Mauriac Graffiti
8 July 2017 at 07:38:55
I'd stayed in a gîte (large wooden chalet with corner kitchen, inside toilet, shower, etc.) at the Val St Jean once or twice a year for many years until this year, always in low season - usually April, sometimes September - and it's very popular at those times with fun-loving Belgians, the ever-present... Dutch and other nationalities, but I thought I'd wait until I'd at least seen it in summer (even though I've never stayed there in summer) before writing a review, so that the review would be more helpful to summer holiday makers. The gîtes we stayed in were well-designed, clean and well-appointed; over the years, the equipment improved often. Some of the gites were in a quiet location in a wooded park, just above the artificial lake and on the other side of the campsite from the road to the golf course, so there was little or no traffic. Sometimes, they would give us a gîte on the other side of the campsite, i.e. overlooking the golf course road but at the top of the slope above the road, so there was a bit more noise and not the same shaded wooded setting, but it was still OK. The gîtes could become quite hot in September, if the weather were sunny: heat radiated into the gîte. I expect that, in summer, people live outdoors until the heat has subsided at night. More recently, ten more gîtes have been built, an event so important for the tourism future of the town that the prefect of the department and numerous other elected representatives came to the opening. I've seen these only from the outside, while walking dogs. They are much closer to the golf course road and didn't seem to me to enjoy much privacy - each seemed to me to face another gíte - but that is only a fleeting impression, as the dogs charged on, and I can't give a confident view of what they're like, as I've not stayed there. I can't praise highly enough the level of service from M. Gauthier and his team. They would go out of their way to solve any problem. I understand that they have won numerous awards. And I don't think that that was only in the low season - I have heard from an English-speaking lady who works there that the team works from 7.00am until 11.00am during the high season, to make visitors enjoy their stay at the campsite, and the mayor referred to the quality of welcome and activities for the summer in his opening speech for the new gîtes, according to the local paper. The artificial lake below the site has a small sandy beach, which is very popular in hot weather - and there can be surprisingly hot weather in this area. Indeed, I would say that the beach was quite crowded on the last hot day when I passed. There are pedaloes for hire. At other parts of the lake, there are quieter locations which are popular with anglers. There is an adequate footpath for walking round the lake, which is a popular activity too, and I think that there is a network of paths which goes off into the countryside, although I've not explored it. There is an open-air pool beside the campsite - 25 metres, I think, heated to 25C and again very popular on hot days - and I was the only person in the pool when I went one cloudy morning. The town also has a covered, heated pool, I believe, and tennis courts where lessons are available. The railway line to the town closed many years ago, and the trackbed is now used for footpaths through beautiful scenery to the north of the town. The Val St Jean site is close to the town for shopping, with several supermarkets, and is an excellent base for exploring the countryside by car, but I suspect that more people who like historic towns will prefer Salers to Mauriac, because many of the older buildings in Mauriac have been knocked about a bit - 20th-century shop fronts inserted into much older buildings, it seems to my inexpert eyes - and the town has a rather empty and forlorn look in the eyes of a tourist in search of quaint old buildings, because (like so many other places) the town centre's small businesses have lost trade to the internet and the two busy supermarkets on the outskirts. Indeed, the council is aware of this and its trying to "redynamise" the town centre - there is a monthly antiques fair, the council is trying to obtain European money to improve the town centre - but it seems a losing battle, with no public toilets of an acceptable standard that I could find, very few shutters painted, many empty shops, the middle classes' moving to the outskirts or surrounding areas, leaving the poorer and/or older people - and 11 hairdressers' salons (many more than a town of the size would normally support) and I would not be surprised if there were not at least the same number of cafes, although I've not counted them. There is late-night drinking in the town centre and there can be some noise, but there does not seem to be violence, litter or vomit on the streets, and I say that after walking round the old town with dogs late most nights. The only trouble I've had so far was being stopped by two young and very polite gendarmes because I'd been jogging after our energetic little dogs along the wide avenue between the town centre and the lake, I was wearing a blue short and a leather hat which I'd had to buy for 75 euros because I hadn't expected the sun to be so bright, and I looked foreign, I suppose. Not that the gendarmes stopped me for those reasons directly; they stopped me because someone had rung to say that a man wearing a blue shirt like mine was drunk and disorderly in that street. I suspect that one or other of those carloads of young people who passed as I was jogging with the dogs decided to let out their high spirits by trying to have me arrested: not really on the tourist message. And that's why I entitled this review "Mauriac Graffiti", i.e. adapted from the novel and film "American Graffiti", where bored/unimaginative local youths in a hot, small town coerce a more sensitive/competent contemporary to join them in petty crime, he leaves the area, he returns years later and .... I won't spoil the ending for you! In brief, the Val St Jean is a great little lakeside camping and cabin facility in a very scenic area, a real asset to the area's tourism offering and the only such site which I think will exist in the area, unless some day the council raises enough money to flood the larger valley to the south and create a Lac du Val d'Auze, closer to the visitable waterfall and the railway line with its tourist potential. And that ain't looking likely anytime soon.
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8 July 2017 at 07:38:55
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