Rendezvous with Loriot

Pentecost is just around the corner and invites you to take a spin with Château Mistral.

The plan to travel south towards Hesse falls apart due to the forecast of persistent rain for the regions below the apple equator. So we head north.

First, we head off for micro-adventures in the Drömling. The small nature park has been a UNESCO biosphere reserve since 2023 and is almost on the doorstep. The fen landscape is criss-crossed by an artificial water system over 1,700 kilometers long and is often called the "land of a thousand ditches." The Giebelmoor located within it is considered the westernmost extension of the taiga.

The area just behind Wolfsburg is sparsely populated. Swans stand on the road in search of the most beautiful moat and regulate the sparse through traffic. Leaning half-timbered church towers greet guests in the villages and cycling tourism is still relaxed and gentle.

We stay here for our first rest. But before I can start preparing our dinner, the sambal oelek has to be scraped out of every crack in the fridge.

I am firmly convinced that I sealed the jar properly and firmly before the trip because of my painful caravan experience. And I am also firmly convinced that the completely rutted, cratered and unbelievably broken streets of the world's best car city are solely responsible for the caravan being jolted and shaken and the good, red and hot stuff from Indonesian peppers being able to artfully spread itself all over the Mistral refrigerator.

From now on, I will check all jars to ensure they are properly sealed and only then will I personally release them for further travel.

On this Whitsun trip we are looking for peace, relaxation and contemplation, so we are not going to the seaside, but rather we are following the trail of areas that are as little developed for tourism as possible. We soon leave the small Drömling behind us and come to the Altmark, which is often referred to as the "cradle of Prussia", which is often still evident in the small towns.

But first we do a Kneipp cure by treading water to stimulate circulation and blood flow after the long car journey.
Here we meet Mr. Schwalbe, who has brought his two granddaughters over the sandy track on his yellow Eastern moped. The two girls are wearing swimming goggles to protect themselves from the wind, dust and wild flying insects, a strange image that is quite reminiscent of the outfits of Victorian steampunkers. He tells us that the small lake was artificially created in the 1970s and that the plan was to build a romantic bungalow complex for workers seeking relaxation. That hasn't worked out so far. Luckily, he says. Now we can do Kneipp therapy in peace and quiet and the two naked girls can dive for mussels in the pool.

We continue to the Elbe, where cuckoos, pheasants, nightingales, orioles and mosquitoes entertain us wonderfully with their tireless singing.

I am particularly fond of the oriole with its exotic melody that always sounds a little like the jungle and rainforest, which is inextricably linked to a story that happened a few years ago and that I would like to tell here.

The year is 2011. And we are in the south of France during the Whitsun holidays at the beautiful Lac du Salagou near Montpellier.

And we even found some old photos for you and added them to illustrate the story!

As he does every year on Whit Monday at 4:00 a.m., the local farmer sprays his wine with his incredibly loud turbine, depriving the numerous tourists of their holiday sleep.
However, we are woken up by a loud cracking noise at the back of our car. It is the first Kangoo in azure sky blue, but it is already ten years old.

We'll look into the cause of the noise in the morning. The car is listing considerably on the right side, hanging down on one side, and is leaning quite crookedly. Hmmmm?

Zappa thinks the shock absorber might be broken. We'll need a workshop, but today is also a holiday in France. And so on this wonderfully sunny day we rumble carefree through the amazing landscape around the reservoir with its deep red rock layers over bumpy tracks and dusty vineyard paths. We don't even shy away from the extremely steep driveway up to a medieval castle.

On Tuesday morning we quickly find the Renault garage in Clermont-l'Hérault and after a surprisingly short wait, Mr. Garage accompanies me to the Kangoo. The shocked look on his face speaks volumes, he shakes his fingertips as if he had been terribly and very painfully burned and the loud "Ooohlala - dangereux, dangereux!" makes us fear the worst.

He runs back to his office and after some quick research he tells us that one of the two rear torsion bar axles is probably broken, that the repair would be far too expensive for the old car and that we shouldn't actually drive it anymore.

But he also has some good news: his good friend would repair the car and for that we have to go to Pé-ze-nas to the Papini garage.

But be careful: don’t let the gendarmerie stop you, that will cause trouble!

I have no idea what kind of deal he has with Mr Papini, but Pézenas is about 20 kilometers away. It goes pretty quickly on the motorway and luckily we also avoid the eye of the law.

