This posting, complete with music, may seem too enthusiastic. Ah, but you weren’t there.
To get down from the Aubrac Plateau I just needed, and wanted, to follow the road. Looked a little wild out there:
This is as high as one gets, till the Pyrenees:
Yet to leave the snowline is a matter of five minutes. And the end of that easy downhill brought me to this old converted tower in the village of Saint-Chély. It was built by a religious order, but its defensive design was made necessary by that period. Bloody routiers.
There I had a room to myself, with all its ancient charm preserved amongst every modern facility. For dinner I descended the fifteenth century steps…
…to an ancient hearth place…
…where Jean-Claude, a man born to renovate and to entertain, presented a meal of paupiettes de veau and tian for myself and two German pilgrims. All the work of Christine, Jean-Claude’s wife. No aligot tonight, guys. One of the German ladies was moved to utter the old German saying: Wie Gott in Frankreich! Like God in France.
A Cantal cheese, though only six months old, rates among the best cow’s milk cheeses I’ve tasted. Jean-Claude told me it was possible to get a similar cheese with much more age, but the cost was as stupendous as the quality. Mind you, the single best thing I tasted there was the quince confiture at breakfast: perfume made solid!
There’s something else to say about Jean-Claude, which makes his efforts for heritage and pilgrims so much more remarkable. But I’ll leave that till later, rather than break the mood.
Let Charles Trenet have the last word:
Far out….. I have a photo of that 1340m altitude sign with mist behind it but green grass beneath it…… Gosh….. what a lot of snow you had!!!!!
I had been told to take the road to Aubrac, but didn’t hear anyone say to avoid the track down to St Chely, then wondered why there was nobody passing me. They all took the road, and reached the gite before me.
At what time of year did you traverse the Col d’Aubrac?
After your rapturous description of your stay in Saint-Chély, I found the name of your logement and then discovered that a French party has already reserved their lodging (mine included) in this same fabulous spot.
Hi Tom
It would have been last day of March or first of April.
The French are great bookers-out, aren’t they? I often had large parties booking me out. I learned the trick of falling a day behind such parties, in hopes that a similar group wasn’t coming up the rear.
Bon chemin
Rob