Tag: France

April 6, 2018 St. Julien de Sault FR

Today was going to be one of the most stressful travel days for us as we had to make our way from Charles de Gaulle airport to Paris and then on by train to a town called Sens where we would be picked up to go to the depot to pick up our RV.

After much consulting of web sites Ron decided the best way to accomplish the first leg of the trip CDG (Airport code) to Gare de Lyon station was by metro.  It looked pretty straight forward The B train from CDG to a stop in Paris and then transfer to the A train for one stop to Gare de Lyon.  Everything was going swimmingly until it came to the transfer.  The train was packed when it was time to get off and of course we had not just ourselves to get off but two very large bags.  We were definitely two salmon swimming up stream and it did not look like we were going to make it off the train, when suddenly two very large, young French gentlemen decided to take our side.  Whatever they shouted at the people around us and coming onto the train worked wonders and suddenly a clear lane to the door opened up and we popped out on to the platform.  We did not have a chance to thank them as the rush to board the train restarted as soon as we were off,  but they have some good karma coming.

The next stop was Gare de Lyon station where our first linguistic adventure began.  We had to get from the metro to the main train station and purchase tickets for the train.  We saw an information kiosk so I decided to ask how to get to the station and purchase a ticket to Sens.  Quickly I was presented with two tickets and asked for 14 Euro.  This didn’t seem right as I had read it would cost us 40 Euro to get to Sens but paid anyway.  I asked how to get to the platform and was given a map of Paris with a stop circled.  After some further discussion and the intervention of someone in line it became clear that the tickets were not what I needed,  we needed to move on to another part of the station and our money was refunded.  When we found ourselves in the right place Ron decided to not take a chance on any further linguistic issues and bought the tickets from a machine.

We arrived in Sens during lunch and decided on another kebab place.  We know we are in France but we both really like kebab, and it is the cheapest food being offered.  We were gathered up by Alice from the RV company along with a British group.  We were smoothly processed by Alice and her husband Mario who are Portuguese and world travelers themselves.  

Our first exposure to a small village in France.

After our first shopping in France at a very large and new Auchan (grocery chain)it was getting late so we headed over to the campground Ron had picked out. It was close and we thought we would indulge in electricity for the first night.  When we got there though we were met by a closed gate and the owner who explained to us they were closed though we did not quite understand the why.  So instead we ended up in the town aire which is free and looks pleasant.

Also, wanted to say Happy Birthday to Ton.

April 4-5, 2018 Paris FR

Our travel day to France was nicely unremarkable.  The airline of choice was Alaska and American using points Ron accumulated from work.  We made the decision to spend the first day near the airport in Paris to recover from the 16 hours of flying.  The immigration and customs process was the easiest we have ever had entering a country, there was no paperwork to fill out on the plane.  When we landed there was only two people ahead of us in immigration, and after we collected our bags we found ourselves in the main terminal without so much as an encounter with a customs agent.  

After landing we made it over to the airport Quality Inn where our king bed was really two singles pushed together,  we settled in for naps. Later we had a delicious kebab dinner in the little village near our hotel. This is one of my favorite travel stories as there is nothing to talk about.

Languedoc

Languedoc is another region we have just touched as we passed thru.

Loire

The Loire Valley is another beautiful area in France.  We have just touched on it on both of our trips in 2018.  We have more to explore there.

Castle in Loire Valley

 

Posts for Loire

Normandy

We visited Normandy and Brittany unexpectedly in the Fall of 2018 after being urged to do it by nearly everyone we met.  Besides the D-Day beaches Normandy also has Mont St Michel one of the iconic places in France.

Auvergne

We stopped for a couple of nights to try out some Beaujolais wine, and to visit a volcanic mountain, this area really appealed to us.  We love the cheese from Salers.  The capital of this area is Lyon the second biggest city in France.  We made a short visit to Lyon in our Fall 2019 trip.

The beautiful rolling countryside of Auvergne.

