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] apparently closed for lunch at 12:00. We got an early start and, with time in hand, called into a supermarket for essential supplies en route.

We arrived at 11:45 and lunch had clearly begun early; the acceuil was already locked. However, a sign invited us to pitch up and just let them know later where we were and how long we wanted to stay. Excellent.

Just as we were about to set up in one decent pitch, a van left a better looking pitch, better in that it had some natural shade from nearby trees but not from overhanging trees. Frodo got settled and looked very happy.

Azay-le-Rideau is actually on the Indre river, which runs into La Loire, and the campsite was right on its banks. With the trees, flat grass and peaceful surroundings we felt we could sit here for ever and couldn’t help by dub it Lazy-le-Rideau.

Having been lazy enough to digest a refreshing beer or two and a bite of lunch, we went off to investigate the banks of the Indre. There were a handful of damselfly species, including Blue-eye (Erythroma linenii) and, I’m sure, White Featherleg (Platycnemis latipes). The broad, flattened hind tibiae are the giveaway. This spot is the northernmost part of the latter’s range so I’m glad to have seen it here.

Another rarely seen star showed up in the form of a Map. I haven’t seen these often so it was good to get another look. The delicate tracery of line markings gives it the common name.

In the evening it was time to capitalize on some of our Amboise market ingredients and make a paella of chicken legs and artichokes. The artichokes were clearly coming to the end of their season and preparing them is a bit of a pain but it was well worth it.

Tomorrow we’ll check out the chateau.

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 of the week, namely Friday and Sunday. How terrific, something constructive to do on a Sunday.

We set off wandering back into Amboise. We began to doubt our information ‘cos the place we might have expected the market to be was devoid of activity. Then we spotted a sign pointing up five minutes walk downstream and, lo, there it was.

Looking around French markets, especially one this big, is much more interesting if you actually need something rather than if you are just window shopping – well, stall shopping, maybe, We did need a few things.

We had some chicken legs left that were begging to be made into a paella. The matter was settled when we spotted a stall selling artichokes, or alcachofas as they say in Spain. Stick them in the basket along with an accompanying red pepper.

We were woefully low on cheese, too, but a splendid cheese stall had some irresistible Reblochon Fermière and very interesting looking Bleu des Basques. Pop some of that in, too.

A nice spot of fresh bread for Sunday lunch wouldn’t go amiss, especially when we found a fresh fish stall selling some great looking prawns: prawns, mayo and bread goes down a treat and it’s so nice to get salt water prawns instead of the fresh water tiger prawns I usually see at home.

A lazy Sunday dinner was also on the cards when we found a rotisserie chicken machine. We just love the French rotisseried chickens and at a mere 15 euros for a free range job, you can’t complain. An uncooked one from Waitrose would cost at least that much. Breasts for dinner, legs cold for lunches afterwards.

We sat enjoying our lunch of prawns, bread and mayo whilst admiring an absolutely wonderful, old (1969, we heard) orange VW camper van with matching orange accessories which had pulled into the pitch opposite Frodo. It was in sparkling condition. With no overnight loo, it wouldn’t do for me, personally, but I loved it and couldn’t help but admire it.

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 another chateau of somewhat less imposing proportions but still magnificent, called the Chateau de Clos Lucé. Here there was a permanent exhibition devoted to the great man’s works and it was to here that we set off on foot. (Well, it might be effectively a museum but at least it’s a walk and gets your steps up.)

We forked out the necessary dosh and gained admittance. I’ve never heard Leonardo described as a polymath but I think he would richly deserve the appellation.

Here were exhibitions of his various mechanical imaginings including machines to enable man to fly, together with what I imagine would have been the world’s first parachute, presumably for when the flying machines didn’t, as they undoubtedly wouldn’t.

There were more mechanical inventions to do with war, including a wooden “tank” capable of spinning on its own axis, and what looked like the forerunner of the Gatling gun, 400-500 years before its time.

There was a separate exhibition of Leonardo’s anatomical studies, including a dissecting room, which led to the precision with which he painted human figures and notably hands. Allied to this there were, of course, numerous art works including his world renowned “Mona Lisa”, complete with enigmatic smile (it says here).

There was another painting on an easel set before an artist’s palette. This really brought a smile to my face. This looked for all the world as if Leonardo had been striving to find a compliant model capable of raising that world famous enigmatic smile but had run into a few failures. I can only think this painting would be titled Leonardo’s less famous “Up Yours” portrait. The finger, of course, looking as if it’s desperate to perform a DRE, is surely anatomically perfect.

