nothing is safe except the truth turns to lies
It was still raining when I started the engine. But, I figured, there could be some good bad-weather shots waiting to be had. I’d liked what I’d seen of the Massif du Cantal and wanted to see whether the mountain might reveal some wet-weather gems. Never loath to backtrack, I headed south-west out of Murat. It was the only way to get onto the D17 up to Puy Mary, but I had to go almost all the way to Aurillac to get across onto the north-leading ridge. It was worth it – the D17 is a good road through some charming villages.
This was a really crap day for photographs. One of those days your mother warned you about. Thick dark stratonimbus meant that headlights were always a good idea, and judging by the occasional slashing rain, there were some serious cumulo-nimbus above the lowering blanket. But bad as it was, the light today was not as bad as the next day, which was so poor that I never touched my camera.
The rotten weather had one advantage, though. Almost a million people travelled up and down this mountain, the largest volcano in Europe, in the 3 months of summer this year. Almost all of these intrepid folk passed, like me, through the Col du Pas de Peyrol. The people responsible for the Puy Mary nature reserve have no idea how to cope with or limit the damage caused by the huge number of visitors. On the two occasions when I went through the col, though, the dismal weather meant that instead of a traffic jam, there were just a few parked camping cars and a couple of cold- and stiff-looking motorcyclists. Swings and roundabouts, though; my life is incomplete, since, much to my disappointment, the cloud meant that I never even set eyes on the wonderfully-named Puy de Peyre-Arse.
I continued north off this impressive, dribbling mountain, bypassing Riom-es-Montagnes on my way to Condet. From there I drove into east into wasteland shrouded in fog, carefully feeling my way towards Parrot where the fog eased. I got out a couple of times to take pictures. It was as cold, windy and bleak as Scotland, and the fog was just as picturesque. From Parrot the road drops down into an ugly industrial valley besmirching the Allier, which must once have been a rather lovely river. I crossed the Allier at Arrest (I’m not making these names up, you know) and climbed back up onto a fog-bound plateau covered in pine forest. Occasionally the fog would open and you’d see swirling tendrils plunging from cloudbase down through the trees to the road. I would have loved to capture one of them, but the light was just terrible, and the photo would have looked like digital noise.
I reached La Chaise-Dieu a couple of months after I’d first visited the place. Only this time the place had the sombre air of Christmas afternoon, all gloom and lighted shop windows, with tourists scuttling past in their heavy winter clothes. This is what you get with global warming if you live in western Europe. I couldn’t even get any decent photos inside the abbey – a concert had just finished and dozens of penguins and their gaudy mates were waddling about going “haw” and talking about oboes.
Back into the dismal afternoon, and time to find a place to lay my weary head. I pressed on east. Everything was drenched, sodden, utterly uninviting, and as I reached St. Bonnet le Chateau I decided, for the second night running, that summer camping didn’t mean you couldn’t look for a bed and breakfast place.
Date: 2007 08 29
Geotag: N 45 20 23.7 E 002 56 31.5
Title: Razorlight Fall To Pieces
nothing is safe except the truth turns to lies
It was still raining when I started the engine. But, I figured, there could be some good bad-weather shots waiting to be had. I’d liked what I’d seen of the Massif du Cantal and wanted to see whether the mountain might reveal some wet-weather gems. Never loath to backtrack, I headed south-west out of Murat. It was the only way to get onto the D17 up to Puy Mary, but I had to go almost all the way to Aurillac to get across onto the north-leading ridge. It was worth it – the D17 is a good road through some charming villages.
This was a really crap day for photographs. One of those days your mother warned you about. Thick dark stratonimbus meant that headlights were always a good idea, and judging by the occasional slashing rain, there were some serious cumulo-nimbus above the lowering blanket. But bad as it was, the light today was not as bad as the next day, which was so poor that I never touched my camera.
The rotten weather had one advantage, though. Almost a million people travelled up and down this mountain, the largest volcano in Europe, in the 3 months of summer this year. Almost all of these intrepid folk passed, like me, through the Col du Pas de Peyrol. The people responsible for the Puy Mary nature reserve have no idea how to cope with or limit the damage caused by the huge number of visitors. On the two occasions when I went through the col, though, the dismal weather meant that instead of a traffic jam, there were just a few parked camping cars and a couple of cold- and stiff-looking motorcyclists. Swings and roundabouts, though; my life is incomplete, since, much to my disappointment, the cloud meant that I never even set eyes on the wonderfully-named Puy de Peyre-Arse.
I continued north off this impressive, dribbling mountain, bypassing Riom-es-Montagnes on my way to Condet. From there I drove into east into wasteland shrouded in fog, carefully feeling my way towards Parrot where the fog eased. I got out a couple of times to take pictures. It was as cold, windy and bleak as Scotland, and the fog was just as picturesque. From Parrot the road drops down into an ugly industrial valley besmirching the Allier, which must once have been a rather lovely river. I crossed the Allier at Arrest (I’m not making these names up, you know) and climbed back up onto a fog-bound plateau covered in pine forest. Occasionally the fog would open and you’d see swirling tendrils plunging from cloudbase down through the trees to the road. I would have loved to capture one of them, but the light was just terrible, and the photo would have looked like digital noise.
I reached La Chaise-Dieu a couple of months after I’d first visited the place. Only this time the place had the sombre air of Christmas afternoon, all gloom and lighted shop windows, with tourists scuttling past in their heavy winter clothes. This is what you get with global warming if you live in western Europe. I couldn’t even get any decent photos inside the abbey – a concert had just finished and dozens of penguins and their gaudy mates were waddling about going “haw” and talking about oboes.
Back into the dismal afternoon, and time to find a place to lay my weary head. I pressed on east. Everything was drenched, sodden, utterly uninviting, and as I reached St. Bonnet le Chateau I decided, for the second night running, that summer camping didn’t mean you couldn’t look for a bed and breakfast place.
Date: 2007 08 29
Geotag: N 45 20 23.7 E 002 56 31.5
Title: Razorlight Fall To Pieces