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As Sale are playing top flight European rugby next season, & as we have drawn Clermont in our group MsD and I are looking at a somewhat extended city break to take in the rugby and enjoy the locals. However i know sod all about the place!
However i know sod all about the place!
Yeah, I can tell.
You'll be visiting a place called Clermont-Ferrand which is in The Auvergne region of France. 😀
Go for it. Book tickets and flights and just go. Experiencing rugby in the south of France would be fantastic. It's not quite in the SW heartland but I've heard Clermont is lovely at any time of year.
There'll be French people there. You have been warned 😀
All i know is that its near the Ventoux - but i doubt I'd get away with taking the bike!
Food? Wine? Places to visit?
It is nowhere near Mt Ventoux. Unless you consider 5 hours of driving to be nearby.
It's the north end of the Massif Central - the central mountains of France. Just south of CF is the Puy de Dôme, an old volcano with a steep road up it (that may now be closed - not sure). It's where this photo was taken:
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Clermont-Ferrand has a Michelin factory and isn't really a big destination town. The aforementioned volcanoes to the south are lovely, and there's a Volcano Attraction not far away : http://www.vulcania.com/
Definitely take the trip. No doubt about it my mind. Support your team away in the South West of France. The Clermont crowd at Twickenham for the semi where fantastic, we where sat amongst them. My good mates son went to a match in Clermont last season and loved the town. I follow Toulon and have done a couple of trips down there, will go again next year too. Have also been to Marseilles, Perpignan and quite a few games at Stade Francais (more reserved as its Paris !). It's just a great atmosphere to take in. Book a cheap hire car so you can travel around a bit too.
Get it booked up now and it won't be expensive. Be aware match could be played Fri, Sat or Sun so take a couple of days off and make the most of it.
The Volcano! Sorry, got mixed up with the Ventoux.
Jambalaya - that's the idea, wait til the date is confirmed then book a long weekend/4or5 days in the town. Want to experience French rugby in one of those great public owned stadia. Have a rough idea where the town is but know nothing of its history, whether its an industrial hole or a rural backwater.
Toulon is an industrial / Navy town, quite run down. Add some sunshine and 20,000 rugby supporters and it's quite an atmosphere. I think Clermont is rather nicer. Get a car and have an explore, how can it go wrong !
how can it go wrong
md wandering around asking "Oo ay Awverginnee?"
I went for work earlier this year. Went out early so I could spend a day mooching about. Should have hired a car, I probably spent the same in taxis to and from the airport. Plenty to do for a day without one, though.
There's a special bus that runs from town to the bottom of Puy de Dome. Various walks to the top (including some beautiful, sinewy, steep singletrack through the woods that had me aching for a bike!) - much nicer than taking the funicular. 90 mins give or take, depending on the route. Can't get lost - keep going up! Great views from the top. You could walk a seciton of GR4 if that sort of thing floats your boat - it takes in the summit of P de D
The town's nice, lots of places to eat and drink, pavement cafes in the old town, everything you'd expect.
Its OK MsD speaks passable French so I'll just nod and smile! Going up the Dome sounds like a plan, I'm told by a French chap we have working for us that the wine is good around there?
wine is good around there
That applies to the whole of France ! Joking aside it's outside the main producing areas but fairly close to Bordeaux. I imagine they will have plenty of local wine, fairly good and cheap.
My most enjoyable glasses of wine have been from a carafe, from god knows what year, or what grape variety, sat in a restaurant in a village somewhere, eating the plât du jour, and assuming the owner must think I have most excellent French. It's all about the ambience (to rhyme with séance).
You're a Sale fan md. You don't get chances like this very much. Go for it and enjoy. It'll be a lovely weekend mate.
It's a beautiful part of France, I spent a week mountain biking around there back around '97, and it was fantastic. I can't remember now where we started and finished, but Puy-de-Dôme was part of it. Visited one of the volcanic lakes on a rest day, really lovely scenery, great roads, and very quiet.
Cool, we are going to get thumped of course - Clermont, Munster & Saracens in the same group means we're certain to bomb out in the first round but I've been waiting for a French rugby trip to one of the big clubs! Now, how much are flights i wonder...?
I went there with Ryanair in 2002, it's a nice area, CF is a bit industrial but OK.
Aren't Clermont's football side the one that hired a female manager who promptly quit because the chairman turned out to be a sexist arsehole?
That is all I know about it.
1) There is apparently nothing there apart from a sodding enormous Michelin factory where all the Clermont players 'worked' when rugby was (allegedly) amateur
2) We'll get humped, in the noble tradition of Sale in Europe. Still, it'll be better than watching the boys lose to Munster in the rain in Salford.
There was a great big stash of gold in the central square bank in WW2. A bunch of American soldiers led the fight to the town, got the gold, then were never seen again.
Kelly Heroes was a documentary wasnt it?