Day 14 - le paradoxe du différentiel d'élévation : six à vingt-six degrés centigrades 🥶🥵

The elevation differential paradox: 6 to 26°C

Well, we didn't get eaten in the night, all alone in the woods. Probably because it was too cold (6°C)  for anything to venture out; and it was raining. In fact it was...."Its chucking it down out there, your going to need your waterproofs on. I looked at the weather, its going to rain all week. Its better weather at home. I bet its going to be like this the whole holiday 😞" . "No its not, trust me"(paradox).

I had fill and dump duties to get done no matter what the weather; strip the heat shield mat off the windscreen, handle it into its bag to sit and drip all over the toilet floor and get the electric hook up cable in, dried and put away. Then we were off, heading East, out of the green and onto the blue, sticking to the back roads and skirting around the major city's. 

We were going to The Mediterranean. 😁

The thing with being up at 5000 feet is that you have to come down from 5000 feet 🤔 and, a lot of the time, at 5000 feet your in the mist, so... welcome to the N116 😮

It was THICK mist all the way down the N116 and it was actually a load of fun 😅. We were both glued to the windscreen, watching for traffic looming up out of the mist and watching the barriers. Occasionally I would glance away to look at the sat nav and give Jill a 'heads up' about how the road was going to change. It was also a shame really, we couldn't see any of the scenery, how steep the hill sides were, or what was actually down in the valleys we were spiraling down to. At one point it actually dawned on us that we were on the wrong side of the road 😱. The road had split into 3 lanes; 2 up and 1 down. We thought the lane on the right was actually for wagons and we were in the overtaking lane.It would have been true if we had been going up the mountain instead of down it 🫣.

We hardly saw any other traffic coming up, but when we did, one minute it wasn't there then it was, on the other side of the road probably just as surprised to see us as we were to see them 😅.

 Down and round we went. Eventually coming out of the mist onto wider sections of road and the occasional parking place, usually on a wide bend. We took advantage, not only to try and get a photo of the arched bridge appearing out of the mist in the distance but also to let the brakes cool down!

Down from the mountains, well the high bits anyway, we trundle on along the N116. The traffic increased and the weather started to change.

Out of the mist it seemed people had now decided they had to make up for lost time; things started to get faster. People started to overtake. It wasn't long before we had a mini convoy 'snaking' its way along the valley. Then.... people went for it 😮.... we hung back waiting for the inevitable but thankfully it didn't come to that.

We were almost down and out of the valleys, still drifting in and out of little towns and villages when we passed something. "Ooo what's that?... its, ooo its big, what is it?"

I was the walled city of Villefranche-de-Conflent, we just had to pull over and go and  have a look. The little walled city has been there since 1091 when the local count of the district decided to make it his permanent residence and capitol of the region. The city has been expanded and fortified constantly all the way up to the 18th century when the fortress on the hill was added. It has tunnels from the fortress, down inside the hillside and under the river into the city. 

Today it has around 220 permanent residents,   and its inhabitants are called Villefranchois. 

There are several artisan shops and restaurants catering for tourists; not your usual 'Blackpool' souvenirs, these are aimed at wealthy American and Japanese tourists. Nevertheless, we managed to find 2 small souvenirs in a little side street jewelry shop that didn't cost no more than a couple of pints back home so we were happy.

(It was only when Jill sent me the pic that I realized I hadn't noticed the cat flap in the city gate 😂)

I can only imagine what its like at night with all the little street lanterns or winter when the city gates are shut and you are holed up by an open fire. All very magical really. 

But, time was ticking by. Just enough time to nip into the cake shop and get a couple of the local specialties, 'bougnette': a solid crepe like a very thin and sweet donut covered in sugar and brew up a pot of coffee in the carpark to sit and take one last look.

It was getting hot. It was in the twenties, what was going on?🤨 The landscape changed. Hello to fields filled with vegetables, fruit trees, olive groves and vineyards. We were heading for a campsite surrounded on 2 side with water; the Mediterranean and a lagoon filled with water from.....the Mediterranean 😅

As the temperature peaked at 26°C we arrived at our site for the next 2 nights.

A large campsite for campervans, caravans, tents with all sorts of chalets and holiday homes, being only 5min from the beach it must be heaving in summer season, but not yet. Only 5 other vans. We were given a nice shaded pitch, got the back doors open and spent the night at a 'comfortable ' 17°C, listening to the birds, watching the bats and having a beer. Paradox - its never going to stop raining - what paradox 😉

(Paradox : a seemingly  absurd  or  contradictory  statement or  proposition  which when investigated may prove to be well founded or true.)