Travel to Los Masos, France

 

Currently I am overseas in France visiting family who because of Covid restrictions I have been unable to see for the past 4 years. After arriving in Nice from my connection plane in Dubai I drove with Fabrice my partner to a small hamlet of La Clapisse near the city of Sisteron.

 

Sisteron is a French commune located in the department of Alpes-de-Haute-Provence in the Provence-Alpes-Cote d’Azur region. In the past the city occupied a privileged and important position because it was close to the confluence or merging of two major waterways-the Buëch and the Durance.  The city became important as a bridge site, the only one where a bridge survived in a sustainable way on the Durance river from antiquity to the nineteenth century.

 

Sisteron has many monuments including its citadel , facing the rock of La Baume whose strata are almost vertical, a  12^th century cathedral  , Notre-Dame des Pommiers with its five towers, several chapels and the remains of former convents.

Sisteron is located 485 m above sea level, 133  km from Marseille and 180  km from Nice .

 

La Clapisse is a hamlet in the village of Mison with beautiful walks through the surrounding fields, the forest or along the canal and the views around this rural area are lovely.

Fabrice had two ex-shepherd friends living in La Clapisse who welcomed us to stay for a couple of nights. 

We walked over 6km around the area the day after our arrival and I observed fields of harvested lavender sleeping over the winter, ploughed fields with lucerne growing for animals, apple orchards, flocks of sheep and cattle and an Oak Forest.

For me the special feature of this area was the fact that that the view I had from all points in the hamlet as I walked gave me a full 360degree perspective of fields and mountains which is rare to find anywhere.

Staying in La Clapisse introduced me to my first experience of winter cold-of  seeing ice on the ground outside the house in the morning and snow on the surrounding distant mountains. 

Thank goodness I had been given a lovely warm jacket by my hosts-interestingly Fabrice had given that same jacket to his friend Noel over 10 years before and it was now returned, but to me for use while here in France.

Two days later we left for los Masos where I will be mostly based while here in France this trip.

 

The drive was an education in itself. 

The autoroute highway or motorways are all largely all tolled (76% in 2015) and at various points on the journey we came to barriers where you take a ticket when you enter the highway and pay the toll when you exit. It was always a race by the drivers exiting the toll gate and quite scary to observe the craziness exhibited by some drivers to resume their racing journey and place in the two or three lanes of the highway.

There are many places alongside the motorway where you can stop-some have petrol and food, others just tree covered rest stops with a toilet and places to park for drivers to rest or sleep. 

Originally, the autoroutes were built by private companies mandated by the French government under strict construction rules. They are operated and maintained by mixed companies held in part by private interests and in part by the state. 

Those companies hold concessions, which means that autoroutes belong to the French state and their administration to semi-private companies. 

 

The private company Vinci controls around 4,380 km (2,720 mi) of the motorway system in France. Its owners are mainly international investment funds with the two biggest shareholders being the US fund BlackRock and the country of Qatar.

                                                                                    

Fabrice informed me that although there are a number of dual carriageways and other roads that can take you from the North to the South of the country without visiting a single toll not only would the journey take a bit longer, but the routes are confusing and some local knowledge or a really good map is needed. The other problem is the changing speed levels and therefore a greater chance of getting a speeding ticket.

The speed on the motorway is 130km and I was surprised that the old van we bought (a 1991 Citron-very much a country car) moved like a rocket despite its age and condition-yah for a fairly new Peugeot diesel motor.

It took a full day of driving and stopping to make the 441 km drive to Los Masos due to the terrible rain we encountered until Montpellier, losing our way near Marseilles so we ended up off the motorway and in the countryside until we could get back on and then the many stops for food, diesel and Fabrice to smoke 

a cigarette or calm down from the stress of the driving in appalling weather.

We arrived in los Masos at sunset and were welcome by Fabrices father Sege with food waiting in a warm comfortable house.

 

The town of los Masos is in the Pyrénées-Orientales department of France in the Occitanie region and is closer to Barcelona than it is to Paris. It is located 36  km as the crow flies from the city of Perpignan and 3km from Prades.

In Catalan, the name of the area is els Masos and is the only French commune whose name begins with a non-French article (los). The words “los masos” means a set of houses or farmhouses.

Llonat is the main hamlet/village of the town/area. This is where the town hall (Marie) and the church of the Nativity of Our Lady are located. The other two hamlets/villages that make up los Masos are La Sacristie and Ballanet.

Los Masos is crossed by two streams, the Roure in the centre, which goes towards Lloncet, and the Llisco.

 

These rivers have their source under the Roc Mosquit at an altitude of 1,600  m and crosses Clara before arriving at Los Masos via La Sacristie and Ballanet.

 

Water has always been a problem for the village and its inhabitants have in the past been called “the dry mouths (or boques axugues in Catalan)”. Around 1863 the Bohère Canal was built. It stretches for 42 km from Serdinya to Marquixanes, near Lake Vinca.  

This allowed easy watering of crops and, therefore diversification. 

Today, fruit production is the main production-they grow fruit which is a cross between and a plum that is called Brugnon.

Locally around Lloncet there are cows and other small farming.

I can hear the bells all day and night as the cows move about eating.

However, like so many other places worldwide, the number of farms locally fell from 38 in 1988 to 10 in 2020 which is a drop of 74% in 32 years. However, at the same time the amount of land used for agriculture has increased from 150 ha in 1988 to 1228 ha in 2020.

So here I am until we head north to collect Bryan for Christmas. Since arriving there has only been one raining day and the temperature varies from 0 or –1 degree in the morning to almost 30 degrees (like today) when the sun is shining onto the deck.

 

There is a lovely view over the garden fishpond towards the snow topped Canigou Mountain in the distance. There garden has raised beds that I am helping to clear of old summer plants and replant with flowers for Christmas. Lloncet is a reasonably quiet village traffic wise, and I don’t mind at all listening to the sound of clanging bells from the cows below in the nearby fields or the Church bell sounding out the hour- it stops ringing between the hours of 10pm and 6am 

 

The town of Prades is close by where most things can be purchased and it’s a very short drive down the hillside road to get there although interestingly it is colder than up in the village. The wee fairies I brought with me named Josie and Traveller seemed happy to be here in France.