May 26, 2025 Vichy FR

May 26, 2025 2 Comments

I selected Vichy for todays visit because of its association with World War II. Today and historically Vichy was famous as a spa town with

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April 13, 2018 Orcines FR

April 7, 2020 No Comments

Today we reluctantly left Burgundy.  But before leaving we wanted to take a look at some more of the Beaujolais country.  Somewhere around Julien we

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Aquitaine

We made a couple of stops in Aquitaine, primarily to visit the famous Bordeaux wine country.

I

May 4, 2022 Blaye FR

May 4, 2022 No Comments

The next couple days will be a lot of driving. We are looking at covering about 300km’s per day as we aim for Galicia. Today

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Midi Pyrennes

We have not really explored this region, but just stopped a couple of times coming and going.  Ron really liked Albi.

The gardens at the castle in Albi.


April 15, 2018 Albi FR

April 6, 2020 No Comments

The day started out with a visit to the cheese shop under the supervision of Patrick the campsite owner.  He also had a French couple

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September 24, 2018 Chartres FR

Our plan when we arrived was to head towards Spain, so of course we drove north today to Chartres.  Along the way we decided to visit Normandy and Brittany on our way to Spain, so we had to divert north to get to Normandy.

We decided to visit Chartres primarily to see its Gothic Cathedral.  We visited Sens Cathedral the other day which is billed as the first Gothic Cathedral, and Chartres is supposed to be the best example of a Gothic Cathedral.  Chartres still has its’ original stained glass as during both wars they removed it and stored it safely.  During WWII the cathedral was in danger as the allies moved towards Paris, but an American Colonel successfully negotiated with a German General to declare Chartres an open city, so there was no  battle fought for the city.

The exterior of the Chartres Cathedral.  Note the contrast between the recenly cleaned upper part, and the uncleaned lower part.  The maintenance of these buildings is daunting.

On our way out of Chinon we decided we wanted to visit a winery, we drove thru the countryside only to find it was closed.  Disappointed again, we wrote off getting a taste of any Chinon wine, but on our way out of town Ton spotted the new tasting room for the winery we had driven out into the country to see.  Pierre and Bertrand Couly had opened a new tasting room on the highway to Chartres, Chinon Red wines are what we call Cabernet Franc in the US.  We spoke to the wife of the owner and she did a great job explaining the wines of the area.  She was aware of Oregon wines as her husband had spent some time at Sokol Blosser winery in Oregon in the 1980’s.

The very fine winery Pierre & Bertrand Couly.  As the owner said you do not have to have an old facility to make traditional wines.

The three hour drive to Chartres was uneventful as the “N” road that we used most of the way was quite good.  We parked in a free overnight spot, and walked about a mile into town to see the cathedral.  The cathedral was indeed impressive, and the interior stain glass windows were among the best we have seen in France.  The cathedral was constructed in the early 1200’s after the previous Romanesque Cathedral had burned.  The cathedral is deservedly a UNESCO world heritage site.  Besides admiring the beauty of the building we also again discussed the maintenance of these immense buildings.  Just keeping the exterior clean is a full time job. 

One of the stain glass “Roses” at Chartres, this one dates from around 1210 and is the original glass.

After touring the cathedral we decided not to wait for the light show, so we walked back to François.  Frankly we were a little peeved with one of the attendants who would not let us take the last crypt tour, and did it in a way that seemed unnecessarily officious to us while simultaneously refusing to speak English, even though we had just heard him giving an explanation of the tour in perfect English to another person.  I hope he was just having a bad day.  We had a light dinner and a relatively early night as we have a long drive to Normandy tomorrow.

Some of the art work in side the Cathedral.

September 22, 2018 Chateau de Chambord FR

Well, plans change. We had originally planned to go to Orleans for the day, but last night we discussed spending a few days in the Loire Valley.  When we woke up it was spitting rain and a little windy, The Weather Channel said it was going to improve as the day went on so we decided to skip Orleans, and head to Chateau de Chambord.

