This place is dead. Mind you, it is a Sunday.
There’s apparently nothing in the village of L’Hospitalet du Larzac. The sole entertainment is the bar/restaurant on our campsite. I don’t believe there’s even a boulangerie. The proprietors here have the market all sewn up. Fortunately, it’s a pleasant enough establishment.
We tried a short walk to what looked like a possible wildlife area with three water bodies and, although Outdoor Active showed footpaths around them, they were behind gates and fences.
So, we decided to take Frodo for a short ride to La Cavalerie, where Francine had originally intended to stay. That looked very sleepy as well, though here there was a sign to a boulangerie. We did find a bar with quite a few tables and chairs set out so we treated ourselves to a beer each. Two would’ve been nice but I was driving. I took the number of tables as a sign that this could get busier on some days.
La Cavalerie is a Knights Templar town, a military order of the Catholic faith. Memories of The Da Vinci Code spring to my mind. All the many planters around the town are decorated with the red cross of the Knights Templar. We did pop into the church for a quick look see, too.
There’s another notable feature in these parts, on the high causses and that is the Cardabelle flowers, which look like a kind of huge thistle, stemless, growing flat to the ground surface. Many of the doors are adorned by them.
Not only is it Sunday but it’s also the first round of the snap French election which is reportedly experiencing the biggest turnout in 40 years. Maybe everyone was out voting. Along with our own coming election, this should make for some interesting analysis with the far right supposedly on the rise through much of Europe.
Finding La Cavalerie not exactly enthralling for very long, we returned to our market-cornering restaurant at the campsite for lunch.
Now came the single highlight of the day. Having discovered the notorious Box-tree Moths (Cydalima perspectalis) – it’s the caterpillars that destroy Box hedges – yesterday and managed to snag a picture, Frodo was playing host to one of the melanic forms to go with the more normal white variety. Now I have the set of two. (The bizarre background on the melanic form is Frodo’s passenger door window blind.)
Incidentally, we’ve been disenfranchised from our own election. It was called just a few days before the beginning of our trip so our postal vote would not be received, and the election is being held 2 days before we return. Brilliant.
Whilst I’m a firm remainer, I can’t help but think that, if the far right gets too strong a grip in too many places, we may wind up with no EU to have remained in anyway.
And then there’s Trump.
Interesting times.
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