OK, I’ve looked it up. Imagine my surprise to discover that my “Up Yours” portrait is apparently not a woman. What!? You’re kidding! No, it is supposedly St. John the Baptist. This fits with the St. John the Baptist figure, looking decidedly effeminate, in Leonardo’s hugely famous last supper image. Fans of The Da Vinci Code will know exactly what I mean. I’d say gender identity issues are nothing new, It’s just taken us 600 years to start blowing them out of all proportion and pandering to them.

On a lighter note, I did return to the real world on our return wander getting yet more steps in. On a promenade beside the river were two things of interest.

One was inanimate and looked rather like the Kelpies in Falkirk, Scotland, except that these were more modestly sized and clearly giraffes.

My animated interest came when I spotted what looked like an ichneumon wasp on the pathway near a puddle. I’m sure it will not prove possible to get to species but I’m pretty certain this is one of the Mud-dauber Wasps. They have a very long petiole, he said, getting technical. It certainly seemed to be collecting damp material from the side of the puddles on the path.

St. John the Baptiste, eh?

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 overnight ferry from Portsmouth to Caen [actually Ouistreham] on the night of 31^st August. We got bored waiting at home so set off very early [16:00] just in case any of the silly British road works delayed us. They didn’t. Having topped up the tank, we joined the check-in queue, the first of three, at about 19:00 for a 22:45 ferry.

Oddly, the bar at the Portsmouth ferry port sells some decent beer: Speckled Hen and Tanglefoot. I’m a fan of Tanglefoot and downed a couple while we were waiting. We had some brief entertainment when a mouse was spotted in the lounge area and a man tried to catch it. The mouse won.

After a couple more queues we were eventually one of the last vehicles loaded, sometime beyond sailing time. We found our cabin, dumped our bags and went in search of dinner. Brittany Ferries food is actually very reasonable but really it was a bit late to be eating. We finally bedded down sometime after midnight and I struggled to get to sleep.

After a few hours sleep the Brittany Ferries alarm ditty bonged joyously at 05:00 to rouse us to prepare for disembarkation. I felt as if I’d been hit by a truck. This approach may need rethinking. We drove off and joined yet another slow-moving queue for passport control. [Shoot all the bastard Brexiteers.]

Finally we were on the road and thinking of stopping at La Falaise, where there is an excellent camper van parking area, to get some coffee.

The coffee worked only briefly and my lack of sleep soon had me wandering in the lane a little – well, OK, quite a lot, enough for Frodo’s lane departure control to bleat and warn of driver fatigue. No shit! We pulled into a rest area for more coffee.

Frodo has an intelligent fridge … or, at least, a technical fridge. The fridge is capable of running on gas, 12 volt and 240v electricity supplies. It has an auto setting which switches intelligently between the power supplies. When driving, it chooses 12 volt electricity; when hooked up to mains, 240v electricity; when stopped, gas kicks in. Or rather, gas should kick in. Having stopped for coffee, gas did not kick in and the fridge flashed irritatingly indicating that it was now more of a cupboard with some fancy controls.

Francine consulted the almighty Google. I went to remove a cover and see if any contacts were grubby. They weren’t. Suddenly I heard the fridge fire up on gas. Francine had turned it off and back on – she had rebooted it and all now seemed well. What a ridiculously complex, prone-to-failure world we have created. Fridges now need rebooting. Must be a Windows fridge. 😀

We had one more glitch. As we were nearing Amboise, when I desperately needed the satnav to guide me in, having been faultless all day the damn thing now froze, and I do mean froze – not a single touch-insensitive button worked. Not a single button, that is, but the physical off/on button which I really didn’t expect to work. The satnav unit rebooted and eventually came back to life complete with the original destination. Weird. I got my directions and we arrived at Amboise camping municipal shortly after midday.

This place is huge; there are almost 450 pitches and the area we were directed to looked like camper van city. Interestingly, I could find only one vidoir for the chemical toilets and that was at the motor van service area.

I noticed a missed phone call which had left a voicemail message. It was the Sargent Tracker monitoring company which had received an alert from Frodo. I phoned them to assure them all was well. The satnav/radio/tracker devices are in a single integral unit. Doubtless, the freezing and rebooting of the satnav had caused an alarm to be raised.

There are times when I’d like to reboot life.

