13th March: The Royal Palace

 Our 4 euro pensioner tickets to the Royal Barge Museum also included the Royal Palace, so great value for money. We walked to the palace from the campsite through the park, so a pleasant start and no car parking worries. 

The palace has airport-style security, without the queues, and then into the palace itself. The Spanish royal family acquired a summer residence here in the late 15^th century and successive monarchs added to it resulting in the current huge edifice. 

King Phillip ii created the basic structure from 1556 onwards and it was finished bit by bit over the next 150 years. Later, Queen Isabella ii in the mid-19^th century made extensive alterations mainly to the décor. This is a photo of as much of the exterior that I could get in camera shot and it was too cold to wander around looking for a better angle.

Inside, we ascended the magnificent staircase, photo courtesy of a Spanish couple that we did the same for. Note winter clothing!

All the rooms were sumptuously decorated with an over-provision of carpets, pictures and tapestries.

Early Spanish architecture and furnishing was much influenced by their Moorish (Moroccan) conquerors from the 8^th century onwards, and although this palace was completed well after the Moors were expelled, these ancient Arab designs often appear as feature. Here it’s a quirky small chamber with a fancv chandelier.

The detail is astounding, but very busy, as this telephoto pic shows.

Palaces everywhere seem to go big on ornate ceilings – but who looks up that much? Or did they drink excessively and appreciate the view from laying flat out? 

Next is Queen Isabella’s boudoir. Official Spanish websites describe her as reigning from 1833 to 1868 when she was deposed, i.e. thrown out. One wonders why, but my guide book, unrestrained by having to paint a sanitised picture of the monarchy, describes her a nymphomaniac that brought the monarchy into disrepute. 

I must include her bedroom, fussy drapes and bed design. Note, though, that it’s a good sturdy bed, which is perhaps self explanatory! 

Accounts of Isabella’s life says she boasted of having only ever taken two baths, so let’s tiptoes out and leave her to her pongy philandering.

The next room is unique and quite overwhelming: it’s the Porcelain Room. Every wall and the ceiling is covered in oriental porcelain tableaux,

A close-up of one of these tableaux shows the high quality and detail.

By the time we get to the ball room we’re all gobsmacked out by the opulent and OTT décor. Note, another gorgeous ceiling.

The chapel too reflects the ornate designs of this period (Baroque) but is toned down enough to look elegant and pleasing.

We’re now near the end of the tour, and pass by the royal coach. Oddly, in contrast to the rooms, it’s black and austere. It brings to mind Dracula’s coach from Hammer House of Horrors’ “Dracula prince of darkness”. Poor old Queen Isabella can’t get anything right, can she!

We stroll on back  by the same route to the caravan in time for lunch. Hopefully no nightmares of Queen Isabella’s excesses – she was a big woman, you know.

 

France & Spain 4th March 2025:

We’re starting with fine weather, always a bonus at this time of year. Our route is tried and tested, and described in previous years so only a brief summary is justified. We went by tunnel from Folkestone to Calais, then via Abbeville, Rouen, Tours and Bordeaux. That’s three days of travel, and then we took time for a short break, just south of Bordeaux.

 We’ve stayed before at the small site near the village of Salles, in the vast pine forest that stretches the 100 miles to the Spanish border. The temperature reached 23C for the extra day we stayed so we took to the numerous forest trails accessible from the campsite.

There are houses sparsely dotted around in the forest, with generous plots that look very much part of the natural surroundings. Next photo is an example. The down side is the increasing risk of forest fire, which devastated parts last year, but evidently lucky Salles escaped.

Next leg: to Burgos. The weather changed dramatically to cold and rain, so after Burgos we cut short a planned sightseeing diversion and headed for Aranjuez, just south of Madrid, a more direct route to our destination. 

We’ve stayed at Camping International Aranjuez previously. It’s a well-run site next to the river Tagus, but nowhere looks that inviting in the rain.

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The permanent pitches next to our site look even more dismal: the description “refugee camp” comes to mind: every square inch is covered by caravans, sheds or canvas. 

But, hey, here comes the sun- and the site is transformed. We’re first on the left.

We needed a respite from travelling so we decided to stay for 5 days. Still not great weather but we walked from the site, over the river Tagus footbridge into the Royal Park. The Tagus is the longest river in Spain, and enters the sea at Lisbon, Portugal. Here it’s about like the Ouse, our mighty river back home!

In the Royal Park there are numerous fountains and statues. The fountains were all dry perhaps due to frost forecast but they still look impressive. However, the Atlas figures supporting the fountain bowl do look as if they’re seeing how much of their private bits they can see over their beer bellies!

