South of France, 26 March

I woke up this morning to hear a cuckoo!  Well, I suppose it is nearly April, and they must be here before they arrive in the UK, but one very seldom hears them there any more (not that one ever did in London).  The Swan Whisperer went for a run while I got up and got breakfast, and then we made use of the services and topped up again with water, although we didn't really need it. Then we drove to Marseille via Aix-en-Provence.

We didn't stop in Aix, largely because time was getting on, as we had arranged to meet an Old School Friend of mine for tea this afternoon. OSF is married to a Frenchman and has lived in Marseille for many years. She kindly took us to a place where we could get our headlight repaired - the bulb had gone, and it is not an easy job without the right tools. However before that we stopped in the centre of Marseille and had lunch and a walk round, which was lovely. The weather couldn't have been more perfect, sunny and warm and bright blue skies.

About 5, we said au revoir to the OSF and headed east towards the Camargue, and are parked up for the night in a place called Carro, right on the sea front. It is very windy - I think we are in for a noisy night!

South of France, 25 March

The kind people at the lavender distillery offered us a tankful of water, which we accepted with great pleasure. We were not exactly early this morning, as the loss of an hour for European summer time means we are two hours later than we were this time last week. Not too bad, as we have had several days to get used to being an hour ahead, and anyway, we had an early night last night.  But eventually we set off, heading first of all to a supermarket - more and more French supermarkets are open on Sunday mornings now - and then the Swan Whisperer said he wanted to visit Digne-les-Bains.

I do wish he hadn't - the most awful mountain road up over the Col de Cabe, 11.800m, and hairpin bends to match!  Thank heavens for seabands!  We stopped for lunch once we had come down a little, in a random lay-by, and then headed on. I slept a lot of the way. Nothing much to see in D-les-B, and we couldn't find the aire (although we did find diesel and a cash point, both of which we needed), so we came away and followed the tourist route (more hairpin bends, and a rather bumpy road, which the SW hates) down to Gréoux-les-bains, where we had planned to spend the night. I think we have been slightly ripped off, though, because it is (I think) €10 for the night, including electricity and services (we had to move to get to the electricity), but there are other services on the way in and plenty of free parking in the town, so am not very impressed!

After a cup of tea we went for a short walk to see what the was to be seen (not much, aside from the spa), and I cleverly found a short cut back to the aire!  It is very much milder here, although we are still at 316m.  Apart from the hairpin bends, it has been a lovely drive, lots of olive trees and lavender, and different kinds of fruit trees, some of which are beginning to be in blossom, but many look absolutely dead!  It is amazing how varied France is!  One of the reasons we enjoy our trips so much, I think.

South of France, 24 March

We are a day ahead of ourselves today, as we realised that the place I had chosen for us to spend the night was on the horrible road between Valence and Le-Puy-en-Velay that we drove over once and never again!  And really, it was not far between the two places I had chosen for last night and tonight, so we thought we'd push on, and then have a day in hand.

We had a bit of a fight with the Satnav, which wanted us to go over the Plateau de Vercors, but those awful hairpins down to Die?  In a motorhome? I don't think so!  So we came mostly down the N7, which was lovely, a lot of it along the banks of the Rhône.  Stopped for lunch somewhere in a random car park, but warm enough to have the skylight open, and it is definitely Spring here in the south!  The birds are shouting their heads off, and we are parked up in a lavender distillery which has a donkey and dwarf rabbits and Guinea-pigs. At least, I think they are dwarf rabbits, not rabbits and dwarves, which I thought for a mad moment, but the lack of a comma in "lapins nains et cobayes" reassured me!

South of France, 23 March

Our first port of call this morning was the Cora in Marsonnay-La-Côte for groceries, diesel and gas, and then we went to Nuits-St-Georges, where there was what three Swan Whisperer thought was a vineyard but turned out to be a seller of local eau-de-vie, etc. So he bottled that, but we went to a winery for a dégustation and ended up buying a bottle of not-very-nice wine, but still!  Then we went to find the aire which was the main reason for calling into the town, as we thought the services were probably open all year round as, indeed, they proved to be. So we used them, and with the van full and empty in all the relevant places, we drove down to Taizé, where we had lunch in the Community car park. We didn't go in; the place was full of young people, mostly German, and we think we are too old to sit in the floor, queue for hours for a meal and certainly to sleep in a hostel!