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 German troops, eventually completely encircling them, in what became known as the Falaise Pocket. It began as a pocket but British forces (in the north) and American forces ( in the south) eventually linked up east of Falaise and sealed the pocket. This really became a killing ground and the Germans suffered enormous losses. It’s one of the few WWII episodes I remember my father, who crossed over as a Morse code operator a few days after D-Day, talking about.

Beside the main square in Falaise is what I think is a WWII Sherman tank, though I couldn’t find an information board confirming my suspicions. There is, however, an information board about Jef Aérosol, the French graffiti artist who decorated said tank. [I have dreadful trouble not mangling that name. 😀 ]

What I didn’t know was that Falaise was the birthplace and home of Guillaume le Conquérant, as he is known in France – William the Conqueror. The remains of his castle are there. At the foot of the castle is a free parking area, which allows camper vans (to stay overnight if necessary) and which is largely why we went to have a look.

On the opposite side of the square from the Sherman tank is the église de la trinité de Falaise which dates from 1240-ish in its current form, though there was, I believe, a church there from the 9th century. In the middle of the square, waving a spear menacingly at the church, is a statue of Guillaume le Conquérant doing his best to imitate the Lone Ranger’s Hi-yo Silver pose.

We found a pleasant though windy bar to quaff a few beers whilst passing the time until we could reasonably turn up for the ferry.

Here endeth Frodo’s first foreign trip.

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 days towing a caravan but they are long days requiring another holiday to recover so we decided to give ourselves three days to make for less stressful travelling.

The natural route from our current location would take us up the A75 autoroute, La Méridienne, towards the Auvergne, which would make a reasonable first leg and where we knew some interesting habitat. It’s a very picturesque ride, too, crossing the magnificent Millau viaduct and entering some stunning scenery as you rise into the Massif Central, though some of the climbs can get a bit heavy on diesel consumption.

We’ve crossed the Millau viaduct a few times now but with the tallest supporting tower exceeding the height of the Eiffel Tower in Paris, it never fails to impress. Frankly, the building of it defies belief.

We crossed the viaduct again, eventually went through the toll plaza on the northern side, and then called in to the first rest area for, well, a rest. [Oh, OK, a comfort break.] I’m very glad we did.

Once comfortable again, Francine went off to look at a few flowery grass areas beyond the parking zone. I followed and was soon watching insects zooming about.

Wait a moment: zooming, insect … could it be an Ascalaphid? Bugger me, it was! I rushed back for my camera.

I should explain. In 2014 Francine and I had been camping in Millau and had gone up to the hills above looking for orchids and anything else that looked interesting. We stumbled across a flowery meadow with many fast-flying insects that would, if you were lucky, settle cooperatively. They tended to settle with wings open for a short while, then shut them. I’d never seen or heard of the like before but it was love at first sight. These were a species of Ascalaphid, Libelloides coccajus. I’ve since found a 2nd very similar species in Spain.

It took a while but eventually one of these autoroute rest area characters settled advantageously and I managed a picture. This looked quite different, though. Happily I had Brock’s Southern Mediterranean insect volume with me and I could identify this one as LIbelloides longicornis. Brilliant, another species for the collection. I was surprised it was different given that both these were in striking distance of Millau.

We weren’t done yet. There were blue and black striped damselflies moving through the grass. I made sure of a shot or two before looking harder to identify them. Strewth, these looked like Dainty Damselflies/Dainty Bluets (Coenagrion scitulum) but there’s a terrible twin that’s hard to separate and which I’ve yet to see, the Mediterranean Bluet (Coenagrion caerulescens).Sadly I’m still yet to see it, these were, indeed, Dainty Bluets.

Dainty Bluets are very scarce in the UK. Having been thought to be locally extinct, a colony was rediscovered in Kent and there are now, I think, three known locations. They also used to be on Farmer Luc’s irrigation lake at Fanjeaux until the fish farming activity wiped them out along with several other species, so it was good to see them again in an unlikely looking setting. I was pleased to get both sexes here.

Still not done. A Bee-fly was feeding and that, too, looked different. In the UK we’re mostly used to the Dark-edged Bee-fly (Bombylius major) with dark leading edges to its wings. We also have the Dotted Bee-fly (Bombylius discolor), with dotted wings, though I’ve not met one yet. This specimen appeared to have no markings on its wings, even if they were a blur. It took a while but I believe it to be the Heath Bee-fly (Bombylius minor) which does have a limited distribution in the UK, too.

I’ll never look at autoroute rest areas in quite the same way again.

