and intuitively slow down.
Two minutes down the road I notice the ‘End of the world street’ to the right. This sounds like an invitation… without much thinking, I turn right.
I end up on a bumpy dirt road. Definitely too narrow for a big campervan. This is a good sign. The road ends up on a peaceful dead end near the river. Two other cars are parked. Some anglers are around. Some people swim. The end of the world looks inviting.
I initially decide to stay one night… then two nights… then three… I decide to skip the nearby attractions: hot springs (1 h drive), volcanoes near Clermond-Ferrand (45 min drive), and plentiful canions and caverns carved by the Auvergne rivers.
On the first night, I meet a dog with two-colored eyes, Rio. Rio makes friends easily. He walks right next to me, brings a stick to play and makes my sitting mat insanely dirty. His master Martin arrives soon. Martin came over from the Pyrenees for friends visits and trout fishing. No fish was caught, but we spend a nice evening by the fire, exchanging food, stories and grandma’s recipies to produce tincture (flavored alcohol).
On the second day, another car arrives. It is a family from Macon. We chat a lot. They are interested in the interior design of my van. I ask about the local van robbers. The response: ‘Please tell your foreign friends that only normal people live here’. We laugh and take pictures.
On the third day, I receive a peculiar visit. An old man wearing shaggy clothes drives by on an ancient quad, stops right next to me, looks right in the eyes and just says: bonjour. I reply with a kind bonjour. He does not move... I guess correctly I am being confronted with the landlord. I ask if he would have any issue if I stayed another night. He relaxes instantly and responds: ‘Pas du tout, parcontre laissez propre!’ (not at all, but please leave the space clean). Then his friends, an elderly couple of anglers come and stay with me for another evening. They ask if I am not afraid to stay alone. I respond philosophically: ‘I somehow feel that only normal people live here’. We spend many hours together, I offer coffee and they accept. Funny enough, again no one caught any fish, but the time together is precious.
I finally have to part for my next stop: Fête de l'Accordéon in Luzy starts this evening. On the last morning, a pretty dragonfly stops right by and poses for a portrait. I leave the World’s End. I pass the village, a former spa, now dead and sleepy. Half of town are the old hotels, once catering for the nobility from Paris, now for sale for a quarter of their former price. I look carefully for the van robbers and other gangsters, but it somehow seems they all emigrated abroad.
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