From Amboise, we’ve decided to make a short hop, just 50 kms, west along La Loire to call in to see the picturesque chateau at Azay-le-Rideau. We were heading for a camping municipal in Azay-le-Rideau itself and the accueil [reception]…

On our June trip to France this year we had suffered from a lack of markets. Francine was determined to make up for this oversight and we began by visiting Amboise market. Amboise holds its street market on two days…

Unbeknownst to me, Amboise had been the last home of the great Leonardo da Vinci, or Leonard da Vinci as the French would have it. Towering imposingly above La Loire river is the impressive Chateau Royal. Leonardo, however, lived in…

After a pretty disastrous trip down to Cornwall in early July – torrential rain and a leaking Frodo -we are now taking Frodo back to France, which has proved to be a happier hunting ground. Once again we booked an…

Falaise is famous for two things, although prior to our visit en route to our Ouistreham ferry, I was aware of only one of them. A while after D-Day in the battle for Normandy, allied forces surrounded an estimated 50,000…

We’d had an entertaining stay at our camping aire naturelle between Marseillan and Mèze with plenty of wildlife and seafood but it was time to think about getting back north for our return ferry. We have done it in two…

In 2017 we had visited Francine’s brother who lives in Australia. Whilst there we met another couple who had a wonderful house in the same settlement of Stanley in Victoria. I was stunned to discover that they also owned a…

My previous post went into some detail about Cicadas, of which there is no shortage at Camping Villemarin. All the tree trunks prove to be very popular sites for emergence as the example on the left shows. Looking closely at…

Having achieved our main goal at Maussane-les-Alpilles, namely seeing the Carrières des Lumières show, it was time for a change of scenery. We’d wondered about returning to a municipal campsite at Loupian. However, that has now become an ACSI campsite…

The mistral can blow for days on end. Happily that which put us off cycling up to the Carrières des Lumières began to abate the following morning and by afternoon had died down. 5kms south of Maussane-les-Alpilles, straight down one…