Par for the course

A mile from where I live, a restaurant sits back from the road in grounds about the size of a football pitch. Neighbouring fields yield crops of sturdy maize or tall, nodding sunflowers. In the distance, cows the colour of sand graze undulating pastures, their munching accompanied by a chorus of dull clunks from the tin bells slung around their necks. A trickling stream meanders across the site, with tree-dotted hillsides completing the vista. It’s beautiful and, to the sporting or entrepreneurial eye, looks like the perfect golf course, without the holes and bunkers.

We had just dined in a renovated fascist internment camp

Fortunately, it’s still off the beaten track and the restaurant remains the perfect setting for a leisurely al fresco lunch. In spring and summer diners are seated at small tables clustered around a terrace, beneath enormous canvas shades keeping the shimmering heat of the midday sun at bay. The couple who own it are welcoming and dedicated. She is front-of-house, effortlessly adept at remembering the first name of every previous visitor. His domain is the kitchen. Trained at The Dorchester, he returned to his native France to develop and extend his considerable culinary skills. His menus are stylishly French – meat and fish centred – but when a diner reveals they eat neither, after a Gallic shrug he returns to his lair to conjure up some vegetarian delight.

All good so far; in fact, excellent. It’s just the building that suggests all is not quite usual. From the outside, the long and low structure suggests more an army barracks hut than a restaurant. Inside, there is a small reception area at the front with kitchens at the rear. Double doors lead into a huge open space, easily big enough for a party, or afternoon tea dance, but far too big for intimate dining.

My first couple of visits were during the summer, so we ate outside. But when I went again, the weather had turned and my group was obliged to dine indoors. Just one other table was occupied. It was an uncomfortable experience and not only because any conversation was audible to all, so we found ourselves speaking in whispers. To my senses anyway, there was also an inescapably bleak and ominous atmosphere pervading the room. I mentioned this to one of our number as we left. “I thought you knew about this place,” he answered. Seeing my confusion, he nodded towards the entrance gates. “Come and take a look.”

We walked to the open gates, near which is a large rock with a marble plaque. It states (in translation): “There was a guarded residence centre here from 1940 to 1944. Many activists, communists, democrats, trade unionists, patriotic resistance fighters and Jews were interned here. By order of the Vichy government in March 1941, some of them were deported to camps in Algeria, others, later, to camps in Germany. They were victims of the fascist and anti-Semitic repression that our country experienced during this dark period in our history.”

Above the plaque, captured in a glass bubble, is a black and white photograph of the camp as it was. The image is faded but still shows long, low buildings. I glanced over at the restaurant; we had clearly just lunched in the restored and renovated last of those. The railway track at the rear of the site has long gone, with the narrow, winding route lately restored as a green path for walkers and cyclists. The station building is now a house, but during those grim days trains halted at the platform to collect prisoners bound for horror destinations such as Buchenwald and Auschwitz. Further research revealed that several, mostly unsuccessful, escape bids were made from the camp. I was told too about a secret romance between a local girl and one of the camp officers. It didn’t end well.

We haven’t stopped visiting the restaurant, as the owners need all the support they can get. But we never eat inside. However, al fresco dining now comes at an aesthetic price. Golf has actually arrived. Seeking to earn a few extra euros, the enterprising restaurateurs have added what the UK would call a “crazy golf” course, but here is termed “mini golf.” Eighteen holes, each on an edged concrete base, stretch and wind across the front of the site. With tight, looping tunnels, baffling jumps and turns, and nasty, narrow gaps to negotiate, the course would challenge even the Seve Ballesteros of crazy golf.

It’s open throughout the year and popular, often more so than the restaurant itself. For unless you’re keen on walking or cycling there’s not a lot to do in these parts during the winter months. As I drove by last week I saw a family of four, clad in thick coats and woolly hats, doggedly making their way down the back nine with an elderly onlooker applauding every attempt. Meanwhile, on the first tee, a young couple wearing puffers and clutching putters were limbering up and calculating their opening shots. It looked totally bonkers, yet entirely appropriate for the times we now live in. Crazy golf in an increasingly crazy world.

Robert Rigby is a journalist, author, scriptwriter and musician