The Royal Barge museum is also in the park and has a selection of barges that the Spanish royals used for river jaunts while staying at the Royal Palace. The earliest one dates form 1666 and was a gift to king Phillip 4^th from the king of Naples, who was a relation. This is the most OTT of all of the barges on display that I’m sure would turn a few heads if spotted cruising on the Ouse.

Talking OTT, our visit to the Royal Palace will need a separate blog entry in a few days: in the meantime we’ll be en route to our destination 300 miles away.

Arras: Carriere Wellington

 The tour group, about a dozen of us, is first briefed on safety and then issued with a First World War soldier’s helmet for protection. 

The guide explains, in English and French, that the tunnels started as separate limestone quarries from the Middle Ages onwards. By the outbreak of war in 1914 they covered a vast area in 25 separate locations.  

Early on the war had reached stalemate, with allied trenches facing the Germans’ a few hundred yards apart. Each side looked for a breakthrough, and one method both used was to tunnel to lay charges under the opposition lines hoping to weaken the line enough to storm it with an assault over no-man’s land. This rarely worked, and thousands lost their lives to machine gun fire. 

By September 1916 the British had discovered the existence of the quarries under Arras, some of which extended under the German lines. The idea was to join them up and mount a surprise attach behind enemy lines, our troops emerging from the old quarry workings to seize and hold enemy-occupied territory. 

But could they be joined up? The New Zealand Tunnelling Company was tasked with the work, to be completed by April 1917 to support a general attack that was being planned. The New Zealanders completed the work on time, digging an amazing 6 miles of tunnel. The complex was named Carriere Wellington (Wellington Quarry), after Wellington, the capital city of New Zealand, as recognition of their herculean achievement. 

We’ll follow the tour now and see how the joined up tunnel system was used as we proceed. This photo shows the group just into the tunnels, duly helmeted. The guide has stopped, back to the wall, to point out relevant features. Here, the roof is higher due to old quarrying.

She indicates ventilation shafts, and some rusty worktools that were found.

The Tommies sat behind the tools are projected on the wall to remind us what the tunnels were created for – the surprise attack. 

There are recreated bunk beds, cooking and toilet facilities, examples of which are shown below. Thankfully, they have not attempted to recreate the smell of the 24,000 troops living down here if only for a short time before the attack.

At dawn on 9^th April 1917, the 24,000 troops sallied forth and the battle began. Unfortunately, the planned supporting attacks on other parts of the line were delayed and the action fizzled out, with punitive loss of life on both sides. Arras carried on as a front line bastion until the end of the war when Grandpa Sanders returned to Wales and used his saddlery skills to set up a shoe repair shop. 

It’s impossible to appreciate the trauma soldiers experience in war, and the First World War would have been one of the worst for creating nightmare scenarios that only other Tommies who fought could appreciate. But visiting the tunnels and other scenes of combat allow us to reflect on what they went through and the sacrifices they made to enable us to enjoy the comfortable lifestyle we have today.

Arras: 30th May

This is our last stop before crossing to Folkestone: from here it’s an easy 80 mile motorway run to Calais. However, the weather has deteriorated and we have rain showers and a 16C max temperature, but we are determined to visit Arras to see where Grandpa Sanders was stationed in World War 1. He was a saddler, working just behind the front lines. 

Arras was on that front line for most of the 1914-18 war, occupied by the allies but under constant German shell fire. The first photo below, taken before 1914, shows town hall and belfry ( Belfroi de l’Hotel de Ville) in the Place des Heros, one of the two main squares in the city. 

Intense shelling by the Germans quickly reduced 90% of Arras to rubble. This is the same square later in the war.

At the end of the war in 1918, with such complete destruction, it would have been easiest to build a brand new town. However, it was decided to faithfully recreate all of the previous buildings using original plans. So, the town hall sprung to life again, magnificent even on this dull day.

The whole central area has been faithfully reconstructed in the Flemish style, some 230 building like these below, so the info board tells us.

The town hall building is open to visitors, so we enter to be faced by three giant figures. The tradition of these giants is widespread in northern France and Belgium, and dates back to the 16^th century. They are meant to represent valiant protectors from the town’s history, clearly not very effective in that role as they were destroyed in WW1 along with the rest of the town. Undaunted, the townsfolk revived the figures in the 1920s, but these fared no better in protecting the town as they were also obliterated by the Germans in WW2. We move on to the 1980s for the latest version of the giants, seen here in the photo. Perhaps they’ll do better against the Russians or Chinese.

