words by Williams

Wednesday June 7

We’re heading for Avignon. We’re going to Sandaya’s Ile des Pape site. Not for the first time on this trip, it’s not the ile I thought it was, but I only realise this as we’re attempting to leave the city (of which more later).

We’re going via L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue, in the Vaucluse department of Provence. It’s been a must-see on this trip ever since James Martin went there on his French adventure. He went because his hero, Keith Floyd, lived and owned a restaurant there for a while.

It’s better known for the beauty of its setting and the many flea markets and art galleries that bring the visitors in

On telly the town, which has a crystal clear fast-flowing canalised river running through the middle, looked spectacular. Up close it’s even better. If you have half a chance, go.

We park up just out of town on another roasting day. The car park’s next to one of the biggest cemeteries we’ve seen. It’s a thing with France and car parks, I’m sure. Although on the other side is a skate park, so I guess you’ve got a combination of the very much alive, the dead and those just passing through.

You don’t really get an impression of the centre of town as you walk in under a low bridge but suddenly you meet a crossroads and there it is.

I’m tempted to go in search of Floyd’s restaurant but we’re happy pottering and grateful for the shade offered by narrow streets and the riverside cafes.

That doesn’t mean we don’t manage to settle on a brasserie for lunch where there’s precious little shade. Cal chooses the terrace of Le Balade des Saveurs on the Quai Jean Jaurés because the tables are dressed with white cloths.

Because we haven’t booked, we can’t sit next to the river, we have to sit on one of the tables at the edge of the street side of the terrace. Initially it feels as though we’re not really welcome, but in the end that turns out to be a misapprehension.

The waiter is about to get very busy, but he takes time to talk us through the menu for what becomes Cal’s favourite lunch of the trip.

Apparently the lunch menu changes from day to day, so you kind of take pot luck, but what we had was excellent.

She has swordfish pate for starter and I have a goat’s cheese mousse and we both have veal steak with gratin potatoes for mains. We do a deal on the steak. Cal takes bits of mine that look like they could still moo a bit and I have bits of hers that definitely couldn’t. And we’re not stopping there. Cal goes for a chocolate concoction and I have thinly sliced warm pineapple in syrup for pud.

We take a slow walk back to Betsy via a supermarket and a boulangerie.

The combination of a hearty lunch and a lengthy walk suddenly induces one of those ‘to loos, long trek’ moments. Luckily as we reach the bus I can see a facility shimmering in the heat haze at the skate park.

Suitably relieved, we make for Avignon about 40 minutes away.

Thursday June 8

Today’s another of those days for chilling. The facilities look good, although it’s clear Sandaya, as most of the big chains seem to do, are aiming for July and August as their busy months and there’s work going on all over the site.

There are some families, though and the pools are open. Belatedly I find the best-equipped campsite shop I’ve come across and find myself compelled to wander about looking at things we really don’t need.

We’re on the edge of the Rhone, not that you can really see it through the trees. The pitches are sand and gravel under tall trees. 

There are a couple round us that are empty. Cal’s suddenly got competitive and has thrown down the pétanque gauntlet. We have one of those plastic holiday sets. I’ve done pétanque, this should be easy.

I offer what I think are good odds of first to 15. Cal gets there while I’m still on four, having taken an early lead. Chastened I think the word is.

Competitive differences aside, we try out the campsite restaurant for tea. Cal wears her Aix-en-Provence green dress and I’m in my loudest Hawaiian shirt. The food is not Balade des Saveurs for sure, but as said, nothing (quite) was.

Friday June 9

Today’s destination is Tournon-sur-Rhone. Cal would like to see Avignon. Partly because I’d promised her a campsite with ‘spectacular views overlooking the Pont’, which I’ve failed to deliver by booking the wrong one. The one should have booked is on another Ile, closer to town.

Anyway, there’s a park and ride just down the road, we can pull in there. Or not. For the first time in the day, Betsy’s height is causing an issue. We can’t get under the swingy barrier thingy and there’s a sign saying no motorhomes anyway.

We’ve past one potential spot, but when we go back to it, we can’t get in there either. We look for on-road parking, but there are dire warnings about being towed away if we’re not in designated spots.

We wave at Avignon from across the river and decide to continue our journey north.

There’s no way that we’ve found of telling Maisie Waze that we’re quite long and quite tall. Which is why, on a busy Friday morning, the main drag out of Avignon is brought to a screaming standstill because Maisie’s trying to send us through a tunnel that not quite as tall as we are.

Worse, we’re already on the downslope and there’s a major piece of kerbage to our left.

Cal’s off and out of the bus like Rambo, suddenly stopping traffic and waving her arms in as confident a manner as you can be as an Englishwoman directing traffic on a busy main road in a sizeable French city towards the end of rush hour.

There are a couple of chunterers in the developing queue, but luckily a woman two cars back leaves enough space for me to back far enough up the slope to miss the kerb and slide out into the main drag.

By now of course Maisie’s having a hissy fit. By the end of the day she’ll need a stiff G and T and a lie down in a darkened room.

Next stop is Tournon-sur-Rhone at the confluence of the Rhone and Doux rivers. It’s nearly 30 years since I was last here, on a press trip to the Ardeche notable not only for my Viognier-fuelled acrobranche accident, but for a pastis-enhanced game of pétanque which nearly caused an international incident.

The town is on the opposite side of the Rhone to its twin, Tain-l’Hermitage, which is dominated by steepling vineyards on the hill behind.

Tournon seems to be busy all the time with the main drag by the river next to a massive car park lined with tall trees. Initially it looks as though the pétanque boulorama has gone, but it’s still there. After the Avignon debacle my boules are staying neatly packed away this time.

This is where the massive river cruise ships dock on their way up and down the river. There’s a big Viking vessel in at the moment - of the comfy cruise variety not the rapacious Norse type.

The site’s squeezed in at the north end of the town with a tricky entrance and compact pitches. It’s busy. We’re opposite the shower block just across the driveway. Very convenient.

Saturday June 10 

Tournon on a Saturday morning is even busier than Tournon on a Friday afternoon.

Le Bistingo is a bar and restaurant on a corner next to an entrance to the car park which is also where passengers are picked up and dropped from excursions on the cruise ships.

It’s another great spot for people watching. Traffic’s constantly passing by. Today there appears to be some kind of car rally and around 20 classic motors roll past. Cal even gets a wave from a lady in a red Mercedes.

We spend longer there than we’d probably anticipated and it’s getting close to lunch time again.

Cal surprises me by suggesting Indian for Saturday lunch at the New Darjeeling restaurant at the other end of the main street.

It’s a fairly slim menu, but the food we have tastes more like we’re used to at home. I have a ‘proper’ Madras, which is probably not the brightest idea on a sultry day.

The owner is happy to chat away as he clears at the end of a two-hour service. He came from the Punjab more than 10 years ago and seems to be enjoying life in France.

We had planned to scale the heights to Tournon’s Jardin d’Eden in the afternoon, but a few scoops and a curry lunch have put paid to that idea.

We try to walk it off with a ramble through the old town, past the patisserie Intense de Bastien Girard, which claims to be one of the best in the world. Today, we can’t be tempted.

Just a word about the boulangerie at the other end of town. It appears to be run by the grumpiest baker in town, a little grey man with his beard tied in a knot. Cash only and no conversation. Great apple tart, mind.

I’m surprised and delighted to find that French telly is showing the Champions League final.

Mostly the telly’s been nothing more than an ornament on this trip. When we can get any service at all, it’s usually without sound.

I watch Man City lift the trophy with French subtitles.

Curry and Saturday night footy, it’s just like being at home.