Old dog, new tricks – me driving on the wrong side of the road to Pont-des-Sables; mediocre lunch in medieval Marmande; frazzled fuses, fan-belt frustration and the fabulous Fabré Pierre at Fontet
Villeton to Pont-des-Sables
A big day for me! We’d spent a full week in Villeton, and now we were were heading for Pont-des-Sables on Karanja, my plan being to cycle the 16km back along the tow-path to collect the Twingo and drive it back to Roy and the boat.
Why is it such a big deal? Well, I’d never ever driven a car on the right side of the road, and in France they kind of expect you to do that.
Two locks (La Gaulette and Mas d’Agenais), 16km and 2.5 hours later, we found our port mooring at Pont-des-Sables, complete with reservation board – “Karanja 15m”.
The comfortable Pont-des-Sables mooring has plenty of shade. You pay €5 a night to moor here, and on top of that you can buy €2 jetons for either four hours of electricity or 15 minutes of water. At Villeton you get them from a machine; at Pont-des-Sables from the capitainerie.
Wanting to get the trial by fire over with, I set off immediately. The bike ride was okay, though cycling 16km seemed to take more effort than it had done a couple of days earlier.
The toughest thing about driving back on the wrong side of the road was having to negotiate the narrow country lanes. I hate them at the best of times – including as a passenger – and find it hard to calculate how much of the limited width is mine, and when I may be required to swing sharply into a ditch.
The other problem is that I have no sense of direction. (Really, none). So I rely on the Garmin, but when it lures me into the middle of medieval Mas d’Agenais’ petites rues system, and I manage to extricate myself, I’m very likely to start driving back in the direction whence I came.
Roy was pleased – and no doubt surprised, too – to have me and the voiture back and unscathed. So we opened a bottle of Vouvray bubbles and drank a toast to old dogs learning new tricks.
Lunch in Marmande
Marmande is famous for its delicious tomatoes. Hoping to find a bustling market, we drove into town around 10.30am. Alas, the outdoor market square had only a couple of vegetable stalls on the go. As for the covered market, a couple of butchers, a fishmonger and a cheese stall were open.
Next up was the Gothic Notre Dame de Marmande, the faded remnants of its cloisters and a pretty topiary garden established in the 1950s.
Roy had a coffee at the market bar while I walked around for a while, discovering the beautiful Tourism Office building and its courtyard, and beyond that some nice cafés, shops and boutiques.
Review: Le Lion D’Or
Things seemed to go wrong from the time we entered through the pretty terrace, rather than through the front of the Lion D’Or, which is also a hotel. It’s the kind of place where it’s difficult to catch anyone’s eye.
We chose the three-course €13.50 menu du jour. Our egg salads with lardons were excellent: a perfectly poached little egg, warm bacon bits and fresh leaves.
Roy’s fish, which, though juicy and tasty, came barely warm on its bed of tepid garden peas. I ordered the aiguilletes de canard, the tender cut of duck that we’d had so beautifully grilled at Damazan last Tuesday night. It was literally uneatable: so overcooked and tough that it was impossible to cut through, let alone chew.
The thin-lipped manager dismissed my complaint with an air of annoyance and the equivalent of “That’s how we do it here”, so I ate the potato. She later offered me an extra course – a couple of bits of fresh cheese – “pour nous excuser”.
Too little, too late. By this time, I was in no mood to enjoy my tarte aux abricots (apricot tart); the filling was okay, but the stodgy pastry tasted straight from the fridge and two days old.
The restaurant has a lovely setting, by the way, both inside and on the alfresco terrace.
En route to Fontet, and boat troubles
Knowing we had a long day ahead of us, with me planning on cycling back to fetch the car again, we left Pont-des-Sables just on 9am.
But the first lock, L’Avance, wasn’t working, so I had to call VNF (the waterways authority) on the lock-side radio. The nice young woman took about 20 minutes to come from Fontet; she looks after four locks, she told me.
After three more locks: Bernés, Gravières and L’Aurioles, we turned into the Fontet marina just in time to get the last mooring that would work for us. Then, just as Roy neatly tucked the stern in against the quay, the engine packed up.
Leaving behind a worried husband in a broken boat, I rode the 18km back to Pont-des-Sables to fetch the car. At least we’d have some form of transport!
Fortunately, under the circumstances, Fontet is a great little port, with a capitainerie that’s a depôt du pain (you can order your daily bread from it) and, most importantly, sells Magnum ice creams. It also has lovely grounds, and a cool little swimming-lake complete with lifesaver (from 2pm onwards).
There are far worse places to break down in – a lock, for example, or adrift on a canal in the middle of nowhere.
So we cancelled our booking at our original destination, Castet-en-Dorthes, and decided to spend the week at Fontet instead, come what may. After all, it’s only 11km or so from Castet, and 77km from Bordeaux, which we plan to visit.
Since we broke down in Fontet, Roy had been busily seeking advice from Simon Piper and from the useful Yahoo group can2mers, popping in and out of the engine room on a variety of missions improbable.
There he discovered a broken fan-belt and a troublesome battery, the fixing of which, now that it is fait accompli, need not be elaborated upon further.
Suffice it to say that Jean-Philippe at Emeraude Navigation in Pont-des-Sables promised to come, but only on Monday, in three days’ time. By Saturday night, fortunately, everything was hunky-dory again, with the help of lovely boat-fixer Fabré Pierre.
Fun in Fontet
The first couple of days at Fontet were hectic. The halte nautique is part of an expansive base de loisirs – leisure base? School holidays are in full swing, and there was some rugby-related event taking place.
That same night also saw the monthly Tablée Nocturne, held one Thursday a month from July to September. Trestle table seating was laid out, five or six food and drink vendors had set up camp, and a DJ with a huge sound system and laser lights was busy doing his thing – and did it well into the small hours.
Neighbours-for-the-night Melvin and Sue MacDonald from Kent, on No Doubt, joined us at our table for duck confit and duck-fat-fried chips, washed down with several bottles of an exceptionally nice rosé from Bordeaux (€4.20!). And when the DJ turned the volume up (as they always must do), we retreated to Karanja for a nightcap.
Last night in Fontet
The whole of Europe, it seems, is in the grip of a heatwave – the high today is 36 degrees. After a swim in the lake, I was cooling down at the shady picnic table when Tui arrived, bearing lovely Kiwis Lindsay Sweeney and Vicki Ritchie.
Once the temperature had eased off a bit, around 9pm, they came over for drink, and it was after midnight by the time we said goodnight.
We crawled out of bed after 9am to say goodbye to Lindsay and Vicki, but not before trying out their electric bicycles. The motor is in the wheel-hub, and it’s incredible what a surge of power you feel just by activating the pedals! The brand is Giant; the cost around €1,200, we hear.
Farewell to Fontet
Before we bid farewell to Fontet, here are a few souvenir photos of the place.
(Note: While moored here, we did side-trips by car, first to the city of Bordeaux and then to Arcachon on the Atlantic coast. I’ll cover those in my next two posts.)
