Back from France

We arrived back last Thursday evening, very tired, after a long journey from the south of France. The holiday had been packed with wonderful experiences and over indulgences. The first week we spent in the Aveyron region - a region not very well known to English tourists but every bit as interesting as the better known Loire and Dordogne regions further north. Like the other two, the region takes its name from the river which flows through it, in this case L'Aveyron - one of its tributaries Le Viaur, which is very beautiful as well, was the scene of two enjoyable excursions. Our gite, Les Aleis, was near the small village of La Foulliade, and shared its name with the farm up the road, where we mistakenly went first. The journey down was a bit of a marathon or maybe ironman even. 1300 kilometres or 900 miles is a long way in one go. There were punctuations along the way, thankfully no punctures, after 300 miles roughly, the crossing from Dover-Calais, after another 300 a one hour lay-by stop and then 300 miles to our destination. We did stop for fuel just outside Dover and a meal close to our destination and then more fuel and provisions before finally arriving, but the rest was travelling. We left Leeds at 5.30 Friday afternoon and arrived at La Fouillade at 4.00 Saturday afternoon. My usual leisurely pace of travelling had to be suspended for the duration of the journey as I was following Lewis Hamilton, no it was Jonny, who had the Sat Nav. It was particularly tricky around Paris. We arrived in one piece. For seven days we enjoyed the delights of the local area with Jonny, Ruth and the kids. The weather started ok and got better daily and by the end it was in the high thirties. The kids had lots to amuse them at the gite, swimming pool, trampoline, table tennis, hammock, swings, play house and Timmy the cat - and they enjoyed going to the river to swim and play. Ruth and Jonny had fun too. You can get a flavour of the region from the picture of mum on our visit to Villefranche, the major town of the region, on the pedestrian bridge across L'Aveyron river. As the temperature rose towards the end of the week, we left Jonny, Ruth and the kids to head further south, to spend a few days with David and Sheila Covell. More about that in the next blog.