France 2023 - Où est le pâté de porc?

Jill the pylon hugge r 🤗.. Woke up to a bright sunny day and clear blue sky. The Albanian people smugglers had not whisked Jill away in the dead of the night on our lonely carpark so everything was good. The 'devils battery' after 17hrs sat out in the open was now only 'mildly' warm to the touch. The recycle center opened at 9am but, first, we had other plans. There was a walk, from the far side of the carparks, thru a tunnel under the A75 that would take us to one of the Millau Bridge pylons itself and Jill wanted to go and touch it! 😀 Armed with a small rucksack and 2ltrs of water off we set before the temperature got too high (it was already crawling towards the 20's). The path took us thru pretty meadows of little pink, purple and yellow flowers. Butterflies danced about, flies buzzed about under the tree canopies and I tried to avoid walking into spiders webs strung between bushes, at face height, glistening with the last of the morn

DO NOT TOUCH! ⚠️  - The day started ok. It was a bit damp and a bit cloudy with mixed weather reports depending on which web site you looked on. Once we had had breakfast we started packing up, moving things temporary stored at the front of the van when parked up, to the back. "Why is the little light flashing?"       The little light is a multicolored LED voltage indicator I fitted to show how much was left in the 2x leisure batteries (each the size of a car battery) under the bed, that power the lights, tv and water pump when we don't have electric hook up; only the solar panel on the roof. On hook up, both those batteries and the van battery should be 'on charge' from the control box under the bed .       "It shouldn't be, we are on hook up. Wonder if the site power tripped during the night?" Checking the power to the van and the actual voltage of the leisure batteries, everything seemed to be ok. "Strange 🤔, maybe the light unit it self is

Off to see another bridge 🌉 ..... Jill had always wanted to go, see and drive over, the Millau Viaduct. The journey was about 3hrs north of us and the plan was to drive up, thru another national park, get to the visitors center, have a look around then drive over the bridge. We would then find somewhere to stop. Plans.... they never seem to always work out, do they 🤔? Nothing went wrong during todays trip , it just seemed to take much, much longer for some reason. It was sunday so we were expecting cycle traffic, but none appeared. Ok, we were a little late leaving as I had to get the compressor out and put some air in the tires but that was it really.  It was sunny ( mid 20's) and we were heading into a new national park. The Haut Languedoc park is best described as 'hilly and green with the odd splash of colour'. After a nice lunch, parked up in a tiny stretch of 'lay by' looking down on

Ciry of Carcasonne - take three! 🎬 We made it this time! Up and out, sat nav done 'properly' , we made it to the correct side of Carcasonne with its citadel, La Cité, and its numerous watchtowers and double-walled fortifications. The first walls were built in Roman times and work continued over the centuries with a castle being built within the walls in the 12th century. Its all very 'Game of Thrones' and impressive even if it is crawling with tourists and kids swinging wooden swords, wearing plastic helmets. We wandered around cutting down all the side streets to try and get off the main thoroughfare, finding little shops and tiny cafes as we explored. The church, as you can see was very impressive. It was too hot to eat anything cooked. We settled on  salads at a nic