The first to arrive there is – of course – Midi.
So we take a seat on the main road, let the big, stinking garbage bombers thunder past us on their way to the dumping site, and take a lunch break. At 3:00 p.m. sharp, Mr. Papini is back, takes a look at the patient and gives us a cost estimate: A THOUSAND euros!

Wow, that's something that needs to be digested after eating. Zappa says no.

The car is ten years old, the MOT is about to expire, and there's been a large stone chip crack running across the windshield for a few kilometers. That's absolutely impossible and far too much money.

We digest, deliberate, discuss and rethink our options.

Finally, Zappa reluctantly agrees and I arrange with Monsieur that he will take care of the Kangoo this afternoon while we walk to the American fast food restaurant to use the free WiFi while we drink Coke and MacFlürrie. Mobile data is not yet available on every corner at that time.

When we return to the workshop at the end of the day, the Kangoo is still where we left it. Untouched.

I get our key from the boss and agree that we will come back “demeng mateng”, i.e. tomorrow morning at 10:00 a.m., and he will then take care of the problem.

The good Michelin road map shows us a spot on the river Hérault, which flows not far from the town. And there we are unexpectedly surprised by a little paradise!

The ruins of an old watermill have created a heavenly, dreamlike lagoon on the shore. Turquoise blue, crystal clear, refreshing water, surrounded by tall plane trees and lush green giant fig trees, the old walls overgrown and impassably overgrown with arm-thick lianas. And the golden oriole constantly whistles its melodic, incomparable song that reminds you of distant primeval forests. What a wonderful place, perfect for forgetting your bad mood and spending the evening.

That night we unexpectedly witness a spectacular lunar eclipse. The full moon turns an indescribably fiery red as it passes over the horizon until it almost disappears completely into the black sky. Our spot at the enchanted water mill offers a free, incredible view of a spectacle that we had no idea was going to happen.

On Wednesday we arrive at the workshop at the agreed time, leave the key with Monsieur, walk to the Internet access and then visit Pézenas. The famous, great classicist Molière stayed here a long time ago and the town has been very much inspired by his spirit ever since.

Mr Papini does not get in touch during the day as agreed. When we arrive shortly before the end of the day, he promises that the spare part will arrive from Paris “in a moment” and that the Kangoo can be made ready to drive.

So we take the key back and drive with the crooked stern back to the blue lagoon.

What can I say? Of course, the great French drama continues on Thursday in the classic sense. We are told to wait until Friday for the Mateng, but time is running out. On Monday the holiday is over and we both have to go back to work. What if Paris doesn't deliver tomorrow either?

Back in the blue lagoon, Zappa wanders restlessly along the banks of the water, listening to the sweet song of the oriole, and soon pulls a Euro pallet out of the river. Then he reaches for his sharp Japanese kitchen knife.

No, he doesn't want to attack Mr. Papini. He works on the wood meticulously and without being distracted by my constant, narrow-minded questions. His plan: to chop a block out of the pallet beam. I tell him he's crazy, but it goes faster than I thought and as soon as he has the piece in his hands, he uses a jack to lift the car up on the right rear axle. He clamps the piece of wood he has captured between the body and the axle and, lo and behold, the car is upright again!

Zappa gets into the car and takes a careful test drive along the track. The pallet holds. A few more kilometers through the next village, everything stays in its place. And another trip with me in the passenger seat. I'm bouncing around on the stool because the axle suspension is broken. But I don't want to complain.

Now we don't have to mess around much longer, we're heading home that evening. We rumble through the countryside for almost 1400 km at 80 km/h and after two and a half days, just in time for the end of our vacation, we arrive back at home with the hope that Mr. Papini will still have a use for the spare part that may have been delivered in the meantime.
Zappa passes the Kangoo on to a nice Czech who turns two vehicles into one and buys the red car with the really bad karma.

But maybe more about that another time.

While writing these lines, we discovered through research on GoogleEarth that our romantic blue lagoon has disappeared due to the rehabilitation of the broken dam with huge excavators, lots of concrete and an exemplary fish ladder.

Now the oriole is bringing me back to the present and this year's Whitsun trip is taking us to the Prignitz in the northwest of Brandenburg. We learn that the district, with 35 inhabitants per square kilometer, is the most sparsely populated in all of Germany.

Romantic little towns, stork villages, wild chives on the banks of the Elbe and lots of mosquitoes welcome us here – thank God, not as much as on the beach in the Camargue in another story:

https://vakantio.de/chateaugeschichten/ein-tag-am-meer-4

Black storm clouds announce heavy rain showers with thunder and lightning and thus the end of the long weekend.
So we set off for home, once again with the realization that sometimes the good is so close