Early start again today, getting away from Saint Alexandre by about 08.30. Had a nice quiet night, and all for free which is good. Nice leisurely drive to our next stop at Nyons, about 35 miles away. As you have no doubt got used to reading by now the scenery on route was great, loads of vineyards, not surprisingly, interspersed with quiet old towns, some of them with quite narrow streets and 20 mph speed limits.
Compared to other parts of France we have driven through it is quite noticeable how there are far fewer motorhomes in this part of the world, we quite rarely pass one.
Lynda chose the Nyons aire as it is alongside the town and she wanted some shops etc to look round. It wasn't until we were at the entrance to the quite busy aire that I realised that they charge 9 euros a night here. This is cheap compared to the UK but expensive compared to everywhere else we have stayed in France. This charge includes water but not electricity.
Too late to go anwhere else now so in we went, gaining access after following the quite complex (honest) procedure for getting the required plastic ticket at the barrier. As I said there were not that many spaces left available (about 8 vans here already) but we got a nice spot against the boundary wall.
In no time we were off to explore the town. The nice lady in the tourist information office gave us a map showing places of interest, with details in English. We had a coffee each at a pavement cafe, quite expensive at 7 euros altogether. We found what we assume is the old part of the town, really ancient old bridge across the river. We would have like to go off and explore the surrounding nearby wooded hills but the temperature was rising again so we got ourselves an ice cream each and some bits and pieces from the Carrefour supermarket and headed back to the van.
We noticed that most of the other vans on the aire had not only chairs and tables out but awnings as well - none of these things are allowed in theory. Following the old adage - when in Rome do as the Romans do we got our chairs out and rolled out the awning, giving us some much needed shade.
Most of the rest of the day was spent trying to keep cool. We keep all the blinds drawn in the van and tend to drink a lot of chilled water, this makes the 35 degree heat quite bearable.
On a short walk we noticed another van arrive at the entrance to the aire, a Brit this time. We stopped to say hello and told them about the 9 euro charge. They must be even meaner than me because when we got back from our stroll about 15 minutes later we found them gone.
By about 1800 things had cooled down nicely so we had some dinner and a glass of vino each before taking a short walk along the road by the aire. There is a very nice swimming complex next door to the aire with lots of slides etc, been very busy all day not surprisingly.
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| One of many attractive roundabouts. We don't know how they afford the upkeep of these. Don't they know theres a recession on? |
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| Unfortunately you get a glimpse of my legs in this photo - sorry about that. |
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| Awning and chairs out - all against the rules of aires. |
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| Never seen one of these before, half caravan half trailer. |
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| This is what Ruby's roof looks like if you're interested. |
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| Aire at Nyons |
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| Is it just me or does this look unnecessarly complicated? |
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