Ron plugged a GPS coordinate into the Garmin which was supposed to be for the motorhome parking at the Chateau and we took off.  The Garmin said it was only a 68km drive, and the roads were good.  Right at the end we started to think something was amiss as we suddenly started to get on smaller and smaller roads and this is maybe the largest tourist attraction in the Loire Valley.  At the end the GPS proudly announced we had arrived, but we were looking at a field next to a little village.  Either Ron inputted the coordinates wrong or the coordinates were wrong in the app we use to find places to stay.  Anyway after a little more research we were on our way to the Chateau.

Thirty minutes later we arrived and what a first impression.  The chateau is magnificent in scale.  As we walked up to the entrance Ton said that this must cost a fortune to maintain.  This would become a theme of the day. 

The first view of the Chateau, it really is immense.

The Chateau was originally constructed from 1519 to 1547 by King François I.  It is built in the Renaissance style and has 11 towers on the roof that are supposed to look like Istanbul.

The back of the Chateau. The roof was supposed to be modeled on the skyline of Constantinople (now Istanbul).

While it is really something to look at it is indeed difficult to maintain.  When you watch the movie of the history of the Chateau it goes something like this, François builds it, and then loses interest in it and it deteriorates, another king gives it to someone who spends a fortune on it and then loses interest and it deteriorates, it passes to another owner who spends a fortune etc.  In fact it may be the greatest white elephant in France.

The ceiling on the third floor, the salamander was the symbol of François I.  

It is now maintained by the French National Park Service and they are clearly spending a fortune to restore and maintain it.  Hopefully they will succeed as it is worth keeping.

These gardens were beautifully restored in 2017.


September 21, 2018 Orleans FR

It was time to get moving.  Last night with some encouragement from Robyn we decided to head to Normandy.  Orleans seemed like a good first leg for the trip.  The first few days of the trip the weather had been perfect, but when we woke this morning it was just starting to rain.  It pretty much rained the whole way to Orleans though the roads were good and pretty stress free.

Our first stop was the aire which is about 5km from the city center.  When we got there the weather was still pretty unsettled so we decided that Orleans could wait for tomorrow and settled in.  The one thing interesting was the aire shared its space with the local pétanque club which is the French version of Bocci.  Unlike other pétanque games we had watched, this group was really good.

The view from the aire tonight.  

In the evening we decided to take a stroll on the footpath along the River Loire.  Not expecting much we were surprised when around a bend in the river about 200 yards from the campground there was a really nice church.  Exploring a little further we came into a little village with a park on the grounds of an old Chateau.  It was an unexpected find for us.

April 26, 2018 Tournon-sur-Rhone FR

We are finally having to focus more on direction than interesting places.  We picked the destination of Tournon-sur-Rhone based on it being a good distance north towards Sens.

When we arrived in Tournon we were not initially impressed.  It was a nice enough town with a nice view of the Rhone River.   There were two river cruise boats docked near town.  We learned that Tournon had a sister city on the other side of the river called Hermitage.  They were connected by a nice wooden pedestrian bridge.  

The wooden bridge across the Rhone between Tournon and Hermitage.

We found another aire for the night and headed into town.  We did a pass thru Tournon and it was nice, and then headed over to Hermitage as Ton wanted to get some pictures of the Rhone and the river cruise boats.  Once we reached Hermitage we saw they had a chocolate museum.  The chocolate museum was really awesome.  It is called Valrhona, and is attached to a factory by the same name.  We decided not to take the tour, but just went thru the attached store.  The store had all you could eat samples of all of their chocolates.  Ron probably ate about 5€ worth of samples, and Ton about 4€ worth.  The chocolate was excellent, and we were almost tempted to buy some but we were full from our free samples!

One of the river cruise ships pulling away from the dock in Hermitage.

On the way back we saw some vineyards on the Tournon side of the river that were really interesting looking.  They were on this incredible slope of about 15 degrees with old stone walls between parcels.  We decided to walk over to get a better view.  They were even more impressive up close.  It turns out that this is a  Grand Cru ( the highest quality wine in France) for Syrah, and is considered the spiritual birth place for Syrah.  So we are going to look for a bottle of the local stuff tomorrow to check it out.

The hills above Tournan which are supposed to be the spiritual home of the Syrah grape.


