Two Go Back to France (4 Viewers)

[Wanders from Glos]

We are booked into a garage on Tuesday. Hopefully it will be fixed then, I've bought all the bits needed. If not I'm going to connect the leisure batteries to the cab battery and we'll drive back to Roscoff in two hour hops between CCP aires, recharging overnight. I drove it on the cab battery only for 45 minutes when trying to find a garage which would fix it and I think it could have done more. When I drove it to the first garage only to find they couldn't help I hadn't charged the cab battery and an orange warning light came on warning "Hill start not available" which I'm certain was due to low voltage. This doesn't appear now after I've charged the battery although a "Check engine" light comes on which I suspect is a legacy of the earlier warning light. This light didn't come on when the fault first developed. The only light was the red battery warning light.

We hired a car this week and did some exploring so the week wasn't wasted. The prospect of driving round numerous garages trying to find one which could do the job quickly didn't appeal. I'm taking the low-stress approach.

Don't blame you.

 

[Ingwe]

As3

We went on a "Pretty Villages" hunt today. The first to be visited was Puycelsi which has a long history of being besieged, firstly by the Celts and Romans then several times in Medieval times by various French factions and once even by the English. Due to its elevated position and massive walls it resisted all attacks apparently.

On a sunny day it is probably packed especially on weekends but we had the place virtually to ourselves on this wet Thursday. We found an empty parking area on the edge of the village just before a huge banner strung above the road which warned that parking was regulated beyond this point. After unsuccessfully trying to get a parking ticket from what turned out to be a charging point for electric cars I worked out parking here was free. In my defence the charging point wasn't very big and didn't look at all like a conventional charge point and identifying marks were minimal.

It was raining for most of our visit but only lightly so we deployed our umbrellas and went to explore.

The siege-defying walls.

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This is an upper terrace, the square openings in the wall on the right are arrow slots on top of the lower wall.

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The front door.

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A small château.

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Even smaller chapel.

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Views of the streets and houses.

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More walls.

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No, I haven't started collecting photos of rubbish bins, it's the sign which attracted my attention, it means Robbers' or Thieves' Path. There's probably a shop for car spare parts at the end of it.

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We then drove a little way to Bruniquel, another village on a hill with two castles. On the way it started to rain heavily and it was still raining when we arrived at the village. We stopped to park in an area which also allowed MH parking and on researching it later turns out to be the municipal aire which is completely free including water etc.

Bruniquel is a much bigger village than Puycelsi and it would have needed over an hour to see it properly. However, we were also stopped beside a restaurant, the time was 12:20 and we could see people inside sitting down to lunch. A change of plan was rapidly made.

Les Bastides had a €16 set menu and the reviews were generally favourable, wholesome food and generous portions seemed to be the theme.

Starters were melon and Parma ham.

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The main course was turkey and rice, the mushroom sauce was very tasty. My fillet was tender but Mrs DBK's fillet was thinner and had been somewhat over-cooked as it was a bit dry.

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But she pronounced her dessert as very good. It was described as a muffin but was extremely light.

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I had the cheese selection and struggled to finish it as there was a lot of cheese.

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The restaurant was just below the village but the houses on the right you can see are more modern I think. The castles are out of sight beyond the brow of the hill. They'll still be there if we ever come this way again.

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A shopping day tomorrow and cleaning up the hire car to hand it back.

As ever DBK great photos and interesting commentary. Really hope that the repair goes to plan and that part of your trip becomes a great story point.

 

[chaser]

We are booked into a garage on Tuesday. Hopefully it will be fixed then, I've bought all the bits needed. If not I'm going to connect the leisure batteries to the cab battery and we'll drive back to Roscoff in two hour hops between CCP aires, recharging overnight. I drove it on the cab battery only for 45 minutes when trying to find a garage which would fix it and I think it could have done more. When I drove it to the first garage only to find they couldn't help I hadn't charged the cab battery and an orange warning light came on warning "Hill start not available" which I'm certain was due to low voltage. This doesn't appear now after I've charged the battery although a "Check engine" light comes on which I suspect is a legacy of the earlier warning light. This light didn't come on when the fault first developed. The only light was the red battery warning light.

We hired a car this week and did some exploring so the week wasn't wasted. The prospect of driving round numerous garages trying to find one which could do the job quickly didn't appeal. I'm taking the low-stress approach.

Didn't your breakdown insurance try to find you a garage that could do it?

 

[DBK]

Didn't your breakdown insurance try to find you a garage that could do it?

Yes eventually but it was a slow business. They found somewhere very quickly but when we turned up it was a place which could fit a new battery if we needed one but nothing more complicated!

After a couple more days they said their French partner, SAVE Assist, had given up and couldn't find anywhere which could fix it in a reasonable time. Fortunately, the breakdown insurers had a French speaker who found a garage which would look at us but not until next Tuesday. This saga took a week to unfold during which I did contact a few places but didn't get anywhere so I just decided to stop fighting fate and make the best of the enforced stay.

 

[chaser]

Yes eventually but it was a slow business. They found somewhere very quickly but when we turned up it was a place which could fit a new battery if we needed one but nothing more complicated!

After a couple more days they said their French partner, SAVE Assist, had given up and couldn't find anywhere which could fix it in a reasonable time. Fortunately, the breakdown insurers had a French speaker who found a garage which would look at us but not until next Tuesday. This saga took a week to unfold during which I did contact a few places but didn't get anywhere so I just decided to stop fighting fate and make the best of the enforced stay.

Didn't they offer a hotel or forward to your destination or taxis and stuff, ours did but I made a mess of some of it they supplied a hire car to go to canet plage, paid for us to come home and still offering to pay for one of us to go back but will update this in my new thread.

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[DBK]

Didn't they offer a hotel or forward to your destination or taxis and stuff, ours did but I made a mess of some of it they supplied a hire car to go to canet plage, paid for us to come home and still offering to pay for one of us to go back but will update this in my new thread.

When I first called them (CMC Red Pennant) they said given the time, about 12:00 on a Friday, garages would a soon be closing at 14:00 and nothing was going to happen with the van before Monday at the earliest. I was told the breakdown truck would take us to a depot and there we would be left. There was mention of hotels but I subsequently discovered the campsite we are now on wasn't far away so I put that to them and they agreed to get the tow truck to take us there. We were lucky the van was still drivable so we could get to the pitch from the entrance.

We've got a dog with us which adds a complication but we've been fine on the campsite, ACSI rates €21 a night and after 6 nights the 7th is free and we've had two free nights so far.

Others might have spent days looking for a garage but after a few rejections I just decided to go with the flow. We have the Plan B in reserve running on combined battery power alone to get us back if we have to - but I can do without the stress of that if it can be avoided.

 

[Jane And Rog]

When I first called them (CMC Red Pennant) they said given the time, about 12:00 on a Friday, garages would a soon be closing at 14:00 and nothing was going to happen with the van before Monday at the earliest. I was told the breakdown truck would take us to a depot and there we would be left. There was mention of hotels but I subsequently discovered the campsite we are now on wasn't far away so I put that to them and they agreed to get the tow truck to take us there. We were lucky the van was still drivable so we could get to the pitch from the entrance.

We've got a dog with us which adds a complication but we've been fine on the campsite, ACSI rates €21 a night and after 6 nights the 7th is free and we've had two free nights so far.

Others might have spent days looking for a garage but after a few rejections I just decided to go with the flow. We have the Plan B in reserve running on combined battery power alone to get us back if we have to - but I can do without the stress of that if it can be avoided.

I hope all goes well for you. I think your policy is definitely the best for peace of mind.