It was a lovely drive today, through the vineyards of Burgundy. We've done it several times before, of course, but it was nice today not to be in a hurry and not to have a deadline to meet, or any place we really had to be!

After lunch we drove down to Cluny to visit the Abbey there. Our tickets provided for entry into a museum, too, but we were not very impressed by the exhibits which all seemed to be bits of stone. So we went into the Abbey proper - a film about the old church destroyed in 1789, which I regret to say didn't hold my interest, and then a look round where it had been. To be honest, I preferred the cloisters and the huge garden!

Then I went back to the van and made a cup of tea while the Swan Whisperer climbed a tower, and he came down with some lovely pictures of the view from the top.

After he had drunk his tea, it was time to move on and we had a lovely drive across country to this little village of Marlieux, which is a France Passion goat farm. They let one get far closer to the goats than the place in Alsace where we sometimes go!  Lovely!  And I bought some cheese and some honey, and soon it will be supper time.

South of France, 22 March

Well, the snail farm was very slow!  I suppose it was too muddy to show us round, and there was nobody around in the morning to ask. So we drove the couple of kilometres to the Parc des Félins, which was super, even though we only managed to see about half of it. Because they try to keep the cats in environments as like their natural ones as possible, many of the enclosures are huge and took a lot of walking round, especially if you had seen all three of, say, the cheetahs at the first corner! 

There was some splendid roaring from some of the lions - I didn't get my act together in time to record it, but it was amazing!  By this time we were right at the other side of the park, and I was getting tired, so we caught the little train back to the entrance. We decided we'd both had enough, even though we hadn't seen any of the American cats, so called it a zoo and moved on.

First stop was an E Leclerc in nearby Provins for milk and bread, and we had lunch in their car park. Then we drove south and east (I slept a lot of the way, and we had a break while the Swan Whisperer also had a nap) to Velars sur Ouche where we hoped there would be services - there were, but we don't really need them and you needed a jeton to use them, and it wasn't really meant to be an overnight place, so we drove another ten minutes down to Marsannay-la-Cote, where we used to spend the night on our way home from the Mountain Cup. The services here are out of use for the winter, but we are comfortably parked up and I'm about to get supper. We will get services in Nuits St Georges tomorrow. 

Meanwhile it is raining. I love the sound of the rain on the roof.

South of France, 20 and 21 March

We are not, of course, in the south of France yet, but that is where we are headed! 

Yesterday I should have been on grandparent duty, but woke up with a sick headache and had to ask the Swan Whisperer to go instead, which he kindly did. I felt better in the afternoon and got up and started packing the motor home ready for departure.  It was a late crossing as the SW had a Circuit meeting, so we set off at about 10:45 pm, with me dressed warmly in pyjamas, bed-jacket, dressing-gown, warm socks and slippers, wrapped in a shawl and with a rug over my knees!  We had a good run to the terminal, and about 20 minutes to wait before we were called, during which I got rather cold. We were surprised how many vehicles were crossing at that hour of the morning; at least 7 or 8 coaches, and the high vehicle section of the train was nearly full.  But we were off at last and it was not long before we were arriving at the Aire in Cité Europe, having had a snack and then washed during the crossing. I had filled hot-water bottles before we left, so we had a lovely warm bed to snuggle into.

This morning we didn't really stir until about 09:00 local time, and there was still a bit of sorting out to do, so I did some shopping and we headed on, first to the caravan shop to buy a new bin (but, alas, it was broken so will have to go back), then diesel, and finally a long, long drive on motorways to this place east  of Paris (and very slow along the Francilienne as it was rush hour) which is allegedly a snail farm, but they haven't tried to sell us anything, just let us park in the farmyard as the normal field set aside for us is waterlogged. 

We have discovered that there is a feline conservation centre very near here, so plan to visit it tomorrow before heading over towards Dijon.

Off again!

I suppose we are quite sane, heading off to France again this time of year?  But the thaw has come, and it is much warmer than it has been.  And we are hoping that maybe, in the South of France, we will have the sun on our backs for a day or so.

This post, as always, is to goose Network Blogs into checking daily for new posts - will update from my phone, and add photos when I get home again - Wednesday 5 April, unless things go desperately pear-shaped between now and then.