September 28, 2018 St. Malo FR

Today we enjoyed Brittany.  We had to make a decision, who said there is no stress on these trips.  We are really enjoying Brittany and the weather is great.  But to really explore Brittany is going to take another 3 or 4 days, and we will still be 3 or 4 days from Spain.   We are now on the 11th day of the trip, and we are no closer to Spain than when we arrived.  France is addictive.  So we had to decide whether we spend time here in Brittany, or head south towards Spain.  After much talk and discussion we decided today was going to be the only day in Brittany and we were going to head to Spain.  

The next trick was getting diesel.  Suddenly our credit cards have stopped working at gas stations. We have had no problems with our cards until now.  A quick call to one of our credit cards confirmed we were good, and they did not even see the attempt to charge that was rejected.   After a couple of attempts today we found a fuel station that would take one of our cards, we were under a quarter tank so it was expensive to fill up.

Leaving our campground we saw a nice windmill near the road so we swung in.
While we were there the French Army decided to stage a paradrop for us, Ron was thrilled.  These guys landed right next to Mont St. Michel.

Having made the decision, Brittany is making it hard to leave.  We started the day at St. Malo which is a port town.  St.  Malo was pretty much leveled during WWII as the German garrison would not surrender. After a substantial siege the Allies finally took it.  So except for the city walls the city has pretty much been rebuilt since WWII.  But they did a great job of rebuilding the old city within the walls of the fort.  

Part of the fort at St. Malo.

We spent most of our time in St. Malo walking the battlements of the fort.  St. Malo was  a fortified port for 500 years.  Some of the forts were built by the man who is considered by many to be the greatest fort builder in the western world, Vauban.  They are indeed impressive, and were even able to pretty much withstand 20th century weapons during WWII.  In addition the natural setting on the Bay of St. Malo is really beautiful.  We really enjoyed St. Malo.  

One of the forts designed by Vaubin.  The bird in the foreground seemed very happy to have his photo taken.

Brittany was originally settled by Celts, and St. Malo has a strong connection to Wales.  Ron believes his family name is originally Breton so it is a special place for him.  They are famous for a cake called Kouign Amann.  That is a good Celtic word and we could not master how to pronounce it, but it tasted good.  It tasted a little like an apple fritter.

We had the smallest Kouign Amann.  A prize for anyone who can pronounce this.

Our last stop for the day was Dinan which unlike St. Malo was bypassed during WWII and has a lot of its original buildings.  It is also a fortified town, but here we focused on the town and enjoyed walking down the narrow streets within the fort and enjoying the timbered buildings.  

Some of these wooden houses date from the 1500’s.


September 27, 2018 Mont St. Michel FR

There are two iconic images of France for tourism.  One is the Eiffel Tower and the other is Mont. St. Michel.  Since we were close by and it is off season we decided to head there and cross it off the bucket list.

Before we left the campground in Bayeux Ron had a touching conversation with an English lady.  She came up to Ron and said that she recognized him from yesterday at the American Cemetery.  She told him how moved she was by the sites there and the sacrifice of the young men who came to another continent to help.  I told her that they were honored to do it, and explained to her that the families had the choice of burying them here or having the body transported home for burial.  She teared up and said that she was honored that so many chose to be buried here.  I am bad with tears and did not know what to say, but thanked her for her kind thoughts.

The Garmin had been choosing pretty easy routes on nice wide roads, but decided to test us today by sending us off on small D Roads for the first 30 km, including one that turned out to be closed for construction.  After some wandering around on back roads we came out to a pretty major road and the next thing we knew we were on a nice freeway for the last 60km.

Our first view of Mont St. Michel.

Mont St. Michel is a spectacular site and that is why it is an icon.  We had a pretty good walk to the free shuttle to the island.  The bus was packed, and the initial impression was of a big crowded tourist site, but it won us over.  The site on the outcropping surrounded by mud flats is right out of any movie.  The abby is both beautiful and a marvel of construction.  Expecting something sterile and packaged we came away impressed.

