If in doubt, stay put.

Wednesday 13th September 2017 - Puy St Martin.

The sun was out this morning bright an early.  Perfect temperature all day with sunshine and light whispy clouds.  Just what we came for.  We quickly abandoned any idea of moving today and opted to  have a lazy day in this pleasant village with a lovely free camping car site.  When I say 'lazy' I don't really mean it literally as we did a morning exercise session and an afternoon bike ride of the whole valley.

We shifted the van from its central position to an individual bay that had been vacated from last night.

We will get a little more space to ourselves if lots of motor homes arrive tonight.  Probably get more evening sun too.

The boulangerie was closed for holidays so we got our daily bread from the U supermarket.  It will be very convenient for a larger shop tomorrow.  

We had the compulsory cheese, tomato and bread lunch and then set off on a bike ride around the valley.  The area seems to be very agricultural with sunflower and maize fields.  The sunflowers are now browned in the sun and the maize has mainly been harvested.  It was lovely cycling on the quiet roads, mainly flat but some of the villages were up steep hills at the edge of the valley.  Marsanne was particularly steep and particularly lovely.  I managed to cycle to the ruined church of St Felix at the very top of the hill and enjoyed the views of the valley and hills in the distance.  

I am wearing my Vernon Veloclub shirt that was sourced by brother David from a French cycle club at the town of Vernon.  Rather dashing don't you think.


We also called into the Tourist Information Office and I managed to convince the man that I could speak French...........for nearly 30 seconds, a world record.  I managed two whole French phrases before he twigged and talked back to me in English.  He supplied a free 'carte' of the area and talked cycling routes with me.  The Office wasn't exactly busy, neither was the town.  I suspect we could have been the highlight of his day.......rather sad really.  The French seem to subsidise all their Tourism Offices irrespective of whether they are well used or not, whereas in Britain we have shut all of them (or made them run by volunteers) except for the main tourist hotspots.

This may be a good time to tell you that I am hoping to cycle up Mont Ventoux which is a mountain regularly featured in the Tour de France.  However, the thought of it is frightening me to death as it is unrelenting climbing up a mountain twice the size of Helvelyn.  I think I need as much practice as I can get climbing up hills.  

We returned to the Aire de Camp and spent a lovely evening walking up the same hill as we did the night before......still a great view.  Surprisingly we managed not to drink any wine tonight, although we did sneek a couple of lagers earlier, just to quench our thirst!


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