The last dregs of summer, 5 October 2022

This morning, for some reason, I fell asleep again after taking my tablet and didn't wake up until well gone 09:00. I really had trouble getting out of bed and showering, too! However, once I had, I was fairly all right, and we spent the first hour after breakfast doing necessary chores like boiling the washing-up cloths to sterilise them, and changing the tea-towel, while the Swan Whisperer washed the outside windows and windscreens. 

When we were ready to move on, though, and we had a bit of a fright, as when I pressed my card to the exit barrier, nothing happened! I realised there were no lights on the barrier, and the Swan Whisperer said it was the same on the entry barrier. So I rang them up, and first the woman I spoke to - who didn't speak nearly as good English as the one I spoke to the other night - asked me to try a code, but of course that didn't work, and then she said we could lift the barrier manually. So we did that. Unfortunately, the power cut, or whatever it was, also applied to the services - which were outside the actual enclosure - so we had to come away without using them. 

Our first port of call was Arles. We thought at first it would be impossible to park, since all the ar parks we could see were full, but just as we were going sadly away, we came across an absolutely enormous, empty car park that was so new the entrance barriers and card readers, etc, hadn't been set up yet. So parking was free. There were two other, older, car parks on the site which were now locked out of use, whether permanently or just in the low season I couldn't say. 

A shuttle bus ran us into town and, indeed, out the other side to the Roman race-track. We had confused this with the arena and theatre, but there was a good museum there and we enjoyed wandering around seeing the various bits and bobs they used in daily life, although I, for one, was less than enthused by the enormous hunks of stone that formed much of the display. Of more interest was a huge wooden boat that had apparently sunk in the harbour some 2,000 years ago and had been raised. It had been carrying stone, among other cargo. There were also a great many sarcophagi - frankly, if you've seen one Roman sarcophagus, you've seen them all - and I do hope they reburied the original inhabitants with all due reverence. 

When we had finished with the museum, we decided to walk back into town - a lovely path which took us past the Roman-style garden that the museum had created. It was full of schoolchildren and others eating packed lunches, so we didn't go in, but walked up alongside the Rhône,

and then through the mediaeval streets until we got back to the main drag where we had lunch. Then we walked a bit further until we got to the old arena.

I was flagging by then, but nothing a delicious ice-cream

couldn't cure! We tried to get a sight of the Roman theatre, too, but were somehow the wrong side of it. 

We walked back to the main drag through a small but steep (fortunately downhill!) public park, and didn't have to wait too long for a bus back to the car park. 

We then drove on, via a supermarket, to this France Passion farm at Montcalm, in the Camargue, where we were warmly welcomed. The woman in the shop seemed both surprised and pleased that we had bothered to come and say hello - I have to wonder how many people don't bother. Or who stop here without being members of France Passion. Actually, looking at the map, it is possible that the France Passion place is the other side of the road, but this place takes motorhomes to, so....