A shot across the Knights Hall which was the dinner place for the Knights.
On the way back we had a nice snack of mussels with some Normandy Cider.  We guessed that it was about a Kilo of mussels.  The coffee style cups are for the cider.

We wanted to cap the night off with some pictures of the Mont at night.  We walked down to the river to the bridge as we thought it would be a nice shot.  Tonight is warm and there is not a breath of wind, and we are basically in a big swamp so the mosquitos were swarming.  We fought them for about 30 minutes waiting for the lights to come on, but the mosquitos won and we headed back to François for the night with no pictures.

Not the shot with the Mont lit up like we wanted, but the mosquitos drove us home.

September 26, 2018 Coleville FR

We are still on the Normandy peninsula basically moving from the area of Utah Beach to Omaha Beach.  We got a late start as we decided to take care of some housekeeping chores in the morning.  After Ton paid some bills and we knocked out a load of laundry we headed out for Omaha Beach.

When we arrived at the center of Omaha Beach it was quite crowded with several bus loads of Americans taking their lunch break al fresco around the memorial.  We poked around for a while and mourned with a fellow Oregonian about the football teams loss on Saturday to Stanford.

Standing on Omaha Beach in front of the Sculpture to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the battle.

Done with Omaha we headed over to the American Cemetery in Coleville.  This cemetery is maintained by the US Battlefield Memorial Commission and is the final resting place for over 9000 soldiers and sailors from the battles around Normandy.  After the war the families of the fallen were given a choice to have the bodies shipped home or buried in place,  so this does not represent all of the Americans killed in the battle.  

he view towards the memorial and reflecting pool.

The visitor center and the grounds are inspiring and a true honor to the young men who are there.  The visitor center has an excellent display about WWII and D-Day.  After you walk thru the visitor center you enter the grave sites, and the location overlooks Omaha Beach and the Atlantic.  The site is immaculate and clearly lovingly taken care of by the French staff.

The grave markers go on forever.

When we completed the tour at the cemetery we headed into Bayeux which is about the only major city that was not leveled during the invasion.  It is also famous for the Bayeux Tapestry which is a famous medieval artwork.  As we entered the city we made a quick stop at a Carrefour Market to restuff the refrigerator.  We headed into the city but just missed our opportunity to see the tapestry as the museum was closing.  We took a quick walk by the Cathedral to look at the Norman style Cathedral, and then headed back to François for the night.

A gargoyle on the Cathedral at Bayeux.  They are not only an interesting feature but actually serve as the drains for the gutters when it rains.

September 25, 2018 St. Mere-Eglise FR

Today we covered the most distance we have covered in one day on the trip, about 200 miles.  We got up a little early, and the trip was pretty easy as the roads were frequently 4 lanes wide, and we did not have very many small villages to pass thru.

Our target for the day was Utah Beach from the Normandy invasion in 1944.  Our first stop of our D-Day tour was at the Airborne Museum at St. Mere-Eglise.  St. Mere-Eglise was the initial focus of the 82nd Airborne Division during the invasion.  It is said to be the first town in France to be liberated by Americans during WWII.  The museum itself is well done, focusing on the issues of the airborne forces during the invasion.  It mostly covers the 82nd Airborne, but does also give information about the 101st Airborne.  It is an interesting collection of equipment, weapons, and stories.  One of the most interesting exhibits attempts to give you the feel of doing a night drop from a C-47 transport plane.  It gets your attention.

A US Sherman tank on Utah beach, this one is painted in the colors of the French LeClerc Division which landed here, and passed thru St. Mere-Eglise.

We also visited the church in town which is famous for the story of one paratrooper John Steel, who had the misfortune of getting hung up on the steeple of the church where he was shot in the foot by a German, and played dead for several hours hanging in the air above the center of town.  If you have seen “The Longest Day” movie about D-Day you will probably remember this story as it is featured in the movie.

The church at St. Mere-Eglise, note the replica of the parachutest hanging from the church.

We ended the day at Utah Beach to see the monuments there, and to walk on the beach.  The monuments and displays we saw today were really touching, and shows the deep respect and thanks the French have for the Americans who landed here.

