Tuesday August 14, Fridefont

The village boulangerie

We popped up the road a bit further this morning to see the old church on the hill we had spotted last night, but the bridge over the river to it was not suitable for motorhomes nor could we find a nearby parking so a quick shot out the window and we headed back. These are the down sides of travelling like a snail. Drove back to Vielle Brioude and parked in the large carpark in the square and went for a walk through the rather quaint village. The large church had really nice gardens with a signposted walkway, and great views down to the bridge and river. Stopped in the local boulangerie for our “daily bread”…. and their patisserie’s looked particularly good, and needed sampling!
Decided to drive the 15 minutes to the village of Lavadieu, another in the book of 100 Beautiful French Villages. It was an easy drive through some pretty countryside and had plenty of parking. It really was beautiful as we walked up through the old stone buildings passing by several absolutely wonderful vegetable gardens. Not a weed to be seen and such varieties of crops including many different kinds of tomatoes, ripe and ready for picking …. But no gate! Wandered the streets amazed at the remnants of the monastery that was founded in 1057, and although everything was beautiful, there was hardly a soul around except for tourists like us. I guess that it was lunchtime and everyone was busy enjoying their two hour break which could account for it.
We continued on our travels through the Massif Central, a region we hadn’t really visited before. There are so many contrasts with lots of rocky gorges, high cliffs, forests and pastoral land. We were back up to 1000 metres at times as we took the route through Murat, St Flour and onto our overnight stop in a municipal camp in the small village of Fridefont.  Murat is in the middle of the Cantal region, a quite prosperous agricultural area and the town really looked inviting, but once again I searched for somewhere to stop without any success.
Tonight’s spot is very high up with rural views in all directions. And for once we didn’t sit outside for long as there was a chill to the air, not complaining though!

The ruins this morning.

Heirloom tomatoes

SHame my garden doesn't look like this!