Moving just out of the centre, in a rather ordinary square, we spot an out-of-place object.

The clue is in the square’s name: Place d’Ipswich. Arras is twinned with Ipswich. The whole square contains nothing noteworthy except the church, which is pleasant with a fine stained glass window - modern, but then we’d not expect glass to survive either world war.

 

We move on and pass an ornate concert hall that to me looks like a fire station – in my mind’s eye,  the white doors will suddenly burst open and two keystone-cops type fire engines will thunder forth, brass bells clanging and firemen holding on for dear life.

Now we’re at Arras’s cathedral, a late 18^th century build, or rather rebuild following WW1. Then and now photos tell the tale.

We haven’t really done justice to Arras due to poor weather and lack of time, but we did make one other trip to Arras that was weather-independent, a guided trip around tunnels known as the Carriere Wellington.

Pont du Gard

 Our last trip out before leaving St Remy was to the Pont du Gard. This is a Roman aqueduct built in AD 60 to carry water 30 miles from source near Uzes to the city of Nemausus, present-day Nimes. To do so it was necessary to cross the river Gardon with this spectacular aqueduct.

To get an idea of scale, the next photo is taken from the road bridge that runs alongside the lower tier. The road bridge was added in the 17^th century but is not now used for vehicles apart from those of the tourist office that operates the site.

The tourist centre runs cafés, souvenir shops and exhibition hall in a complex near the large car park (9  euros). When we visited 35 years ago there was nothing here and you parked where you could for free. It was so quiet that we sat by the river for a long time and watched two kingfishers fishing in the river. Now both the aqueduct and the river are popular destinations for tourists, school parties, bus trips and canoeists. The view from the road bridge shows the picturesque river, with canoes.

Walking to the aqueduct we passed some attractive provencal buildings that seem to blend in with the landscape, for example.

And a final look at this awe-inspiring structure, 160 feet high, 900 feet long, estimated weight 50.400 tons, and taking around 15 years to complete. It was constructed largely without using mortar, with some of the blocks weighing 6 tons.

 

The Camargue

 The Rhone delta is called the Camargue, a huge area of marshland and water channels. It is an hour by car from St Remy. As with the fenland in East Anglia, a large part has been adapted for agricultural use and also to reduce mosquitos, but I assure you that there are still plenty left! The photo is of a typical crop, one that wouldn’t be possible in the fens – rice. The water levels are controlled by the dyke on the right.

There are still plenty of original wetlands remaining, mostly the sections nearer the sea, where exotic species like flamingos are to be found.

The Camargue is also famous for its wild white horses, but it’s debatable as to how many are really wild. The numerous horse trekking centres here all use white horses that are have clearly been tamed, but let’s pretend that the herd in the next photo are the real thing.

This is where black fighting bulls are bred to be used in bullfights in this part of Provence. The spectacle takes place in such historic places as the Roman arena at Arles. Unlike Spanish bullfighting, the bull is not killed and the bullfight amounts to a contest between the agility of the matador and the bull. Here they are looking deceptively docile.

There is just one town in the Camargue, on the Mediterranean, Les-Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer. It is  named after St Mary Jacobe and St. Mary Salome. One of the Marys (no agreement on which one) had a daughter Sara who is the patron saint of gypsies. At the end of May each year thousands of gypsies travel here from all parts of Europe to celebrate their Saint Sara in a week-long festival. 

By chance, we happened to visit the town on the Saturday of the festival week. We managed to park with great difficulty as the town was thronged by thousands of gypsies with their caravans, and multitudes of sightseers like ourselves. 

The festival is focused on the church where the effigy of Sara lies. The church was fortified to provide protection for the residents in case of attack by pirates. We’re not too sure that the pirates have gone away.

Sara’s effigy is taken from the church towards the sea in a slow procession several times during the week, but unfortunately not when we were there. Sara must be kept somewhere near the altar end in the photo but I thought it best not go for a close-up.

Most of the gypsy caravans were modern but there were a few traditional ones that must be stored locally: can’t imagine this one trundling all the way from, say, Romania!

We saw off-the-cuff gypsy guitar music and dancing, very much like flamenco. 

Some gypsies had dressed up for the occasion, as in the two following photos. The lady looks very elegant but the man seems to be stuck in the 1960’s – look at those winkle pickers, no wonder he’s sitting down!.

We managed to bat off the charmless charm sellers which was only a minor irritation in a pleasant and unique day out. The town itself, because of its isolation, has its own identity and even its own cross which is a crucifix with an anchor. This symbol appears everywhere, for example even on this (decaying) front gate.