Ron standing on Utah Beach, evaluating the suitability of the beach for an amphibious landing.
Nothing to do with D-day, we saw this horse and rider driving thru the surf.  We have no idea why.


October 6, 2019 Lyon FR

The jet lag is starting to wear off so we woke a little earlier to head into Lyon.  We purchased an all day pass for public transport in Lyon which is a good deal for €6 as we wanted to cover a lot of ground today.  

On the way to Lyon we asked a young gentlemen to confirm we were at the correct bus stop, and ended up chatting with him most of the way to downtown.  He is trying to start a company to refill wine bottles directly rather than sending them to recycling first and then remolding them.  He told us there is a similar program going on with beer bottles in Oregon that we were not familiar with.  We enjoyed a wide ranging conversation from tax methods to population density of Oregon vs France.  These small contacts are always fun and encouraging.

The finish line of the Lyon Marathon, Ton was trying some tricks with her camera so we caught some ghosts running the marathon.

When we finally arrived in downtown Lyon after a detour due to a market along the route and getting caught in a major traffic jam, we ran into the finish line for the Lyon marathon.  We spent a little time watching the runners finish, and enjoying the good mood of the spectators and runners as they crossed the line.

Our next stop was the Roman theater which was pretty close to the finish line, the problem was it was about 600 feet higher on a pretty steep hill.  There were two funiculars up the hill which were covered by our transit pass, but I could not find them so we ended up climbing the hill.  The Roman theater is quite large and well preserved. It is still used to stage plays during the year, and holds about 6000 people in its current configuration.  During the Roman era there was a second wooden deck that accommodated another 5000 people.

The Roman Theater in Lyon is one of the largest in France.

In the distance we saw a cathedral dedicated to the Virgin Mary and headed over there.  It was a fairly modern cathedral built around 1872.  The story about the cathedral is it is on a hill overlooking the original cathedral in Lyon Saint-Jean.  In the 1500’s when the plague was going thru Europe the town prayed to Mary that if she spared Lyon from the plague they would do an annual procession to the top of the hill, and the plague skipped Lyon.  In the 1600’s there was a cholera epidemic in the area, and the citizens again prayed to Mary and promised a church on top of the hill if Lyon was spared, and it was.  Finally during the Franco-Prussian war in 1870 the citizens asked Mary to spare them from destruction by the Prussians this time promising a cathedral, which was duly built when the Prussians by passed Lyon.

You rub the Lions nose for good luck as you enter the cathedral in Lyon.

We also found the funicular so our trip down to the main city was much quicker and easier on the knee’s.  I have become quite reliant on Google for navigation, and it was at this point that I realized that despite Lyon being the third largest city in France, its transit system was not loaded into Google maps.  So now to get to our next destination I had to go back to the old way of trying to compare a city map with a transit map to figure the best way to get to a food hall with several famous restaurants.  It was not pretty but eventually we arrived just in time to watch all of the restaurants close up for the day.  

The food hall that was just closing up as we arrived.

So instead we headed back to François where Ton prepared me a delicious meal.

October 5, 2019 Lyon FR

We are both battling a little bug coupled with jet lag and a pretty good storm resulted in a poor nights sleep for both of us.  As a result we decided to just jump on the road and get some miles towards our ultimate destination.  

We have been wanting to visit Lyon and it was about half way to Toulon so we decided to head there for the day.  Ton suggested we go ahead and pay to use the Autoroute so it was a very easy day of driving for me, but a little expensive.  By the time we arrived in Lyon we decided to just explore the area around the campground. The area around us appears to have been part of the fortress system for Lyon in the past, so there were a lot of tall walls.  The town center was nice and we gawked at some beautiful French pastries, the French really do pastries right.  

A father and son Petanque game in the village square near our campground.

After stretching our legs we decided to turn in early and get ready to try to take Lyon by storm tomorrow.

