Pont de l’Arche
We arrived at Pont de L’Arche too late to get a pitch at the riverside campsite we had found online. Outside the main barrier was a car park, also part of the site, where we arranged to spend the night in our car. There were several big motorhomes parked up nearby, and families milling about in the late afternoon sunshine along the riverbank, which was a reassuring sign.
Luckily, our car is fully fitted to sleep in. A people-carrier with the back seats removed, it has a fold-down bed platform big enough for two people, with plenty of storage underneath. We test-drove it by going camping a few weeks before we came out here, and it is surprisingly comfortable to sleep in. It’s also a lot nicer to sleep anywhere in the European summer than in the British rainy season.
The main campsite was fairly small, but clearly popular; every pitch was occupied. There was a simple playground for children, and near the back of the site was a squat, square building that housed the shower and toilet facilities. The fittings were basic — all concrete and plaster and faded tiles — but everything was impeccably clean and well-maintained. Once we had showered and changed clothes, we headed out into the village for dinner.
Pont de l’Arche is not a big place. It is incredibly pretty and historic, with gently winding cobbled paths and crooked old buildings. A quick Wikipedia search tells me that the place was built “in the late Flamboyant style”, which, frankly, sounds like a lot of fun. We quickly found a road with two restaurants, with another handful nearer the top of the village. We settled on a friendly-looking pizzeria with a spare table outside.
They had an English menu, which was unexpected; I was fully prepared to struggle through with Google translate. The pizza that caught my eye had toppings of mozzarella, goat’s cheese, Roquefort, and jam. We decided that jam was a mistranslation of chutney. There was another pizza on the menu, which Liam ordered, that featured honey, so it wasn’t a stretch to suppose that the restaurant had a penchant for putting condiments on pizza.
My optimism dissolved when the pizza arrived. It was cheesy and bubbling and piping hot — and practically covered in ham. Despite my quizzical look and polite protests, the waitress assured me that this was the pizza I ordered.
Liam kindly swapped my pizza-shaped Jew-repellent with his vegetarian pizza, which featured goats cheese and honey on a white base. It was, luckily, delicious.
Where had we gone wrong? We debated and deliberated. Was jam short for jambon? Or was it — as I think — a typo of ham? Either way, suddenly the idea of a cheese pizza with chutney seemed laughable. What had I been thinking? I had never seen such a thing on a menu, so why would it exist in a tiny village in semi-rural France? I am somewhat hopeful that such a pizza exists somewhere, and that I might be able to try it one day.
I wanted to find a way of letting the restaurant know — politely — about the error. If I was them, I would want someone to tell me. I still feel bad about not saying something. But the fact is that what may have been a kind and appropriate thing to do at the beginning of a bottle of wine is very difficult to execute in a different language at the end of a bottle of wine. So we paid the bill and went back to our car-home without ruffling any feathers.
That night I brushed my teeth in one of the outside sinks, gazing across the tranquil river as dusk settled. Green shrubs lined the bank, and tanned French teenagers took photos of each other on the grass. It was a far cry from the transience of Folkestone and the muggy crush of Manchester. Though it would take time to flower, the idea took seed that life for the next few months would be very different to anything I had ever previously experienced.