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 holiday home … wait for it … in southern France, in Marseillan, to be precise. Just imagine having a a holiday home 12,000 miles away on the opposite side of the planet giving you more or less 24hrs flying both ways. That’s some commitment.

Anyway, in 2018 our caravan trip to France with good ol’ Guillaume, and this couple’s trip to France coincided and we arranged to meet them in Marseillan, which happens to be one of our favourite haunts, too. We all love seafood and they introduced us to a local establishment called Chez Titin.

Fast forward five years to 2023 and here we are again, this time armed with Frodo and bicycles. We had had positioned ourselves midway between Mèze and Marseillan and had originally intended to visit both but, given the prevailing wind and the hills that we knew about, we chose to skip Mèze and cycled twice into Marseillan instead. It’s about 8 kms each way and our out of practice legs (and bums) were still getting accustomed to cycling again.

To sate our seafood craving, I managed to make a lunch reservation at Chez Titin and we duly pitched up to claim our table. Madame had been at pains to point out that we’d have to eat inside, the veranda being already fully booked. That’s fine, I thought, there’d be no need to keep my sun hat on. We perused the menu. This is not somewhere for those who dislike coquillages, it’s oysters and/or mussels and that’s it, though you can have them either raw or cooked depending on your preference. Neither can you “adjust” the menu. Excellent, live with it.

It is rare that I come across a dish with which I’m unfamiliar but here was one: Brazucade. One of my menu rules is to pick something new, so this looked interesting. We would certainly share a dozen raw oysters as an appetizer but this looked as if it might be a good option to round things off. It turns out that Brazucade is a pot of mussels (1.5kg, in this case) cooked over a wood fire, a bit like a pizza oven. That’ll definitely do for us. There were three optional sauces to choose from and we chose the saffron and cream to go over the mussels. This was all washed down with a very respectable bottle of Picpoul.

There is a decent VTT [Vélo Tout Terrain = all terrain bike, a much more appropriate phrase IMHO than our Mountain Bike] route running between Marseillan and Mèze, though as it approaches Mèze you do end up on roads, which is rather a shame. After our feast we embarked upon our return 8km journey half way along the VTT route back to Frodo. Happily the stomachs didn’t seem to be too full to make it any less comfortable than the outbound journey.

In checking my entry of our 2018 meeting with the Aussies, I discover that my memory is playing me false and that we apparently tried Brazucade with them. It must’ve been too many bottles of Picpoul ago. 😀

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 the ground, you see the numerous holes left after the nymphs have surfaced. It’s a wonder the ground doesn’t subside, really.

The glut of Cicadas was making a very welcome feast for various birds around the site. At points where they were undisturbed by humans, we saw gaggles of Starlings swooping down and flying off with what would make a decent sized lunch. Similarly, we occasionally see a Sparrow drop down and grab a meal.

I did get a picture of one of the more unusual birds on the campsite. This is a Kestrel but no ordinary Kestrel; this is a Lesser Kestrel (Falco naumanni). It has a less densely spotted breast than the Common Kestrel (Falco tinnunculus) and the breast has a buff coloration. I’m not sure whether this raptor would take a Cicada but I do know Hobbies prey on dragonflies.

The great majority of the Cicada emergences go well but just once in a while something goes wrong. In this case, the first Cicada had emerged and was hanging inflating its wings and body, and drying out. In this state it was unable to fly and a second Cicada nymph climbed up and chose to sit on top of the first to complete its own emergence. The second adult has successfully emerged and flown but the first is stuck and now doomed; with both right wings distorted it would never be able to fly. The best thing to be hoped is that it would make a good meal for one of those birds. Nature is tough.

One of the avenues in Camping Villemarin is called Avenue des Libellules [Dragonfly Avenue]. Well, red rag to a bull, I just had to go and investigate.

I saw little at first but followed signs to a water course. The water course was, in fact, bone dry but beside it I was entertained for some time by a magnificent Blue-eyed Hawker (Aeshna affinis), what most in the UK refer to as a Southern Migrant Hawker. In the evening, above us, we saw a swarm of a dozen or more Blue-eyed Hawkers zooming about, frantically feeding rather in the way that Bats do. It was mesmerizing to watch.

