Devotees of the Scandi-drama, The Bridge, may remember the haunting theme tune, Hollow Talk, which finishes on the line, “goes back to the beginning”. If you aren’t a devotee, then I recommend that you become one and watch it.
Going back to the beginning is what we’re doing. We spent the first night of this trip at Amboise and we have returned to it now for our final two nights. The reasoning is fairly simple: we needed a campsite that is still open at the end of September, within striking distance of the ferry at Ouistreham. Since Friday is one of two market days in Amboise, we could get one last dose of French market fun on Friday before completing our journey home which, courtesy of the idyll of Hérisson, I now don’t want to do. Night #1 at Le-Puy-en-Velay was a blip.
The site at Amboise is also a camping municipal but it’s a very big one with over 400 pitches. It is perfectly situated to walk into town and to the market. This time we went for an open, sunny pitch instead of a shaded one. We most likely won’t be seeing the sun very much after this.
The evening was exceptionally still with hardly a breath of wind. Whilst sitting and making sure that I could still get my swallowing coordination wrong choking on another can of beer, I heard a mechanical noise. The noise was pretty constant and unmoving. It sounded like a fan. “Ah ah”, I thought, “I think I know what that is.
Sure enough, after a few minutes the envelope of a hot air balloon appeared behind the trees to the rear of the campsite. The fan is used to inflate the balloon before the gas burners are ignited to create lift. Soon, the gas burner roared and the balloon lifted off. There were actually three other balloons much higher floating silently above us.
OK, sort of ready for the journey home.
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