April 14, 2018 Salers FR

The plan today was to hit two villages in the Cantal region of France.  Cantal is famous for its cheese and the ruggedness of its mountains.  We experienced the ruggedness of the mountains and enjoyed the least populated part of France we have been in so far.  At one point we went almost 15 kilometers between two towns which is a record for us in France.

Passed by this castle very early in the day.  It is really striking, do not know anything at all about the history of the place though.

We stopped up in Cheylade to visit their church which is famous for its roof and nave.  It was a nice spot and while we were in there we had a good conversation with a group of Belgians who showed up to take in the church.

A shot of the ceiling of the church in Cheylade.  The ceiling tiles are from the 15th century after the church was rebuilt.

After getting confirmation from the Belgians that the pass was open we headed towards Salers.  Salers is considered one of the most beautiful villages in France.  It has retained almost all of it’s medieval structure.  After years of obscurity that allowed it to stay virtually unchanged for centuries it has been discovered, and last year had over 400,000 visitors.

One of the many medieval buildings in Saler that are stil in use today.

It is certainly a nice place in a nice location, but maybe it was the bad weather (cold and wet), but we were both a little let down by the town.  It felt a little too touristy and more commercial than we expected.  (I think our bad taste started by having to pay 3euro to park François when the parking lot was empty.)

The city walls of Saler.  Saler is considered one of the five most beautiful villages in France.

When we first arrived we went over to the city campground for the night, but were totally perplexed about how it worked.  There was what appeared to be a proper campground, but it did not appear to have any water on site, but it did have electricity.  There was also an aire next door.  The perplexing part was there was not a soul on site to take money or give directions.  After wandering around for a while we decided to head into town and come back later and see if we could figure the place out.  When we returned a couple of hours later the situation was the same, no one on site and no one using the facility.  We decided we would grab a spot in the area that looked like an aire.  While we were eating the Gendarme (national police) passed thru a couple of times without moving us on so we figured we must be legal and free.  When Ron went out for his evening walk he ran into a gentleman who turned out to be the campground manager.  Patrick is quite a character and we ended up talking to him for quite a while and he is going to take us into town for cheese tomorrow.  But our free site turned into 13 euro when he collected the fee.

Sunset from the campsite.


April 13, 2018 Orcines FR

Today we reluctantly left Burgundy.  But before leaving we wanted to take a look at some more of the Beaujolais country.  Somewhere around Julien we made a wrong turn and quickly found ourselves on some small mountain roads heading into the Haute Beaujolais.  It turned out to be a nice mistake as it is beautiful country.  The Haute Beaujolais looks like it is dairy country with lots of valleys full of pastures and a pure white breed of cow we do not have in the US.  After a while of wandering around and completely unsure of exactly where we were (reminds me of a line from Band of Brothers when one soldier asks if they are lost, the officer replies we are not lost, we are in France), we decided to punch in our final destination for the day and let the GPS take us there.  

This breed of white cow is pretty large and all over Burgundy.  We have never seen anything like this breed in the US.  The background is typical of the country we drove thru today.

After a couple of hours and our first experience of a French A road (think interstate with tolls) we ended up at Le Puy de Dome.  It is an inactive volcano cone, where you are supposed to be able to see 11 departments of France from.  The weather was not ideal as it was cold and windy, with high clouds.  But the views were there to see, just a little gray from the clouds.  The wind made it a little uncomfortable but we completed the circuit around the dome.

The view from the top of the Puy de Dome.  Not a great day for photography but we will not be back on this trip.  We think it would be spectacular on a bright day.

At the top is the ruins of a roman temple to Mercury built around 124 AD.  The Puy de Dome apparently has been a tourist attraction for quite sometime.

Some of the ruins of the Temple of Mercury on Puy de Dome.  Puy means volcanic hill in French.

After a week with François it was time to fill up for the first time.  The cost was $129 for 19 gallons which is $6.78/gallon.  The good news is the distances between things to do are a lot less, so our daily cost of fuel so far is less than at home.  On this trip our biggest cost has been admission to sites.  Interestingly we are spending less per night than at home for campgrounds and we have not really tried to find free spots which abound around here.

François is the RV in the middle.  Taken from the top Puy de Dome.