While I’d been hunting dragonflies, Francine had been sitting relaxing and had spotted another visitor which was again benefiting from Cicada activity. A bee was flying towards her with something green and disappearing underground in one of the holes left by a Cicada nymph. At home I’ve watched a wasp that preys on shieldbug nymphs that can be green, and I wondered if this might be what was happening here. Not quite; a couple of photographs showed that this was a leaf-cutter bee which kept returning with newly cut rolls of leaf. This enterprising bee was using the Cicada nymph hole to build a nest. Leaf-cutters make cells lined with leaf material, each cell containing and egg/grub.

Very entertaining.

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 so gets busy with deal-seeking Dutch campers.

Instead, we headed for a nearby Camping Aire Naturelle site which we discovered last year. It is pretty much halfway between Marseillan and Mèze, near the Bassin de Thau; we were still after some oysters. Both destinations are cyclable and both provide seafood.

Whilst packing for the 140kms hop, we noticed Frodo had had a baby, presumably early in the morning. A Cicada (species unknown) had chosen to emerge on one of his levelling ramps. The exuvia was quite small so it’s not a species I’m familiar with.

Other than the fact that our Télépéage tag had stopped working – curious/irritating ‘cos I bought it only last year – forcing Francine to resume duties taking tickets and contorting to pay as we exited an autoroute, the journey went smoothly enough. We checked into Camping Villemarin at midday. Camping Aire Naturelle sites generally have larger pitches than regular sites and Frodo had plenty of space and some shade. There weren’t very many pitches taken.

The neighbouring pitch was taken, by a large tent. The large tent had a dozen or more cicada exuviae on it, larger ones this time from a species I knew. Some of the more recently emerged adults were still clinging on, drying off before their maiden flights. This, I think, is Cicada orni.

The following morning Frodo joined in the Cicada party. Outside, we had to be careful not to step on any recently surfaced Cicada nymphs tromping across the ground looking for a suitable support to climb up and metamorphose into an adult.

We had been in this situation way back in 2007 when, camping near Montagnac just a short distance from here, a campsite no longer there, we had been mesmerized by this Cicada spectacle. On that occasion, I was ill equipped with no camera support and an old film camera loaded with slow (50 ASA) slide film. Then we “rescued” a few Cicada nymphs onto our awning guy ropes, rigged up a “table-with-books support”, and managed to capture something of the process.

This time I was better equipped and once again pressed the guy ropes into service. A more natural setting would have been good but perhaps not as clear. The process takes 1-2hrs so the lighting changes but here’s a few parts of the sequence.

Being in the right place at the right time is a wonderful thing. I’d been hoping for years that I’d get to witness this again.

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 of the approach roads, the D27, is a well vegetated canal with accessible raised banks, also well vegetated but with a decent clear path running beside the canal. In a previous year it had proved to be a good odonata hunting spot. With the mistral gone, life was hot, hitting 30+°C which is even within my definition of hot. [I do not hold with Brits whining about a heatwave when the temperature soars to 24° or 25°C. Get a grip, that’s just a decent summer’s day.] Nonetheless, it’s a basically level ride so we thought we’d break out the bikes, get the legs turning and head down to the canal.

The last kilometre and a half is a long, flat, straight road. The end is in sight but seems to take a long time getting any closer; pedaling must be constant with no chance to freewheel. We did finally arrive, with some relief, and found somewhere to lock the bikes.

Relief was short-lived for Francine. The canal banks are raised above the surrounding ground and exposed. Though there is vegetation, none of it is trees so there is absolutely no shade for any respite. We spent 30 minutes or so studying the local wildlife.

At one point I thought I’d found a new addition to my European catalogue but, on closer inspection, it turned out to be a confusing but old friend. I’’ll resist boring non-anoraks with the details, though, ‘cos explanations would get involved and technical. Instead, here’s what really must be one of the most attractive shieldbugs there is, the aptly named Ornate Shieldbug (Eurydema ornata).

By complete contrast on the colourful front was this other beast, which looks like a tortoise shieldbug though which eludes me. It also eludes Google Lens which thinks it’s a clove of garlic. Never trust an app. 😀

With shadeless heat getting the better of us, we returned to the bikes and tackled the constant 5km pedal back along the road to our campsite. There is a slightly cooling breeze generated by the forward motion when cycling so it isn’t quite as hot as one might imagine but it is still hot. How the Tour de France guys do this at their effort levels for 200+ kms in similar temperatures is completely astonishing but then, they are completely astonishing athletes anyway. Just to knock the final nails in our coffins, there was a very slight but noticeable uphill section approaching the campsite. [Sweat, gasp]

Cool water followed by a cold beer in the shade of a tree on our pitch was in order.